I can see why that is.
If these are in some book then I'm pleased, but I gained my philosophies on my own thoughts--which is why I DO understand them. I sure wish I could find a forum where they can be inteligently discussed.
Why is that important?
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Author of Shiva's Messenger
- Thread starter nyse
- Start date
nomadic myth
New Member
Nothing meant. Just normally these introduction things fade away after ten hello's.
Litany
Active Member
Zolipara
New Member
That just means the other introductions dont have enough hats.
Sadly, I'm finding that is true only with subjects that are easy to talk about.
I strongly hold my opinions and I haven't yet heard any intelligent dissenting discussion. Like it or not, people (other than just me) seriously question the current system's validity. I prefer not taking the ostrich eye view of the problems.
I can't let this pass by without comment.
You stated that you don't believe that anyone should have to pay taxes, yet admit later that tax revenue is necessary. When you outlined your revenue generation, I had honestly expected you to propose something like a sales (or use) tax based system supplemented with fines and usage fees. Instead, you opted to pass the buck up to the companies that employ the people to pay the taxes. Effectively you are having the companies pay taxes twice (once for themselves and once for their employees). Presumably, the small business owner, sole proprietorship, the self-employed, and the farmer would be paying taxes themselves.
You can't run a government without revenue. Like it or not, taxes (revenue generation or whatever benign-sounding name you want to give it) are necessary.
You criticize the current system of laws and laugh at the paradox of a law enforcement body that does not "enforce" but only "punishes" someone after the fact of a misdeed being committed but yet don't provide an alternative, only clever rewording of what a crime actually is.
I would think it would be great if you'd put out a novel that outlines your framework for a revised system of government. I'd read it.
roddglenn
New Member
Well that was quite an entertaining thread! Not the ideal way to introduce yourself to a new forum (especially when trying to self promote), but hey whatever floats your boat.
For what it's worth I'm afraid I agree with Sparkchaser and Landslide. Some interesting theoretical ideas, but impossible in practice. Taxation is flawed but it is neccessary to maintain sociiety and laws are set out predominently to help protect citizens (in conjunction with police etc). You're forgetting that there are a great many nasty people out there who enjoy causing pain and chaos and who carry out sick fantasies or murder because of race, religion or just for the sheer hell of it.
For what it's worth I'm afraid I agree with Sparkchaser and Landslide. Some interesting theoretical ideas, but impossible in practice. Taxation is flawed but it is neccessary to maintain sociiety and laws are set out predominently to help protect citizens (in conjunction with police etc). You're forgetting that there are a great many nasty people out there who enjoy causing pain and chaos and who carry out sick fantasies or murder because of race, religion or just for the sheer hell of it.
Perhaps you should try to envision what I've said, instead of simply trying to poke holes in the manner that I said it, you might understand it better.
I've not suggested a 'double' tax on business. I pointed out that a citizen's money already comes from that source--tax should come from there in theaory as well as in practice. This relieves the citizen of the 'impression' of being the government's slave--while the revenue remains EXACTLY the same. It represents a fundamental shift in the philosophy of how and why we alow a government to govern and it opens the door for many more improvements.
The same holds true of the current law. Rethinking only the roots of why the law isn't working could fix the situation. Police would obviously still be needed, their job description would just have to be amended to read "serve and protect the PEOPLE." not as it currently is to "uphold the LAW."
Civilization has placed too many critical functions onto inanimate objects (RULE of LAW and NATIONS) Unfortunately, things have a way of ultimately becoming obsolete. I strongly believe, and the increasingly violent society attests, that it's time to start evaluating a better way of doing things. Fixing them isn't that difficult.
You are obviously forgetting that all this is already (and increasingly)occurring under the static system you are staunchly defending.
Police, laws and threat of punishment are NOT the primary deterrent to wrongdoing. The human good conscience prevents most, and it's probably the main reason why YOU don't rob a convenience store at gunpoint. The law as written negates the conscience and it allows people to transfer a hurtful deed onto a thing (the law) rather than the person being hurt.
An ideology change in how/why society can use force to prevent/subdue, (pulling on the rope instead of pushing) can solve many problems without making new ones.
roddglenn
New Member
Jesus, Nyse, I've gotta admire your blind convictions. You're not actually listening to or understanding the flaws that some people have kindly pointed out to your ideology.
Rape and murder etc will occur in any society whether there are laws or not. You're not quite grasping that fact. Everyone knows that there are crazies and scumbags out there who will do whatever the hell they want. The justice system as we know it is set up as a reactionary against these people - not to stop them doing it but to punish them once they have done it. Like I said earlier it's a flawed system, but without actually inventing a Minority Report 'pre-cog' crime unit that is pretty much the best we're going to get.
Having no laws will not help one bit. In fact it will make the situation FAR worse because those people that were put off from robbing a bank or beating up a neighbour by the law will now go ahead and do it because there will be no recourse.
Get a grip and join us on planet Earth.
Rape and murder etc will occur in any society whether there are laws or not. You're not quite grasping that fact. Everyone knows that there are crazies and scumbags out there who will do whatever the hell they want. The justice system as we know it is set up as a reactionary against these people - not to stop them doing it but to punish them once they have done it. Like I said earlier it's a flawed system, but without actually inventing a Minority Report 'pre-cog' crime unit that is pretty much the best we're going to get.
Having no laws will not help one bit. In fact it will make the situation FAR worse because those people that were put off from robbing a bank or beating up a neighbour by the law will now go ahead and do it because there will be no recourse.
Get a grip and join us on planet Earth.
You look ahead and all you can see is a brick wall--the law. If you can open a crack in your preconceptions and look closer, you might see what I'm talking about.
NO THEY WOULDN'T! "Murder" and "Rape" are legal definitions of a deed concidered "Against the LAW". Eliminating those LAWs would completely void the possibility of those two words being applicable.
Now if you mean the acts of "killing a PERSON" or "assaulting a PERSON sexually", then yes, those wrongful deeds would still be done BUT, the LAW dehumanizes those wrongdoing by taking them AGAINST itself. The Korean kid who killed at Virginia Tech had NO REAL ANGER against those PEOPLE, he was acting against the SYSTEM and his intent was only to break a highly visible LAW--the people were reduced to a tool.
Law is the WRONG thrust at having a TRUELY effective social protection system. Having justice ACTUALLY do, what we wish it did (protecting people) would prevent a number of wrongs--like Virginia Tech--right at the source.
Why do people freak out and suggest I'm off my nut--instead of actually trying to understand a novel concept? I know the answer to that one, it's called 'social-conditioning' and 'blind faith'. Law is something that people absolutely believe they have to have--so vehemently so that any talk against it evokes an eggagerated response. I broke my social conditioning and when I did, I started understanding things much clearer, more optimistically too, because there IS a much better system available AND it could be virtually painless to achieve.
Landslide
Well-Known Member
You keep bringing up the example of the korean kid who killed all those people at Virginia Tech, but I don't see how this new "system" you so passionately defend would have prevented this from happening. To me the simple explanation is that he was mentally sick.
Now if you ask me if he was the only one to blame, I'm gonna have to say no. All the people that was with him everyday and didn't notice he was not sane, everyone who ignored him when they could have easily just smiled or said hello, they are to blame too. It's a sociological problem, rather than a legal one to me.
And when you say he had nothing against the people he killed, I only half agree. I think he probably had nothing against them as individuals, but he had a generalized grudge against everybody in campus, because he was lonely or because he couldn't make any friends or because he felt misunderstood...
No one can be sure why he did what he did, one can only speculate, but I'm still not convinced he would not have done in the "system" you defend.
What I think that should change are some social aspects of our society, there should be a psychological network not only in faculty campus, but in high schools too, where troubled kids could reach out and ask for help before they reach to a point of no return...
Now if you ask me if he was the only one to blame, I'm gonna have to say no. All the people that was with him everyday and didn't notice he was not sane, everyone who ignored him when they could have easily just smiled or said hello, they are to blame too. It's a sociological problem, rather than a legal one to me.
And when you say he had nothing against the people he killed, I only half agree. I think he probably had nothing against them as individuals, but he had a generalized grudge against everybody in campus, because he was lonely or because he couldn't make any friends or because he felt misunderstood...
No one can be sure why he did what he did, one can only speculate, but I'm still not convinced he would not have done in the "system" you defend.
What I think that should change are some social aspects of our society, there should be a psychological network not only in faculty campus, but in high schools too, where troubled kids could reach out and ask for help before they reach to a point of no return...
roddglenn
New Member
Your come back is always about terminology. That is just pathetic. Murder and rape are not just legal definitions - they are words used in the English language to describe the killing or sexual assault of someone. If you cancel the word you do not cancel the action. How can you be so utterly blind???? Whether there are laws or not there will always be murder and rape.
It's impossible to have this sort of debate with someone who is so completely blinkered.
Before my epiphany about what law is (and isn’t), I thought as you do. I do understand your point, but you don’t get mine. Instead of trying to comprehend—you’re accusing me of being ‘blinkered’ and ‘utterly blind’.
The terminology of ‘rape’ and ‘murder’ is just semantics—BUT—ideas expressed by mere words form the core of ideals and for these two words in particular, society has granted itself the authority to imprison or even to kill (even when they sometimes have the wrong person). However, when you closely examine the principles UNDER the words, they don’t hold up as intrinsically true. In other words, the pedestal of law rests on a canted surface—the whole structure is askew.
Modifying the theory that justice rests on would mandate a change in the terminology, and the model that grows from those new words could comprise TRUE justice.
Landslide, you said ‘you don’t see how (my passionately defended) system would’ve prevented—but you don’t understand or why this different justice would work. Perhaps, if you envisioned a different justice model, as I do, you would see why Virginia tech is an excellent example.
I’ll try to explain with a different model. Suppose you can’t read or write English, but you have a grudge against the government—and you have a paint can. You can express your discontent by spraying a wall of the nearest government building—you feel vindicated. But, what if you’re in a smaller town and there are no federal buildings to vent your frustration on? You could deface someone else’s wall—but is that an attack on the government? Remember that you don’t write English, so you can’t use the words ‘screw the man’ to direct your wrath where you want it to. (Are you still with me so far?) Hypothetically, your vandalism is thwarted, because you have no appropriate target.
Here is where the law steps in to assist your criminal intent. The government passed a law making “vandalism” illegal AND the law took the crime onto itself. The action of defacing property is AGAINST the law—it’s not AGAINST the property owner anymore. So, you as a disgruntled person are enabled to make your anti-government statement by spray-painting ANY wall, with ANY illegible mark, and it’s still an attack directly on the law.
Compare this to Virginia Tech. The individual is sick and he wants to make a statement AGAINST the society he felt shunned by. He can express his anger DIRECTLY against the system by attacking the ‘rule-of-law’s’ prohibition. I suggest that he didn’t set out to specifically kill people: he had no animosity against those individuals. His intent was to break the law AGAINST murder—and people paid the price. Just as the property owner suffered the damage in my previous example.
This suggests that the law is NOT actually protecting people (as you wish and presume that it is). The law itself is causing, or at least facilitating, some crime. IF, (and this seems to be the big hurdle), you can envision how this logic has some merit, THEN, your mind may go on to explore how a justice system CAN protect people and be made much better—without upsetting the whole applecart in the process.
chuephödli
Member
Brilliant thread. Reminds me (no idea why) of Monty Python's Parrot sketch.
roddglenn
New Member
Landslide
Well-Known Member
Ok, so you're convinced that crime (or whatever you want to call it) only happens because people want to make a statement against government and law? Sorry but I don't buy it. Crimes of hate, of passion or sadistic crimes will always happen. It's sad but it's true. Law is there to assure in theory that the people who commit the crimes will be punished for their wrong doings. Is it a perfect system? Does it always work in practice? No, but I still think it's better to have laws than to have not.
NO, what I've suggested is that particular motivation would be gone. there are some others that would also be gone or alieviated, so 'crime' rates would instantly drop somewhat.
Where did you get this from--It doesn't relate to anything that i've said? "Laws" are the wrong TOOL for the job of justice, but we certainly still do need vehicle to replace them. We DO still need to keep serious wrongdoers (Rapists, killers and such) in lockups, but society needs to do that in a way fits. If people weren't so eager to dismiss me as a lunatic, anarchist, pinko, liberal, or whatever, perhaps we could settle into a serious conversation about an exciting topic. Current justice isn't a perfect system--Why should we have to settle for law's incompetance? Especially when there is a nearly perfect new version sitting in the design room.