And that means politics and policy changes, and maybe even pretty serious revisions of some basic institutional structures.
I agree in theory. Sure.
What will it mean in practice?
Here's my suspicion: in any argument over who needs to change, the emphasis will be on the need for the needy to change and not on the need for the decent enough Samaritans who walk around saving the drowning at little to no cost to them.
I defended the idea, in theory, of long (but certainly not indefinite) detentions without the pressing of charges in the cases of really, really bad terrorism cases such as, in theory, the dirty bomb.
Hey, look at it this way, I said. Imagine if Jose had succeeded in building a dirty bomb and having it go off in, oh, the Sears Tower. Dozens, maybe hundreds, would die in the panic and ensuing fallout, radiation sickness, so on and so forth. Additionally, there would be that backlash against Muslims that everybody has been waiting to have happen.
You put both of these things on the scale, it's obvious that the long (but surely not indefinite) detention of Jose Padilla without charges is the lesser evil!
And then the day came that they charged him and it was chewing bubble gum on Sunday type charges.
All of my "surely, in theory, we agree that you can't yell fire in a crowded theater" rhetoric was used in defense of throwing a guy in jail for distributing pamphlets. Proverbially.
Since then I've been a lot more humorless about this stuff.
(Ironically, I've noticed a lot of Democrats gaining a sense of humor about this stuff in the wake of Obama's election. "Well, to be sure, you have to understand...")
Now you’re telling me that the disproportionate number of poor people (is that right?) in jail is the result of mutual obligations.
Not quite.
The disproportionate number of poor people in jail is the result of "society" not seeing poor people as holding up their end of the mutual obligations.
I'm not talking about murder, or property crime, or assault. I'm talking about the mind-bogglingly huge number of folks in prison for reasons related to the drug trade (and that's without getting into the sheer number of murders, property crimes, and assaults related to the drug trade).
Stillwater: do you agree that society in general contains the attitude that Food Stamps ought to be used for Healthy Food?
This premise to my argument seems fairly evident to me in looking at society. If you do not see that this premise has any foundation, I suppose I can find articles or something.
Do you agree that society in general has different attitudes toward drunkenness and/or drug use in the powerful/productive and those who are on the wrong side of the tracks?
Again, this premise to my argument seems fairly evident to me in looking at society. If you do not see that this premise has any foundation, I suppose I can find articles or something.
Do you see these as mere assertions, unfounded as likely as not?
Fulfilling an affirmative obligation is not an exchange: they need not express either obedience or gratitude for having received that action.
I can appreciate that in theory.
In practice you have people explaining that food stamps ought to be used for "healthy" food and not Doritos and Pepsi.
It was done, on the suppositions built into the framework, because it was the right thing to do, because we care, even at a minimal level, about the welfare of others. End of story.
I agree with this in theory.
In practice, we have people who say "I thought that we agreed with this because we care, at a minimal level, about the welfare of others... and they're using the money to buy Doritos and Pepsi instead of Milk and Oatmeal and I Can Read books for their children."
I don’t see this following at all from the simple premise of affirmative obligation. For you to derive this conclusion from that premise requires an extensive argument, one which you haven’t provided, and one which I don’t think can be made without the inclusion of contingent (and disputable) premises.
It's my best shot at explaining the data contained here:
It seems to me that what used to be considered "none of my business" became "my business" with the creation of the Welfare State. At that point, people became intensely interested in who was eating Doritos and drinking Pepsi using fungible funds.
Oh, I'm sorry. “You don’t get no mo’, brudder. You done been he’ped enough.” isn't intended to invoke particular mental imagery?
Uh-huh.
Moving along, You may be justly accused of despising the poor, given your rant at #100.
My rant at #100 (it's #100 right now, anyway) is not my take on the poor it's my take on society's take.
If you'd like to explain to me how, no, society actually really likes the poor and only someone who hates the poor would think otherwise, I'd enjoy reading the argument.
Again: My saying "I think that society thinks X" is not the same as "I think X".
And, again, I'd prefer arguments of the form "society doesn't think X" to "only bad people think that society would think X".
But, hey. That's probably more difficult a point to wrestle with than having an opportunity to explain how, no, you once shared a pummelo with a Uighur in India who had married a Gurkha and so you'll be god damned if you have to listen to anybody explain that they hate the poor.
Those intuitions are not *MY* feelings. They are what I suspect are the "feelings" of "society at large".
I'd appreciate counter-arguments of the form "of course society at large doesn't think that" to "only a racist would think that society is imprisoning 1 out of 20 black men for insubordination!"
That is not what I am trying to say. I appreciate that you went straight for the "he must be racist" though. That's awesome of ya.
(It makes me suspect that there is a secret obligation that I am failing to meet by engaging in this argument)
Here are my intuitions:
It has been internalized that we have positive obligations to each other. Everybody is obliged to everybody.
"Our" obligations to "them" include a lot of things in Maslow's hierarchy. Food, shelter, etc.
Their obligations to us include "gratitude" and "obedience". If they include the latter but not the former, they are considered merely ungrateful. If they include neither, they will be incarcerated disproportionately.
The attitude that all of us have positive obligations to each other is the foundation of the modern prison state given the nature of the majority of the imprisoned... it ain't murder, or property crime, or assault that put them in prison, after all.
Now, what I have noticed in this very conversation is a great deal of pissiness (for lack of a better term) in response to the questions of what I am obliged to do and what they are obliged to do.
I think that it's pretty freakin' obvious that, according to society at large, that my obligations are not, in fact, limited to offering my hand to a drowning person (or to people in analogous situations). There are a hell of a lot more than that... but, for some reason, it makes folks uncomfortable to talk about them out loud. Doubly so to talk about the ones that they have.
To look and say "there are a lot of people out there who think that food stamps only should be used on healthy food" gets, paraphrased, a response of "I can't believe you'd say something so racist!" tells me that there are a lot of things bubbling under the surface.
And, for some reason, nobody wants to talk about these things.
Once again: I *AM* meeting my obligations. Other than the three felonies a day* we all are guilty of committing, I meet my obligations.
At this point I'm boggling at how we agree that I've saved this hypothetical person's life seven times and, after the eighth time, I ask a hypothetical question about hypothetically adding swimming restrictions to the lives of people who need to be rescued from drowning all the time and, instead of it being hypothetically acknowledged that I have hypothetically saved the hypothetical life of this hypothetical person eight times, it becomes a question of whether it's remiss of me to ask about it.
My saving the lives isn't really that morally spectacular, of course. Hey, I did it at little to no cost to me. No skin off my nose or all that.
But it seems to me that if we, as a society, continually find ourselves, at little or no cost to us, putting people in prison for putting themselves in situations that have resulted in others drowning?
We may want to start asking how in the hell we got here.
Saving that person doesn’t confer any authority to restrict future actions.
What if you have to save this person a second time at little or no cost to you? A third? A sixth? What about this person's kids who may have to be saved at little or no cost to me?
Or is this hypothetical just toooo crazy to address?
Blaise, let me again point out that I am meeting all of my positive obligations to society.
Additionally, I did not say that hysteria over substance abuse did not start until after the War on Poverty. (You could have also pointed out Prohibition!)
What I said was, and I'm going to quote myself again here: "I think that the War on Drugs only kicked in in the high gear we see it in today after Johnson’s War on Poverty kicked in."
This is a completely different statement than "marijuana wasn't even on the radar until 1974!"
Now, you say: As for putting restrictions on anyone’s lives, be careful you’re not falling into the trap you laid for others.
At this point I think that I can safely say that the trap was there when I showed up. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to demonstrate that it's an unintended consequence of provision of public goods in the guise of positive obligations.
No, I see positive obligations as analogous to God.
Maybe they exist. Sure.
But the burden of proof isn't on me.
And, if we assume that they exist, for the sake of argument, I get to start asking about the traits of the positive obligations and then you can start questioning my motives, my honesty, and my intelligence because of the stuff that everybody knows.
Put another way, it seems to me that very much of the reason that we are here today where we are is because of a tacit assumption that our web of interobligations includes a lot of things that are not, in actual fact, obligations.
I am not obliged to have you not smoke pot in your free time, to use the War on Drugs as an example. I am certainly not obliged to your drug-free state to the point where it's cool for cops to kick down your door.
As a matter of fact, I think that the War on Drugs only kicked in in the high gear we see it in today after Johnson's War on Poverty kicked in. Why? Well, because of this interconnected web of obligations we all share.
We all agreed that "we" had a responsibility to "them" to make sure that all children were educated, had clean running water, decent nutrition, and whatnot. And... after that, suddenly stuff that was never considered "our business" before was now "our business".
You can't smoke that! You're getting a welfare check! You shouldn't have a color television! You're getting a welfare check! You shouldn't have any pleasure in your life that isn't Church-related! You're getting a welfare check! And so on.
This web of interconnected obligations has a lot, I mean a lot a lot, of unintended consequences. And I deeply suspect that the War on Drugs is one of them. I deeply suspect that the sheer stupifying number of people in prison is one of them.
The person holding out their hand in the water is a great example of my obligation to help folks... and then, after I help them out, don't *I* have the right to put restrictions on their lives?
And, before you say "of course not!", please look at what's happened over the last 50 years.
What obligations do all of those people out there have to me? Do they have any?
For example, if they are in water, do I get to say that they should stay away from water in the future? Or purchase water wings for them to wear in the future? What if I find them in the water again without the water wings I purchased?
If part of my paycheck goes toward paying people to be on lifeguard duty, do I have a right to set up obligations for those who swim?
Do the obligations only go one way?
Hypothetically, I mean.
I know that *YOU* are meeting all of your obligations to me.
I don't see how I'm treating you like an idiot, BlaiseP. Your examples, as great as they are, aren't helping *ME* understand *MY* obligations. I suppose this deals with Stillwater's issues as well.
What do I need to do?
Is it something like "well, you need to write a check to the following organizations"? Is it something like "you need to volunteer your time with kids?"
Here is my fundamental issue: if I do not see you as owing me anything and if I see your obligations to me as being met (and, seriously, I do!) then it's tough for me to come up with a situation where I am not meeting my obligations to you.
So when it comes to the obligations I have for, say, Affirmative Action... what have you done that I am not doing?
Please give me examples of stuff that you have done to address your obligations with regards to Affirmative Action that would be possible for me to do in the next few months or so.
Because, again, it seems to me that my obligations are met.
Does it come down to some squishy "we as a society have a responsibility to be more X" when it's not really incumbent upon me to be more X? Should I spend more time yelling about how we need to be more X in the hopes that it will prod along those who are prodable?
I'm one of those folks who sees, for example, The War On Drugs as something that needs to end, like, not just yesterday but, like, 1973.
It seems to me that this idea that it's good the The Federal Government have the power to name certain drugs as "Schedule 1" (for, of course, The Children) has resulted in such things as full prisons.
As such, I think I can safely say that the federal government is, itself, violating the negative rights of huge swaths of the country.
As such, I push for such things as ending the WoD, sunsetting laws automatically (if they can't get re-passed, they shouldn't be on the books), taxation only of corporations, and other ideas that get dismissed out of hand as being pie-in-the-sky Libertopian bullcrap.
So... fine. Let's establish that the line between positive and negative rights is exceptionally blurry and I have obligations to you (and others) that I need to start meeting.
I don't know what they are.
I'm trying to figure out what they are.
So far, I've been told that I ought to be able to figure them out for myself... in response to me saying that I can't figure out much of anything past "negative rights".
This is unsatisfying.
And, of course, thanks for the "I don’t think even you would say blacks are genetically predisposed to criminal behaviour."
On “Delusional goat-herds with box-cutters and other threats to the Republic”
A lot of people had no idea until, like, the 90's.
On “The Crime of Making the Government Look Foolish”
The problem is that he was tried in the court of public opinion for being a terrorist who was building a dirty bomb.
The stuff that they could make stick was stuff like "conspiracy".
"
That was Herbert's.
On “Incoherent Democracy, Again”
And that means politics and policy changes, and maybe even pretty serious revisions of some basic institutional structures.
I agree in theory. Sure.
What will it mean in practice?
Here's my suspicion: in any argument over who needs to change, the emphasis will be on the need for the needy to change and not on the need for the decent enough Samaritans who walk around saving the drowning at little to no cost to them.
On “The Crime of Making the Government Look Foolish”
The Italian Prime Minister's philandering being made public?
"
It was Jose Padilla that made me wake up.
I defended the idea, in theory, of long (but certainly not indefinite) detentions without the pressing of charges in the cases of really, really bad terrorism cases such as, in theory, the dirty bomb.
Hey, look at it this way, I said. Imagine if Jose had succeeded in building a dirty bomb and having it go off in, oh, the Sears Tower. Dozens, maybe hundreds, would die in the panic and ensuing fallout, radiation sickness, so on and so forth. Additionally, there would be that backlash against Muslims that everybody has been waiting to have happen.
You put both of these things on the scale, it's obvious that the long (but surely not indefinite) detention of Jose Padilla without charges is the lesser evil!
And then the day came that they charged him and it was chewing bubble gum on Sunday type charges.
All of my "surely, in theory, we agree that you can't yell fire in a crowded theater" rhetoric was used in defense of throwing a guy in jail for distributing pamphlets. Proverbially.
Since then I've been a lot more humorless about this stuff.
(Ironically, I've noticed a lot of Democrats gaining a sense of humor about this stuff in the wake of Obama's election. "Well, to be sure, you have to understand...")
On “Incoherent Democracy, Again”
Now you’re telling me that the disproportionate number of poor people (is that right?) in jail is the result of mutual obligations.
Not quite.
The disproportionate number of poor people in jail is the result of "society" not seeing poor people as holding up their end of the mutual obligations.
I'm not talking about murder, or property crime, or assault. I'm talking about the mind-bogglingly huge number of folks in prison for reasons related to the drug trade (and that's without getting into the sheer number of murders, property crimes, and assaults related to the drug trade).
"
Stillwater: do you agree that society in general contains the attitude that Food Stamps ought to be used for Healthy Food?
This premise to my argument seems fairly evident to me in looking at society. If you do not see that this premise has any foundation, I suppose I can find articles or something.
Do you agree that society in general has different attitudes toward drunkenness and/or drug use in the powerful/productive and those who are on the wrong side of the tracks?
Again, this premise to my argument seems fairly evident to me in looking at society. If you do not see that this premise has any foundation, I suppose I can find articles or something.
Do you see these as mere assertions, unfounded as likely as not?
"
Fulfilling an affirmative obligation is not an exchange: they need not express either obedience or gratitude for having received that action.
I can appreciate that in theory.
In practice you have people explaining that food stamps ought to be used for "healthy" food and not Doritos and Pepsi.
It was done, on the suppositions built into the framework, because it was the right thing to do, because we care, even at a minimal level, about the welfare of others. End of story.
I agree with this in theory.
In practice, we have people who say "I thought that we agreed with this because we care, at a minimal level, about the welfare of others... and they're using the money to buy Doritos and Pepsi instead of Milk and Oatmeal and I Can Read books for their children."
I don’t see this following at all from the simple premise of affirmative obligation. For you to derive this conclusion from that premise requires an extensive argument, one which you haven’t provided, and one which I don’t think can be made without the inclusion of contingent (and disputable) premises.
It's my best shot at explaining the data contained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
It seems to me that what used to be considered "none of my business" became "my business" with the creation of the Welfare State. At that point, people became intensely interested in who was eating Doritos and drinking Pepsi using fungible funds.
"
Yeah, yeah. See you soon. Perhaps you can accuse me of hating Canadians or something next time.
"
Dude, you came out and said "You may be justly accused of despising the poor, given your rant at #100."
You said that.
My point is not that I feel X about the poor, but that it seems to me that society does.
In response, you said "You may be justly accused of despising the poor, given your rant at #100."
And now you're saying "Nobody has said anything of the sort. This is all a product of your own fevered imagination."
"
Oh, I'm sorry. “You don’t get no mo’, brudder. You done been he’ped enough.” isn't intended to invoke particular mental imagery?
Uh-huh.
Moving along, You may be justly accused of despising the poor, given your rant at #100.
My rant at #100 (it's #100 right now, anyway) is not my take on the poor it's my take on society's take.
If you'd like to explain to me how, no, society actually really likes the poor and only someone who hates the poor would think otherwise, I'd enjoy reading the argument.
Again: My saying "I think that society thinks X" is not the same as "I think X".
And, again, I'd prefer arguments of the form "society doesn't think X" to "only bad people think that society would think X".
But, hey. That's probably more difficult a point to wrestle with than having an opportunity to explain how, no, you once shared a pummelo with a Uighur in India who had married a Gurkha and so you'll be god damned if you have to listen to anybody explain that they hate the poor.
"
I should clarify:
Those intuitions are not *MY* feelings. They are what I suspect are the "feelings" of "society at large".
I'd appreciate counter-arguments of the form "of course society at large doesn't think that" to "only a racist would think that society is imprisoning 1 out of 20 black men for insubordination!"
But, hey. Whatever gets you through the night.
"
That is not what I am trying to say. I appreciate that you went straight for the "he must be racist" though. That's awesome of ya.
(It makes me suspect that there is a secret obligation that I am failing to meet by engaging in this argument)
Here are my intuitions:
It has been internalized that we have positive obligations to each other. Everybody is obliged to everybody.
"Our" obligations to "them" include a lot of things in Maslow's hierarchy. Food, shelter, etc.
Their obligations to us include "gratitude" and "obedience". If they include the latter but not the former, they are considered merely ungrateful. If they include neither, they will be incarcerated disproportionately.
The attitude that all of us have positive obligations to each other is the foundation of the modern prison state given the nature of the majority of the imprisoned... it ain't murder, or property crime, or assault that put them in prison, after all.
Now, what I have noticed in this very conversation is a great deal of pissiness (for lack of a better term) in response to the questions of what I am obliged to do and what they are obliged to do.
I think that it's pretty freakin' obvious that, according to society at large, that my obligations are not, in fact, limited to offering my hand to a drowning person (or to people in analogous situations). There are a hell of a lot more than that... but, for some reason, it makes folks uncomfortable to talk about them out loud. Doubly so to talk about the ones that they have.
To look and say "there are a lot of people out there who think that food stamps only should be used on healthy food" gets, paraphrased, a response of "I can't believe you'd say something so racist!" tells me that there are a lot of things bubbling under the surface.
And, for some reason, nobody wants to talk about these things.
Even someone like me can see that.
"
Forgot the asterisk:
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556
"
Once again: I *AM* meeting my obligations. Other than the three felonies a day* we all are guilty of committing, I meet my obligations.
At this point I'm boggling at how we agree that I've saved this hypothetical person's life seven times and, after the eighth time, I ask a hypothetical question about hypothetically adding swimming restrictions to the lives of people who need to be rescued from drowning all the time and, instead of it being hypothetically acknowledged that I have hypothetically saved the hypothetical life of this hypothetical person eight times, it becomes a question of whether it's remiss of me to ask about it.
My saving the lives isn't really that morally spectacular, of course. Hey, I did it at little to no cost to me. No skin off my nose or all that.
But it seems to me that if we, as a society, continually find ourselves, at little or no cost to us, putting people in prison for putting themselves in situations that have resulted in others drowning?
We may want to start asking how in the hell we got here.
"
Saving that person doesn’t confer any authority to restrict future actions.
What if you have to save this person a second time at little or no cost to you? A third? A sixth? What about this person's kids who may have to be saved at little or no cost to me?
Or is this hypothetical just toooo crazy to address?
"
Blaise, let me again point out that I am meeting all of my positive obligations to society.
Additionally, I did not say that hysteria over substance abuse did not start until after the War on Poverty. (You could have also pointed out Prohibition!)
What I said was, and I'm going to quote myself again here: "I think that the War on Drugs only kicked in in the high gear we see it in today after Johnson’s War on Poverty kicked in."
This is a completely different statement than "marijuana wasn't even on the radar until 1974!"
Now, you say: As for putting restrictions on anyone’s lives, be careful you’re not falling into the trap you laid for others.
At this point I think that I can safely say that the trap was there when I showed up. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to demonstrate that it's an unintended consequence of provision of public goods in the guise of positive obligations.
"
Er, I mean, let's say that I agree with that.
Let's say that I am obliged to help the drowning man at little to no cost to me. Let's say that that obligation absolutely exists.
At what point am I allowed to start dictating terms with regards to swimming regulations?
"
Sure. Let's say that I can save the drowning person at little to no cost to me.
Now.
Can I put up a sign that says "swim at your own risk" after I do this? Or should I have more respect for the personal choices of other people?
"
No, I see positive obligations as analogous to God.
Maybe they exist. Sure.
But the burden of proof isn't on me.
And, if we assume that they exist, for the sake of argument, I get to start asking about the traits of the positive obligations and then you can start questioning my motives, my honesty, and my intelligence because of the stuff that everybody knows.
"
Put another way, it seems to me that very much of the reason that we are here today where we are is because of a tacit assumption that our web of interobligations includes a lot of things that are not, in actual fact, obligations.
I am not obliged to have you not smoke pot in your free time, to use the War on Drugs as an example. I am certainly not obliged to your drug-free state to the point where it's cool for cops to kick down your door.
As a matter of fact, I think that the War on Drugs only kicked in in the high gear we see it in today after Johnson's War on Poverty kicked in. Why? Well, because of this interconnected web of obligations we all share.
We all agreed that "we" had a responsibility to "them" to make sure that all children were educated, had clean running water, decent nutrition, and whatnot. And... after that, suddenly stuff that was never considered "our business" before was now "our business".
You can't smoke that! You're getting a welfare check! You shouldn't have a color television! You're getting a welfare check! You shouldn't have any pleasure in your life that isn't Church-related! You're getting a welfare check! And so on.
This web of interconnected obligations has a lot, I mean a lot a lot, of unintended consequences. And I deeply suspect that the War on Drugs is one of them. I deeply suspect that the sheer stupifying number of people in prison is one of them.
The person holding out their hand in the water is a great example of my obligation to help folks... and then, after I help them out, don't *I* have the right to put restrictions on their lives?
And, before you say "of course not!", please look at what's happened over the last 50 years.
"
So let's put the shoe on the other foot.
What obligations do all of those people out there have to me? Do they have any?
For example, if they are in water, do I get to say that they should stay away from water in the future? Or purchase water wings for them to wear in the future? What if I find them in the water again without the water wings I purchased?
If part of my paycheck goes toward paying people to be on lifeguard duty, do I have a right to set up obligations for those who swim?
Do the obligations only go one way?
Hypothetically, I mean.
I know that *YOU* are meeting all of your obligations to me.
"
I don't see how I'm treating you like an idiot, BlaiseP. Your examples, as great as they are, aren't helping *ME* understand *MY* obligations. I suppose this deals with Stillwater's issues as well.
What do I need to do?
Is it something like "well, you need to write a check to the following organizations"? Is it something like "you need to volunteer your time with kids?"
Here is my fundamental issue: if I do not see you as owing me anything and if I see your obligations to me as being met (and, seriously, I do!) then it's tough for me to come up with a situation where I am not meeting my obligations to you.
So when it comes to the obligations I have for, say, Affirmative Action... what have you done that I am not doing?
Please give me examples of stuff that you have done to address your obligations with regards to Affirmative Action that would be possible for me to do in the next few months or so.
Because, again, it seems to me that my obligations are met.
Does it come down to some squishy "we as a society have a responsibility to be more X" when it's not really incumbent upon me to be more X? Should I spend more time yelling about how we need to be more X in the hopes that it will prod along those who are prodable?
"
I'm one of those folks who sees, for example, The War On Drugs as something that needs to end, like, not just yesterday but, like, 1973.
It seems to me that this idea that it's good the The Federal Government have the power to name certain drugs as "Schedule 1" (for, of course, The Children) has resulted in such things as full prisons.
As such, I think I can safely say that the federal government is, itself, violating the negative rights of huge swaths of the country.
As such, I push for such things as ending the WoD, sunsetting laws automatically (if they can't get re-passed, they shouldn't be on the books), taxation only of corporations, and other ideas that get dismissed out of hand as being pie-in-the-sky Libertopian bullcrap.
So... fine. Let's establish that the line between positive and negative rights is exceptionally blurry and I have obligations to you (and others) that I need to start meeting.
I don't know what they are.
I'm trying to figure out what they are.
So far, I've been told that I ought to be able to figure them out for myself... in response to me saying that I can't figure out much of anything past "negative rights".
This is unsatisfying.
And, of course, thanks for the "I don’t think even you would say blacks are genetically predisposed to criminal behaviour."
I'm sure that was difficult for you to write.