JoberSudge
“Human rights are supposed to apply equally to all who are human…”

Bingo. That’s it in a nutshell, because if the mores embraced are not universal, then they’re not an ethical standard, they’re an unethical standard, by which some claim unilaterally to impose forced obligations on others while claming privileged exemption for themselves.

“By appropriating the language of human rights to excuse the social stasis of an overtly religious society, no progress is made in the areas that the UN charter on human rights seeks to address.”

Yes but that of course only begs the question of the moral standing of the UN (thigh-slap of hilarity). Why should the UN – of all people – be presuming to “seek” to “make progress” in telling everyone else what standards to adhere to, when the UN itself is constituted by the worst abusers of human rights in the history of the world!

Saltpetre
“The big difference between slaves and the rest of us is that slaves are locked up all the time, and without any rights…”

That’s not actually correct. For example in ancient Rome, one-third of the population were slaves. Yet they weren’t locked up, or walking around in manacles. If the system is set up right (from the point of view of the exploiters) they don’t need to be. Slaves had rights. Some had high status. For example Greek culture was much admired, and it was trendy to have an educated Greek (slave) to serve as your children’s tutor. Rome had no administrative bureaucracy; the administration of the state was mainly done by the slaves that were the Emperor’s personal property. Many of these were highly educated men in very high positions. No doubt many enjoyed their work.

But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that it’s morally repugnant for one person or party to take the benefit of another’s work by threatening to beat them into submission. And we can say this is a universal human right, not a cultural contingency, because *everyone* in participating in the discussion,

(cont.)

… implicitly asserts the right of self-ownership of himself in order to speak. It’s either a universal human right, or it’s a double standard and an abuse: there’s no other logical possibility.

You concede the ethics, but continue to hold a flame for state coercion, as being better at providing practical outcomes. But is it true? This question, to make sense, cannot just refer to making things better for one exploiting class at the expense of an exploited class. To be rational, it must refer to the evaluations of *all* the people involved, else we’re back to the ethical problem.

“Have you noticed the widening gap betweeen the 1% and the 99%? What do you think accounts for this…”

Well the governments taking trillions of dollars from the 99% and handing it to the 1% in the form of big corporations and billionaire bankers, can’t help can it?

But then, why would we *not* expect that the state would always be abused to serve the powerful at the expense of everyone else, when we consider that the state is a compulsory monopoly of the use of aggressive violence by the most powerful party against everyone else? What else would we expect?

On the other hand, in the absence of forced redistributions, the only way the rich can get money is by providing services that the 99% *voluntarily* pay for because they value them more than they value the money they pay. This must be both ethically and pragmatically superior to forcing them to pay for services that they don’t want.

“Are you for real?” Yes. You can’t just *assume* that government subsidies make people in the bush better off on balance without taking into account how restrictions make them worse off. For example much farming is basically a criminal activity nowadays.

“what do you think would happen if everything was controlled by private equity?”
I think there would be far fewer wars. Vast treasure now being utterly wasted in futile armed attacks against peaceful society such as the war on drugs, and war on Afghanistan…

(cont.)

… would be available. I think counterfeiting money would be a criminal offence, instead of “monetary policy”. There would be much greater economic stability, because the greedy booms and depressing busts are a result of fractional reserve banking, which is a result of government ripping off the population by permitting banks to make unbacked loans which would be illegal on a free market. I think there would be a steady compounding of wealth and falling of prices. There would be much greater personal freedom to move between occupations now strangled by red tape. The living standards of everyone *especially the poorest* would gradually compound. There would be far more money available for truly social purposes including charitable trusts, arts, true science, instead of bloated dysfunctional bureaucracies spreading waste, division and chaos. I think there would be a fall in the breakdown of family and marriage. There would be less environmental destruction, by far the main vector of which is the tragedy of the commons.

“I think we should be happy to pay reasonable taxes, as long as we are getting reasonable value for money.”
a) Obviously if we were happy to pay them, no tax would be necessary.
b) When services are funded under coercion, there is no way of *knowing* what is reasonable.

It is true that there is a need for order, and to prevent the strong from taking advantage of the weak. But that is hardly served by giving the strongest party – the state - a compulsory monopoly of unprovoked aggression to kill, steal, cheat, and lie, is it? Yet what are taxation and jurisdiction but a claim of such a double standard? Only instead of “murder”, they call it “execution. Instead of “mass murder”, they call it “defence policy”. Instead of “stealing” they call it “monetary policy”. And so on.

If the original problem is that there would be anarchy unless people had an authority over them, then obviously states are in that anarchic condition in their relations with each other. In the last century they killed more than 100 million people.

So obviously forcing everyone to fund the far greater scale and aggression of modern states is worse, not better than the original problem. Australia is currently involved in two wars, both against countries that never attacked nor ever offered to attack us. We're being forced to pay for killings over there. Democracy is not better than freedom.

In fact most of the order in society comes - and must necessarily come - from social forces *against* unprovoked aggression. In other words, we have as much social order as we do *despite*, not *because of* the state. The wars, the inflation, the corruption, the privilege, the monopolies, the fiat money, the debt, the riots, the predominance of big corporations grown fat on the public purse, the tragedy of the commons… these are the signs of the state in our times.

“Order means control by some authority, elected or otherwise.”
No it doesn’t. It overwhelmingly comes from freedom, not from control by some authority. For example, the order in human language does not come from a government Department of Language. Similarly, the order that is in music, in art, in science, in morality, the family, these are overwhelmingly the spontaneous products of *freedom*, not of control by a coercive authority.

And it’s the same with the economy. The main effect of the government on the economy is to spread *disorder* and *injustice* - instability, capital consumption, legalized theft, poverty, privilege – literally killing and impoverishing people by the millions.

The problem is that when we see, for example, the deaths of innocent people in Afghanistan, or Bernie Fraser lowering interest rates, or people going hungry in India because government diverted capital into wasteful boondoggles like the pink batts – we don’t identify these as *crimes*.

But if we set aside the double standard, and merely judged the state by the same standards rightly applied against anyone else’s aggression or fraud, we would see that the state is, by definition, a *legal monopoly of crime*.

The idea that it produces net benefits is just Stockholm Syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

If there is any pretense of human rights then the people could see that every one has at least some .Well at least every one who doesn't take drugs because drug takers are a slave species deliberately banned from political office so they have no political representation like blacks in America had no political representation till 1964 .The D.E.A DESIGNED ITS DRUG LAWS TO IMPOSE SLAVERY ON THESE PEOPLE KNOWING THE WERE POWERLESS TO STOP THEM.Now every government takes its orders from these racist anti life crusaders .I for one think the whole matter of drug laws based on the myth that the state owns the bodies and minds of all it controls is badly flawed in fact I am in court to challenge this on 1 DECEMBER AT PARRAMATTA I WILL NEVER BOW DOWN TO THE STATE ON THE SUBJECT OF MY OWNERSHIP IF I AM OWNED BY ANY ONE ONLY GOD CAN CLAIM THAT OWNERSHIP . We will be treat like xxxx by compulsive liars in government pretending they own us for as long as you insipid stupid sheep let them get away with it so if I lose my freedom fighting for yours and you sit back watch and do nothing when the government invites you to a barbecue I WILL BRING THE MINT SAUCE AS YOU GO LIKE PATHETIC LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER .ALL GOVERNMENTS HAVE DECIDED THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE ON THE PLANET FOR THEIR GREEDY FOSSIL FUEL LIFESTYLES .SO THEY WILL MAKE LESS CONSUMERS SOON .BUT ONLY IF WE LET THEM PRETEND WE ARE THEIR PROPERTY ,AS WE THEN ACQUIESCE TO THAT DECISION .WE AT THE JUNKIES AGAINST CRIME HAVE ALREADY MADE THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ACQUIESCE TO US HAVING OUR OWN GOVERNMENT BY TELLING THEM ON OUR WEB SITE WE WOULD NO LONGER BE GOVERNED BY THEM IF THE REFUSED TO NEGOTIATE WITH US. WE HAVE BEEN IGNORED AND GAINED OUR FREEDOM FROM IT .So if your sick of the old join us at the new plus we do a 10% discount on the old governments tax rate .regards the motorcycle messiah