D.C. Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown has long been controversial since her nomination was opposed by many for what were viewed as extreme view as a member of the California Supreme Court. She was finally confirmed in a deal in the Senate that many denounced as a surrender by Democrats. Now Brown has used an opinion to denounce “powerful groups” and courts for limiting “Cowboy capitalism” that she says has been “disarmed” in America.
The diatribe came in Hettinga v. United States, where the court rejected Hettingas that contribution requirements applicable to all milk handlers constituted a bill of attainder and violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. In the opinion below, Brown and conservative colleague David Sentelle wrote to express sympathy with the Hettingas and their “understandable” “sense of ill-usage.” The central point of the concurrence appears to be a desire to express dissatisfaction “with the gap between the rhetoric of free markets and the reality of ubiquitous regulation.” She then added:
“America’s cowboy capitalism was long ago disarmed by a democratic process increasingly dominated by powerful groups with economic interests antithetical to competitors and consumers. And the courts, from which the victims of burdensome regulation sought protection, have been negotiating the terms of surrender since the 1930s.”
The opinion has raised questions of the propriety of such statements in dicta. Opinions are not meant to be opportunities for judges to hold forth on their views of the proper course of political and legal trends. At the time of her nomination, then-Senator Barack Obama took to the floor to join those denouncing Brown:
Justice Brown has shown she is not simply a judge with very strong political views, she is a political activist who happens to be a judge. It is a pretty easy observation to make when you look at her judicial decisions. While some judges tend to favor an activist interpretation of the law and others tend to believe in a restrained interpretation of the law providing great deference to the legislature, Justice Brown tends to favor whatever interpretation leads her to the very same ideological conclusions every single time.
I do not see how this statement falls within any reasonable view of appropriate judicial opinion writing. It is less dicta than diatribe. What do you think?
Here is the opinion: 11-5065-1368692
Why don’t you justify your existence first, skiprob?
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Letter-to-Editor.htm?EdNo=001&Info=0191108 – that’s mine.
“Actually Gene, socialism and communism have much more in common than they do differences.”
Actually they are still discrete systems, skiprob. The only commonality is the use of market controls. Socialism (in its many forms) advocates control over certain markets that have the greatest direct impact on society and/or national security but allows free markets to one degree or another. Communism is the extreme form of socialism just like laissez-faire is the extreme form of capitalism. Communism is a command economy. That means no free markets. Marx didn’t see Socialism as anything other than an intermediate step to Communism and not an end form in and of itself, which being discrete, it is and can be. Socialism is not Communism although that is a lie that many from the Austrian School and the Rand driven ideology of Libertarianism would have us believe simply because it cuts into profits.
As to what Castro said? So what? The Nazis called themselves Socialists and they were Italian-style Fascists (corporate fascists). The Night of the Long Knives was all about purging the party of those who only joined based on socialist principles so that the Nazi consolidation of power into the SS and minimize the SA. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is anything but a democracy, yet that’s the name on their business cards. A form of government is defined by its form in operation, not what the leaders wish to label it for propaganda purposes. For example and as you allude to, our leaders tell us this is democratic representative Federal republic when anyone paying attention knows it is a corporatist oligarchy sliding into corporatist fascism. It has been ever since the end of WWII when industry figured out just how profitable perpetual war could be.
“You said above that you can remove discrete parts and have those parts mean something outside of the hole. In fact Gyges agreed with you. Maybe he can help you answer.”
Actually, what I said was that an all or nothing view of philosophies is common among religious fundamentalists, that you’re not making any sense, and gave an example of something with modifiable and replaceable parts and something (within the scope of the example) without. I also asked you for clarification. Repeatedly.
You know, you used to actually read and respond to what people were saying. Now, you just sort of try and strong arm every conversation into a debate about what bit of your world view you think is relevant. This whole conversation reminds me of when my Brother-in-Law started selling Amway. I asked him once if his shirt was new, and he went into a big monologue about how well the company’s laundry detergent works. That sort of behavior is annoying; I’m glad he stopped, and I wish you’d follow his example.
If I wanted to know if you thought that a belief in the inherent goodness of free markets meant that one must believe all markets must be free, I’d have asked. Instead I wanted to know about an apparent contradiction in your thinking, so I asked about it. Specifically. You have yet to get back to me on that.
Oh, and of course I agree that discrete parts have a meaning outside the whole, that’s a meaning of discrete. If you’re using a different meaning of discrete, I guess that explains a few things.
That second secetion was to skiprob.
Bron,
I’ll take lessons on logic from you when you demonstrate that you understand what the word “discrete” means and that you can use the tool properly.
discrete \dis-ˈkrēt, ˈdis-ˌ\, adj.,
1: constituting a separate entity : individually distinct
2a : consisting of distinct or unconnected elements : noncontinuous b : taking on or having a finite or countably infinite number of values
That a screw has components/elements is irrelevant to a screw being a discrete idea. Communism is a discrete idea from Socialism is a discrete idea from Laissez-faire is a discrete idea from Money and yet Money is a concept and component that all of them share. Money is a discrete idea. All the economic forms listed are ideas that stand as a separate entity with different components – some severable and some dependent. In Communism, you can’t sever the idea of a command economy from it or it loses its definition as that is a key element – a primary principle intrinsic property – that defines the form. The same goes with “deregulation” and Laissez-faire and “directed in varying degrees for maximum social utility over maximum profits” and Socialism. Discreteness is an intrinsic quality created by the idea in itself being whole and severable from other ideas. It has nothing to do with whether or not the discrete idea has components of its own and whether or not they are severable or dependent.
Given your long running demonstrated inability to understand that different words mean different things as evidenced by your propensity to use words with made up definitions or as false equivalences, I’m not terribly shocked you are having such a problem understanding the nature of the word “discrete”. This certainly explains a lot about your mauling of the language and the subsequent logical errors it engenders in your posts.
The rest of what you say is simply argumentum verbosium.
******************
Apparently you just don’t understand the fundamental flaw in your thinking.
“If 51% of the society agrees with religious persecution, does that make it an acceptable Cultural norm?”
That is just another example of presentism in your thinking. Democracy wasn’t the social norm of the Aztecs. That’s all you projecting your present day values back in time and on to them.
“I like other libertarains believe that the individual is more important than the society and society’s specific goal should be to protect the rights of the individual above all else. We have now seen conclusively what happens when you do not. ”
That’s because you don’t understand the fundamental nature of social compacts. I again refer you to the older thread above for that discussion rather than rehashing it here. In short though, the needs of society and the rights of individuals have been and always will be a balancing act for the fundamental properties of government require a trade off between absolute liberties for mutually gained benefit – that is the nature of government no matter its form. What you see “conclusively” is a failure to maintain democracy and the seat of power in the people, but if you think individual rights are the only consideration in maintaining and managing society, you are simply wrong. Read some Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his predecessors then get back to me.
“When we all have equal protections of our individual rights under the law, at least we are all on a particially fair and level playing field. When individuals are given special privilages under government dictates it distorts the free market providing an unfair playing field and injustices start prevailing.”
You mean unfair advantages like allowing business to be free from rules and/or supervision? Of course you do. You’re a laissez-faire capitalist. Which is just as bad if not a worse idea than Communism. Communism failed because it didn’t take individual motivation into account. It ignored a basic part of human nature. Laissez-faire capitalism doesn’t work because it appeals to one of the worst elements in human nature: unfettered greed. As to that “unfair playing field” you complain about? That’s a reflection of corporatism – a bad form of governance. If you want to eliminate that problem and the problem of corporate welfare and biased regulation, you cut out the elements of government responsible for the influence of corporations on law making and enforcement. In short, you don’t allow business to participate in the political processes at all and you only allow them participation in the legal system in the form of allowing them to avail themselves to the courts in contractual, tort and criminal matters. The very problem you complain about was created by industrial corruption. Now please turn around and blame politicians for their part in bribery and graft. Just realize that by definition bribery and graft are crimes that require two participants.
Actually Gene, socialism and communism have much more in common than they do differences. A bad analogy. Casto called himself a socialista in an number of his speeches. The U.S. has called his regime communist and that is also correct. He is also a communist. You need to thorougly understand the terms and I’m tired of going into concepts you don’t appear to grasp or perhaps don’t want to grasp. Ah, I have seen your flaw. You beleive that you can restrain individuals that are a part of corporations from particpating in the political process, that all the corruption comes from the private sector. That bureaucrats and politicans like Blagojevich are angels and not a part of a power brokerage cartel. That is the untimate analogy for being Naive. Name one time in history that we have been a free market society? Today our money is not even free market derived. We are not free market society and we are not a democratic republic or democracy. Those are also illusions for the naive. Read this to give you a greater outlook rather than limiting yourself to the common memes of the MSM and the oligarchs it serves. https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/HarrietRobbins/mURGvK3knbQ – That’s it, no more banter for me.
One last thing Gene. Just thought of this and couldn’t stop myself. Give me one article, essay, white paper or book of “value” that you have ever written. I want to see where you are really coming from.
skiprob:
that test seems to be set up to give you libertarian. there are not enough questions to accurately predict. If I change one on each section I become a centrist. It shouldnt be so sensitive. Also it is really hard to be a conservative unless you answer all the personal questions like you were a social totalitarian which is not exactly the case and you have to answer all the economic questions as an economic totalitarian to be classified as a liberal which is also not always the case.
OK, re “propaganda of the right versus propaganda of the left” — a story.
When my kid was 3 I began to do in-home (licensed) day care for a living. But I soon realized that I was in over my head, because my own kid had given me so little training in “how to get kids other than my own to cooperate.” So I checked some books out of the library and hunkered down to learn. One of the books said that you give a kid “two choices.” As long as they have “two choices” they can pick one and feel like they’re in control of the situation so you get cooperation. Hmmm, I thought, lessee.
The next day, little Jennifer threw a fit because she wanted the fire engine while little Kenny had it. I said quietly, “OK Jennifer you have two choices: you can either choose another truck or toy to play with or you can go do some artwork until Kenny is done with the firetruck.” She focused on me for a second and then asked, “what other toy?” Delighted, I said, “ANY OTHER TOY YOU WANT!” and she gleefully picked up the Tonka Dump Truck.
I used that technique all day. My kid watched, observed, as he always did.
The next morning, before the day-care kids arrived, my kid got up for breakfast. He came into the kitchen, plopped himself down in his chair, imperiously, and declared: “OK mom, you can give me ice cream for breakfast or you can give me chocolate cake.”
My point: The American Left and the American Right are giving us two choices.
I would like to make a couple of interesting points based on your comments. At least I hope they’re interesting. One, the use of the phrases American Left and American Right. You would think the words left and right would be universal? What I can tell you they are not because they are two vague as they have been taught to us throughout our education. Many agree that there are much better ways to orient your political positions, but in a graph not a linear chart. Take the political quiz. http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz This has been used by the libertarians/Austrians for some 35 years and it is really quite accurate. Secondly, and strickly my opinion, even with what I just stated, there are only two choices. There is a third choice, but it is just some combination of the two. My two choices are different than what you are used to in the linear chart. To the left I put communism (total government) and to the right I place true libertarianism (without government). It really gets us back to the basic argument of government vs free enterprise. Now here is what is really interesting. Communism as we all have been taught is when everyone works for the government. That’s easy enough. Here’s the deliema, communism and free enterprise are antithetic to one another. If you try to combine them in some sort of private/public partnership, guess who has historically dominates; government/communism. The explanation is longer than I can blog but go to https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/HarrietRobbins/TdY6cgWMmY4
In short, here is why free enterprise and government are antithetic to one another. Money is property and the rights to property are what many believe is an inalienable right. Taxation takes away that right and taxation is the economic foundation of government. You can’t have government in the true since without government legalizing it’s ability to take or coerce money from the Citizens. How cool of an experiment would it be to have a tax system where the Citizens could first determine their tax liability and then be able to choose on their tax return which government programs they want to have their money contributed to. Would this system work??? Probably not but it surely would be better than what we have today, a tax system that is over 10,000 pages long. Everyone should read the article noted above – it’s a real eye opener titled “Complicity within an Institution; how can atrocities happen?”.
“A thing, to be at all, must be something, and can only be what it is. To assert a causal connexion between a and x implies that a acts as it does because it is what it is; because, in fact, it is a. So long therefore as it is a, it must act thus; and to assert that it may act otherwise on a subsequent occasion is to assert that what is a is something else than the a which it is declared to be.”
See how real logic works and how easily understandable it is? A screw is a screw and it is used to join 2 or more things together in a certain fashion. What it is joining is immaterial to the definition of a screw. Whether it be Atom Bombs or bicycles is not important and does not change the nature of a screw.
That is your first lesson. Although there are 2 concepts in that paragraph, your homework is to determine and explain the other concept. The law of identity is one.
Bron. It just a simple test. It’s meant to show people that there are different ways of looking at issues that what is commonly taught. What is better a graph or the linear chart? Why don’t you spend the time fiquring out the best 100 questions so that you can make the chart perfect to suit your belief system? Many of the terms we use in socio-economics are not absolutes. There subjective and hense the constant debate on terms. If you ever notice, I try to prefice my discussion of terms with “in my opinion” and than “try” to provide a valid argument for my opinion. Not obviously perfect to your standards. The fallacy fallacy” = Presuming that because a claim has been poorly argued, or a fallacy has been made, that it is necessarily wrong.
Gene H:
I dont think so. A screw is composed of discrete parts. A head, a body, threads and a point. You can also say it is made of steel. Those are the functional parts of a screw. Those 5 items are sufficient to define a screw. You do not have to talk about the pitch of the threads but you could. There are lots of different types of screws with lots of different applications and they have different heads and threads and bodies and even points. They are also made out of different types of steel and some are galvanized or otherwise coated with epoxy or some other resin.
But the main characteristics of a screw are head, body, threads, point and material. Material not necessarily being a required characteristic to define a screw.
The law of identity is pretty simple all it says is that a thing is what it is and it can be nothing else. A screw is a screw. But a screw has component parts which make it a screw. If it doesnt have threads it is not a screw but it could be a nail. But to be a screw it must have threads along with the other parts. You cannot take the threads away and have it still be called a screw. A thread is a discrete part of a screw.
Like I said above:
“No, you really cant separate the components of a philosophy. Because the components are integrated or at least should be into the main body of thought. Any component is a part of the whole and as such would either mean nothing separated from the body or would be useless without the larger context of the main body of work.”
and why I offered this quote from a PhD in philosophy:
”Whenever you tear an idea from its context and treat it as though it were a self-sufficient, independent item, you invalidate the thought process involved. If you omit the context, or even a crucial aspect of it, then no matter what you say it will not be valid . . . .
A context-dropper forgets or evades any wider context. He stares at only one element, and he thinks, I can change just this one point, and everything else will remain the same. In fact, everything is interconnected. That one element involves a whole context, and to assess a change in one element, you must see what it means in the whole context.”
I think you are the one who does not understand the law of identity. It is quite clear to me now, why you argue as you do. And why you claim people are engaging in various fallacies when they are not. If you do not understand the law of identity then you would not understand what people are saying and you would think they were committing a fallacy of some sort when in reality it is you who are committing the greatest fallacy of all. Not understanding that A = A. It is very apparent from this recent discourse that you have no idea about logic except as you have made it up in your mind.
I am willing to help you really understand logic now that I know what your problem is. We have a lot of work to do but I will help you.
H.W.B. Joseph in An Introduction to Logic: “A thing, to be at all, must be something, and can only be what it is. To assert a causal connexion between a and x implies that a acts as it does because it is what it is; because, in fact, it is a. So long therefore as it is a, it must act thus; and to assert that it may act otherwise on a subsequent occasion is to assert that what is a is something else than the a which it is declared to be.”
First we need to get you a real book on logic and not this new age shit that you have probably been reading so here is a link to a very good book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=vDgAAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
skiprob,
“Isolated incedent? 170MM people have been killed by their own government in the 20th century alone.”
Yes. Isolated incidents. As in “happened in different countries and over relatively short periods of time as opposed to a long standing cultural tradition”.
“You’re suggesting that you know that it was an acceptable practice. So, was hanging people for heresy during the 16th and 17th century acceptable practices? Is that long enough to establish a cultural norn?”
I’m suggesting that the longevity of the practice indicates that it was socially acceptable, yes. Because that’s the same conclusion an anthropologist would come to. If a society does not approve of an activity, its application is directly impacted by either rebellion or social change of some other sort. That is the lesson history teaches. For example, religious persecution and prosecutions have declined over time in the Western world because they became socially unacceptable, but in the 16th and 17th Century, they were perfectly acceptable due to the influence on society of organized religion. It was the same way in the Aztec world. Religious influence on society is often named as one of the key drivers to the acceptance and practice of human sacrifice. Just so, political, population and other ecological pressures as well psychological pressures probably all played a part in the practice as well. However, what brought their practices to an end was the collapse of their empire caused by the arrival of the Europeans and the mix of conquest and disease they brought which coincidentally played in to the Aztec religion’s predictions. Causation is not as simply as you want it to be, especially in social phenomena.
“Interestingly, the austrians/libertarians told the world 35 years ago exactly what was going to happen, why it was going to happen and we even told you what needed to be done to stop it from happening. What did the oligrachy try to do. Ridicule, deny, misrepresent, prohibit participation, legal attachs and a continued ursupations of individual rights. You got what you believe in Gene. If history is correct, the U.S. will soon be heading into a period of mass attrocities. I would guess another Civil War but then again I would be trying to second guess the oligarchy.”
I came to a similar conclusion that disaster was coming though and I did it all on my own through reading history, law and studying complex systems. I’m known for warning that a storm is coming for the oligarchs. Even your buddy Bron will confirm that. Interestingly enough, he’ll also confirm that I think the Austrian School of “economics” is a joke that actually plays into the usurpation of democratic processes, encourages oligarchy if not outright corporatist fascism and encourages economic tyranny, but that’s an old conversation I don’t feel the need to rehash. Suffice it to say that I think deregulation for the sake of deregulation is right this very moment proving that what I say about rules without enforcement being the sister of anarchy and tyranny as it was removing rules that kept commercial banks and financial banks separate that is the largest part of our most recent economic disaster. If you have any questions about why I don’t want to rehash this conversation, it can be found on this 2,100 plus comment thread found here. In summary, I don’t want to rehash it because it’s a long conversation that will end the same way again and again. And again for emphasis, I don’t think Libertarians are wrong in seeing malfunction in our current government, just wrong in their diagnosis of causation (which very often mistake symptoms for causes) and suggested cures (which very often are simply bad ideas and play into economic oppression).
As to your beliefs, I didn’t say you needed an excuse for them. Believe the moon is made of cheese if you like, just don’t expect anyone else to buy them without question. However, you have yet to point out fallacies or lies in my arguments and/or statements and I’ve pointed to numerous fallacies in your statements. You have tried, but I haven’t seen much success. So don’t get too upset if the idea of you calling me “a flat out liar who submits constant logical fallousies and weasel words” made me giggle.
**********
Bron,
You can play infinite regression with screws all you like if it makes you feel better, but that doesn’t change that you are displaying a fundamental lack of understanding of the Law of Identity or the concept of discrete.
Gene, you are unbelievable. Try to look at it this way by asking the following questions. If 51% of the society agrees with religious persecution, does that make it an acceptable Cultural norm? What if only 46% believe it so and 25% are afraid of being put to death for heresy, if they speak out against it. How does an anthropologist rationalize these potential social effects? It is, in my opinion, impossible with the amount of knowledge available from the Aztec culture, to determine such a distinction. Of course it’s good to be the King and it’s bad to be a subject under tyrannical rule. How does one know the difference between living under an acceptable cultural norm and a tyrannical potentate? Many people believe that the society is more important than the individual. That is called communism. I like other libertarains believe that the individual is more important than the society and society’s specific goal should be to protect the rights of the individual above all else. We have now seen conclusively what happens when you do not. When we all have equal protections of our individual rights under the law, at least we are all on a particially fair and level playing field. When individuals are given special privilages under government dictates it distorts the free market providing an unfair playing field and injustices start prevailing. There is almost a constant stream of information supporting this in American history. Look at corporate welfare as just one of many government interventions into the market place and analysis how some of the ways that it has negatively impacted us.
Skiprob,
Have you seen idealist since Friday?
skiprob,
“Gene H. you stated that ‘You seek to impose an alien societal norm onto the Aztec culture, which was the focus of the observation. Just like you are trying to do now with presentism. The entire point is that human sacrifice was acceptable to the Aztecs and not considered evil at all, thus illustrating that good and evil are societally defined concepts.’ —- Your trying to tell us what the majority of Aztecs really thought about Sacrifice. You assumption is BS and it is impossible to know unless you lived back then.”
How does one judge what is considered a societal norm from the archaeological record? By looking at their customs over time. That’s what professionals do. What an individual Aztec may have thought of the custom is irrelevant to the evidence that it was a widely accepted and utilized practice. Anthropologists may disagree as to the specific whys of the practice among the Aztec, but none disagree that it happened and it was accepted. Maybe you should try a bit of general reading before further investigating the subject.
“Under your logic, It obviously then was a societal norm to kill all the Jews in Germany and Russia and was it a societal norm that killed all the Cambodians and the multitudes of people throughout history by their own governments?”
Straw man and false analogy. You compare isolated incidents to a long standing cultural tradition. If they were still killing Jews in Germany and Russia today, you might have an argument there, but they aren’t so you don’t.
“The Aztecs were as close to barbarism as any culture in history. ”
Really. Professional anthropologists might disagree with that assessment. They had advanced architecture, logistics, agriculture, aquaculture, sophisticated mathematics and astronomy (including an understanding of deep time that is a fairly recent advent in Western astronomy), and a well developed language and arts.
“Our nation was founded on the protection of inalienable rights, not some human universal rights. You are just coping out and justifying universal abhorrent behavior by blaming it on just the culture when it is the institution of government and its ignorant followers that are always complicit.”
Not at all. You are failing to realize that good and evil are culturally defined phenomena, not an inherent physical property of the universe. You may find killing humans abohorrent, but an alien culture might find it good sport. And I mean “alien” in every sense of the word.
“If you read my essay you will start to understand how such atrocities happen.”
If you can’t make your argument here cogently, I’m not interested in reading your essay. Sorry. If your argument is that sound, you should be able to transport it and translate into this conversation without difficulty.
“I think what you fail to understand most is that most cultures have been highly controlled for many years and government is almost always complicit in the catastrophic outcomes.”
Begs the question that civilizations are doomed due to government when the reality is civilizations of any scale cannot exist without government. That’s why it was invented.
“That it is delusional to believe that an institution whose foundation is born on unethical practices of theft and coercion can create or promote an ethical society.”
And it’s stupid to believe that taxation is unethical when it is the foundation of every form of government. Taxation is not theft no matter what that moron Rothbard says and any fantasy that you have that governments of any sort can operate without coercion? Is simply that: a fantasy. If you have rules, they have to be enforced or they are not rules, they are suggestions. Law without law enforcement is a recipe for anarchy and tyranny of the strong over the weak.
“Unless you want to continue to be animals and disrespect inalienable rights, you must open your eyes and see that such institutions have failed us in our cultural endeavors.”
Yeah. So what’s that got to due with your logical fallacy of presentism?
“It’s not rocket science but you have to stop trying to justify government’s complicit actions.”
Have you actually read what I often write? I’m hardly a governmental apologist and especially for our government.
“Many people are starting to catch on and instead of feeding them with BS give us some solutions.”
Solutions are often the topic on this blog. They usually involve making sure the seat of power in government stays vested in (or is returned as the case may be) to the People. Which is where the seat of power in our government is supposed to rest according to the terms of the Constitution. If you want to restore democracy, the first thing is to make law enforcement the tool of the People, not the regime. If you want better government, you must restore accountability. To restore accountability, you must apply the laws equally to all. When governmental operatives like Bush go unpunished for their war crimes and treason? It only encourages the behavior.
“******** How do we stop run-away governments from continuous distroying their own cultures?”
Fallacy of simple cause. Civilizations fail from usually much more complex reasons than “run-away” government. Throughout history failure in government is just as often a sign of societal dysfunction as it is a cause of it. Some would argue that what you see are cycles where knowledge is expanding faster than societal wisdom and that this mechanic is always fatal. The reality of the situation is that the causes and the solutions to stopping the failure of civilization don’t rest on any one solution or simple cause and they never have.
Again, if you can make your argument here cogently, I’ll be glad to consider it, but so far, you haven’t. You make a lot of excuses for your ideology and polemics, but you haven’t presented an argument of why they should be accepted by the majority or would lead to desirable outcomes.
Gene H.- Isolated incedent? 170MM people have been killed by their own government in the 20th century alone. Why would I be shocked that the Aztec political and religious leaders did it and did it for the same reasons that they did over the last 100 years? You’re suggesting that you know that it was an acceptable practice. So, was hanging people for heresy during the 16th and 17th century acceptable practices? Is that long enough to establish a cultural norn? When ever power hungry tyrants and religious zealots get togther it always spells attrocities for a group of unwilling participants. Trying to make our modern culture believe that sacrificing people was culturally exceptable is ludicious, irrational and/or dishonest. Some archeologist comes up with some BS theory, and I can now understand why you would believe them. Gene H. academia have already established exactly how, why, and for what reasons almost every society fails. You just need to read all the corrects texts and stop beleiving all the nonsense. lastly, You noted “You make a lot of excuses for your ideology and polemics”. Now I can call you a flat out liar who submits constant logical fallousies and weasel words. I need no excuses for what I beleive in because they are based on an entire academic study done over hundreds of years by some of the greats. Interestingly, the austrians/libertarians told the world 35 years ago exactly what was going to happen, why it was going to happen and we even told you what needed to be done to stop it from happening. What did the oligrachy try to do. Ridicule, deny, misrepresent, prohibit participation, legal attachs and a continued ursupations of individual rights. You got what you believe in Gene. If history is correct, the U.S. will soon be heading into a period of mass attrocities. I would guess another Civil War but then again I would be trying to second guess the oligarchy.
Gene H:
A screw has discrete parts, a head, threads, a shaft, a point. It is used to join 2 or more items together. In fact you can even break those parts down farther if you like. It can only work when all parts are functional.
You said above that you can remove discrete parts and have those parts mean something outside of the hole. In fact Gyges agreed with you. Maybe he can help you answer.
So which is it?
Bron,
I don’t think you are understanding the Law of Identity or the concept of “discrete”. When you change the fundamental principle intrinsic properties of a screw like when you remove the threads, it is no longer a screw but something else all together. A no longer equals A, but A ≠ B. A screw is a screw no matter what context it is in. A = A. This is because it is discrete and has an innate functionality all on its own independent of any other system it may be part of. At best, this shows a fundamental flaw in your thinking.
Gene H:
“A screw without threads isn’t a screw”
Exactly.
”Whenever you tear an idea from its context and treat it as though it were a self-sufficient, independent item, you invalidate the thought process involved. If you omit the context, or even a crucial aspect of it, then no matter what you say it will not be valid . . . .
A context-dropper forgets or evades any wider context. He stares at only one element, and he thinks, I can change just this one point, and everything else will remain the same. In fact, everything is interconnected. That one element involves a whole context, and to assess a change in one element, you must see what it means in the whole context.”
I dont think you are seeing it.
A screw without threads isn’t a screw, Bron.
It precisely makes my point whether you can see that or not.
Gene H:
that doesnt make your point. If you take the screw out of the bicycle or the Atom Bomb, they fall apart. A screw is an idea for joining 2 things together, you cannot take the threads off of a screw and expect it to work.
Bron,
“Universal human rights means nothing.”
On the contrary. Defining universal human rights is the cross-cultural process of refining and defining individual rights common to all cultures.
As to screws, you make my point for me. The functionality of a screw is discrete and independent of the structure in which is rests. Just like some ideas are discrete and independent of the structure in which they rest. They to can serve a purpose in other structures. That one structure ultimately has a constructuve purpose and the other a destructive purpose is a function of the totality of the structure, not its components.
Geeze, it is Sunday and idealist has not posted in two days…. Hmmmmm
Bron,
I disagree…this concept arose out of WWII….. Deny it if you wish…. It is real….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights