Would you live in a secular society that limits civil liberties?
Posted on: April 20, 2010 - 2:11pm
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Would you live in a secular society that limits civil liberties?
Setting aside the environmental tragedy and other sequelae from Iceland's volcanic eruptions (my heartfelt sympathies), I have read the recent news of the ban on sex work in this secular nation. Iceland's parliament has a large feminist representation who passed legislation outlawing strip clubs. They already have laws prohibiting prostitution and I bet it won't be too long before porn is banned. I would never live in a society that gives such power in the name of "equality". Statism and repression of civil liberties is IMO not an advancement for women.
Me thinks the angry male volcano is erupting with orgasmic fury over this booty call ban-heh! heh!
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I don't give a shit WHO is calling for it, or what their label is, believer or atheist, when you start playing morality police through law it will end up in fascism. Common law and protection of dissent allow us to find the common ground to regulate something. Outright bans never work.
I would not want to live in a society where consenting adults couldn't think for themselves. I would be for arresting someone for kidnapping or forcing others into indentured sex slavery or rape. But i have no right to tell consenting adults what they can or cannot look at.
You can mark Iceland off of my places I'd want to visit.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Of course I would. Every society places limits on civil liberties.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Reducto absurdum.
DUH, I am not suggesting total anarchy. Otherwise the speed limit would be a suggestion.
You can't shout fire in a movie theater and you cant sell Hustler to a 5 year old. DUH. In this case this country is imposing it's morality on all citizens, even if those who wish as consenting adults, partake in it non-violently.
Laws have to exist in a civil society. But that doesn't mean that laws should always be based on majority rule.
I have been in plenty of non nude bars where jocks and thugs and bikers were more unruly than many strip joints I have been at. One sports bar I used to go to constantly had fights, and there was no nudity involved. So the issue is not nude, vs non nude, the issue is the establishment keeping it's business license based on it's ability to maintain civility, and each establishment should be individually judged.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I think the caste system should be re-invented. Of course the castes must not be hereditary - only up to a certain age, perhaps maturity or less. Then there should be a possibility to change the caste.
The idea is, that every caste will have different civil liberties and limitations. The lower caste, the less freedom and more order, but also less responsibility and less need for civilized behavior. A person of every caste should feel comfortable within the caste's liberties and duties - or get into another caste.
Perhaps we are equal somewhere deep within our souls, but we are not the same. We have different needs and abilities. Ordinary people need booze and porn, but also strict regime and hard work. There's no sense in giving these people things like new apartments - unlike it is happening with almighty "DYSCRIMYNATID" gypsy community. So yes, I would certainly like to live in a society that limits civil liberties. If these liberties would be limited in a logical, meaningful way according to individual and social needs, then I'd welcome it. For example, politicians should have great limits on their freedom, that would prevent them from hoarding wealth and having lack of humility.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
I was responding to the OP, not you.
Geeze, it isn't all about *you* Brian! :P
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
I heard an interview about this, with a lady in Iceland. She said the problem was there was a massive influx of foreign prostitutes (and the local population is tiny), and the drugs, pimps and crime they brought with them spiraled out of control. She was saying they banned it because the sex industry was causing social disruption.
I don't know if I agreed with her, but I don't know how I would argue with her reasoning if what she said about crime statistics was true, it was a simple choice between freedom and social discord, and their citizens chose to limit freedom.
Now, in doing some Googling there is also people and politicians who decried the morality of selling sex in general, and that seems to have had a major impact in the vote as well. *shrug*
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Aha! I knew you were intelligent under the woo.
With this I agree.
Some people can't handle liberty, and don't need it- others can. A meritocratic licensing system would seem practical, if properly regulated and transparent by being administrated by an 'open-source' computer system.
But that's just silly.
Ditto that.
It is your last point that really peeves me ie. it is immoral to sell sex in principle. This per the headlines is the basis for this law and not the prevention of harm to women. A truly progressive society would empower sex workers to have total ownership of their bodies and trade. And much to my surprise, there are a number of feminists who support this kind of measure. If there is a consensual sexual encounter of any kind between adults (eg. stripping, sex, etc..) with a financial exchange, there should be no moral thought police outlawing this behavior. This is IMO a cliff dropping (ie. worse than a slippery slope) towards this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdyKJ1xXph8
I feel life is too short to ban people from things.
plus banning things or making them a no-no doesn't stop people from doing banned things.
It does sometimes make them feel guilty about their actions though......so guilty they pay a church to make the guilt go away, so I guess it drums up business for the whole redemption market.
Stephen King"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window." -Stephen King
So only volcanos can blow their top in Iceland?
It's all a matter of tradeoffs, perhaps it I could make a lot of money in Iceland I could tolerate it for a while. Amsterdam is only 2 hours away.
I'm of the opionion that the religious can't get along with the secular, liberals can't get along with conservatives, the sexually repressed can't get along with the liberated. So we should have a world can people can go into whatever zone they wish. As long as we can come and go as you please.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
If you isolate people without total control and repression, that just results in self congratulation and extremism-- they won't stay isolated for long, and when they lash out, it won't be pretty.
All societies restrict civil liberties... and they are the battlegrounds of people working for greater freedoms and those working for greater restrictions. It will be going on as long as humans are around.
Exactly!
Wow... ugh...
So Luminon, what caste would you be in. I know, the one where "THE SMART PEOPLE" are, who are able to "handle" freedom. Not like those other people who just can't handle freedom like you can. Man, isn't it great that you are so special that you know so much better then other people. Fuck your caste system. Any kind of caste system is going to have inherent inequalities, leading to injustices, which will eventually lead to people destroying the system. Any unequal distribution of social power is going to lead to the bottom rungs of said society eventually destroying it. Inequality breeds hatred and distrust between social groups, it can never lead to social cohesion.
That is strait up fascist talk. You talk of "ordinary" people who need their bread and circuses, but not you, oh no, you are one of the "special" people. So the "ordinary" people, the proles and plebes, they need their strict regime and hard work, but you and your "special" people are needed to live off the backs of others and teach them the "truth". Fuck you and your fascist wet dream.
A dictatorship, even organized by an open source computer system, would still be a dictatorship.
We are all different, but that doesn't change the fact that equality between individuals is the greatest creator of social cohesion there is. I feel very strongly that equality is the only thing which will lead to our species having a chance at a positive future. If we are to have a future outside of some Orwellian nightmare, equality can't be something for only "the special people" (you, your friends, and the people you agree with, obviously) but must be for everyone. Or else you repeat the history of an untold number of empires who fell to the blades of the "less equal then others".
"This may shock you, but not everything in the bible is true." The only true statement ever to be uttered by Jean Chauvinism, sociopathic emotional terrorist.
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dictate the ends in which you find yourself."
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Every country has some silly ass law on the books.
Ain't Nobodies Business if You Do by Peter McWilliams http://www.amazon.com/Aint-Nobodys-Business-You-Consensual/dp/192976717X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271831102&sr=1-1
Mr. McWilliams does focus on the US, but if you skim through the book, you will find your country has a law or two that sound very like the ones addressed in his book. I found this book got depressing about 2/3 into it. There are so many laws against civil liberties!
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
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I would gladly submit to a rational dictatorship. The problem with dictators is the irrational human components of their rules.
There have been better and worse kings- the lines between them are usually degrees of rational sanity.
Not so- this is only the case where people feel they might be trapped in a particular niche and grow resentful. If it is merely "too much work" to move up (as is the case in the Western world, which does have class lines that people can, with extreme effort, penetrate), the only resent will be personal disappointment and self-loathing, which yields a relatively stable society.
I realize that you feel that way, but do you have anything to back that up?
Provided that the potential for change and improvement is still available to the individual, they technically do have equal opportunities- if they were truly equal in ability. Capitalism, minus the random and economic factors.
This is why the system has to be unbiased, and administered without human meddling.
Not if those people have an invisible glass ceiling defined only by their own failings and lack of sufficient motivation. An unbiased meritocracy.
But the most important things should be left to the law and computer. The basic laws that no leader could change would be something of a common sense, that is so violated today. For example, that everyone need food, so food must be made available to everyone, in sufficient and not excessive amount. That would of course restrict freedom of marketing managers, who enjoy selling huge amounts of food in privileged countries. You know what? Screw them. I learn about marketing, business and economy at school, and it got the world into what it is now.
OK, whacking people on head is an extreme example, but it's almost real. Here in times of communism was the cult of working class, so intelligent people from universities were politically compromised and were ordered to do hard work, like building a bridge or recycling scrapmetal. That is what I really mean. Everyone had work, nobody was homeless, but no diversity of thought was allowed.
I want to say, it is possible to build a good system. It's really very simple. It's just very different from how most of people think. I'm not really the only one who has this idea, so things are on the good way.
As for unequal distribution of social power, please do the obvious thing and look at contemporary system with few privileged millions and billions in poverty, and guess what is ahead of us.
The difference between me and fascism is very simple. Fascism wants the lowest, most powerless castes to be plentiful, so the few leaders can hold all the power. I want to gradually move people from lower castes to higher, so eventually majority of people will be educated and self-reliant, able to rule themselves. Today there is no need for work force, hard labour can be replaced by automatic machinery. There is no need to have a big class of workers. You probably don't know that, but I studied automatization and electronics too and I know it's possible.
But I forgot to write the most obvious and most important. There is only one thing that a good government can do. Service for the people. Government as a service is not dictatorship. Today's rulers or rich people are basically big children that take their power as a game. It's not a damn game.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
which would not be capitalism at all.
A totalitarian meritocracy is an oxymoron and doomed to fail. Even the brightest individuals can be irrational and thus concentration of power even among them would result in tyranny. Plus for those with merit to thrive, this requires freedom of thought particularly in the scientific realm. Back in the 1930s the United States had its share of dimwited politicians but Einstein preferred to escape from Nazi Germany to a flawed vapid democracy rather than a "perfect" realm like Stalinist Russia. And I would add that although Stalin did not have a sky high IQ, he and his party bureaucrats certainly had more brains than the proletarian masses. And despite the massive industrialization and other successes of the Soviet Union, it did not develop into an enlightened meritocracy.
Sure it just depends which ones, but the only ones that should be restricted are the ones that cause harm to others. If any of you are familiar with john stuart mill - on liberty. basically what he says. not exactly but basically.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
The problem is, that many current democracies have laws and manipulation mechanisms that make them effectively dictatures. For example, one day of elections, low voting participation (favors big parties), no direct election of officials and president, unchangeable order on candidate lists, immunity to the law, no personal responsibility for working results, no training for the job, and so on. The political work is a freakin' amusement park, and my politicians become spoiled children as soon as they enter it!
Majority of people is simple-minded. Therefore, the vote by majority is a rule of the stupid. The stupid people are easily manipulated. Therefore, democracy is a rule of those who can manipulate stupid majority and demoralize the society. The rest is done by the ridiculously big privileges. And even if a politician has to leave the scene, he usually has billions of local currency stowed away thanks to cheating in non-transparent public commissions process and taking bribes from foreign investors. That's how it is in my country.
As for Stalin and communism, that was never a communism to begin with. It had the freaking leader and government. Instead, it was a state capitalism... If there is an ideology of working class, I'd rather pay a good attention - because the workers need an employer. Communism or Marxism should not have any leaders at all, if I remember.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Would I live in Iceland? Sure I would. I love Iceland.
Even if this means that I can no longer get paid for my sexual services.
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)
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So, you would be working pro boner?
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
LOL. I am going to unrepentantly *steal* that one!
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)
http://www.kinkspace.com
I agree, it seems quite ideal to me. I suggested a system like this in the politics forum after EXC asked me to describe my ideal, some months back.
I also agree with this. How can a meritocracy be totalitarian? Who decides what is meritous? It would just be totalitarian since all criteria of merit would simply fall under the totalitarian regime anyway.
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I disagree with that. A majority vote is not necessarily stupid because of a simple-minded populus, it depends very much on the matter put to vote, some matters are more deeply understood emotionally as opposed to cerebrally, the thoughts of those who never risk over-thinking an issue can be very valuable to us as a social group. And I would be inclined to say a meritocracy is best served by acknowledging the merit of the gut instinct in the simple people as well as the informed idealists.
True, to an extent, however, its a sad reflection, not on democracy, but on the ideals of the leadership.
The problem I see with these discussions of what is a right politic is that they seem to degenerate at the point where we try to conform reasonable systems to the notion of universal values. It's not realistic. Any reasonable system will work where the individuals under that system have coherent senses of what is valuable. But where they don't we have this problem of a few having a mind to manipulate and force others to adopt their values for the sake of the system and then it gets demoralised, eroded from inside.
The answer in my opinion is to develop a number of value based systems, with free borders. Thus in theory if a person in your political zone does not feel comfortable with valuing the same things you do there is no reason to force them or manipulate them. They can actualise the values close to their heart under another system and you can maintain the integrity of yours without resorting to corrupting the coherence of your system.
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Wow.... just wow.
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In all other cases, I would be against racism...but do not trust gypsies (they usually call themselves 'roma' though) under any circumstance. They are just bad people and they raise their children to be bad people. In the U.S. gypsy families travel from town to town robbing and running scams. They do not give their children regular educations. Rather, they teach their children to swindle and steal. This is a cultural problem that they have. I had a nurse tell me that if gypsies get into a hospital, they will rob all they can from it. The FBI has a group of agents who specialize in trying to track gypsies in the U.S. since they are always on the move and always robbing and running scams. Local police have a problem dealing with them since they are on the move. I only know about them from an American perspective, but I know that other countries have similar problems with gypsies.
Forget everything you know about not being racist and never trust anyone who calls themselves 'roma' or 'romani.' I kind of feel bad for actual Romanians, since almost all Romanians are not gypsies and gypsies seem to be trying to steal their name.
And no, gypsies are not inherently evil or genetically predisposed to being thieves. They just have a culture of stealing and swindling that takes advantage of our incompatible cultural norms.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
The problem with my country probably is, that WW2 killed intellectual elite. Then 40 years of communistic closed borders builded up the pressure, so when the borders opened, another dose of intellectual elite flew away abroad like a champagne cork, if they didn't escape earlier. It's a typical case of brain drain.
But if a leader of their own ethnicity and royal family orders them to work hard (and adds some juicy swearing) then they, oh wonder, work! That is their cultural arrangement. They are not suited to live in democracy, it spoils them. It's a dirty business, but if I should ever decide about Roma, I'd have to understand how they live and think. In Slovakia there are gypsy-only village projects, and it works!!! There are human rights violated as hell, because the leader of the tribe bosses everyone around, and there's no private property, but they like it.
The problem is also, that none Roma that live here are from here. We had Czech gypsies, civilized people, good at crafts and music. But then WW2 came and they ended in concentration camps, for some reason with active help of locals. Now here migrate gypsies from Slovakia and further east, these are of much wilder variety and they feel no affinity to this foreign land.
I didn't know about America, but surely they always liked nomad life. Here they can migrate to Canada, (for asylum, because they feel "discriminated" here) receive social welfare and apartment, (which is meant for finding a work) and then return back and have social welfare paid retrospectively. Guess why Canada had put my country under visa requirement. I can think of no other nation that would need more of a strict regime.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Even if the society would run more efficiently by restricting the rights of "lesser" people (which I fully disbelieve it would), it is in my opinion immoral to limit the liberties of humans and some other arbitrarily determined "important" species.
But this is the point of my view. Chastes would be arbitrarily determined and therefore violence would ensue based on protest. And then the system fails to be sustainable.
A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce
hey luminon,
LUNIK 9 FOREVER!!!!!!!
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri5EYiZLnbI
Night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjv8cmxBlMo
Our liberties are already limited. We have to learn to get a job, then go to that job to earn money, and then we have to spend that money. People do not earn enough money by day jobs to allow them to stop working. No work means no life, and work means also no "life". This is literally slavery. Human potential is wasted on things like paperwork or producing for consumer society. Consumer society then consumes all that it produces and leaves nothing permanent except of damage to the planet. This is not sustainable at all.
You know, long ago in history families and tribes had to keep patrols over night to be safe from enemies and predators. Then people invented civilization, and thanks to it they don't have to stay awake overnight and gape into darkness. They can do something more meaningful in the day. More meaningful? Today we have to work 9 to 5 to be materially and existentially safe. We should invent something like a second civilization, something that will secure us, so we won't have to lose our time by work. We work, we get entertainment and then we sleep and over again. Meanwhile, relatively few people decide about the world. That's the freedom?
Yes, I want to limit civil liberties. The freedom to start war, the freedom to waste resources, the freedom to enslave, the freedom to deny basic human rights, the freedom to speculate money, and so on. Trust me, the world will be better off without these freedoms, that only few can really use. I guarantee, it will cost you a few dozens of ice cream and car brands, but it will start civilization MK II. Just like the first civilization allowed us to invent crafts, sciences, culture, and philosophy, this will free us for much greater achievements.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
We have a culture like that in Australia, our native people love and protect their tribal lore and have done, much to our subsequent dismay, for the two centuries we've been here. It's been a long haul for them but by sticking to their principles they've allowed us to see that it is vain of us to enforce the superiority of our western dictum. Australia voted to say sorry to the native people for the harm caused by us force-feeding our values on them and judging theirs shallowly and it's been a worthy step. There is a new receptivity in everyone which is hopeful for all of us. Of course we all realise there is never a way for westernised society to make things as though we've never been here, but it goes a long way to swallow your pride and admit some fault of your own. After all, tribal culture is the ancestry of all of us, it's the nursery of all our societies, it's shamefully self-important to just decide that there is nothing at all truly good within it which can make a people cling to it as they do. Don't you, of all people, think these tragedies are a call to open-mindedness, Luminon?
And yes I may be biased, my mother grew up among Gypsy folk and loved them as family. I hate to hear you condemn people I consider my own this way, just for the record.
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Meritocracy isn't mutually exclusive with a form of republic or indirect democracy.
Policy for determining valid schools of education could be determined democratically, using small samples of the population in a system similar to debates or trials.
That is, a small, random sampling could be fully educated and exposed to both sides of a contention (for example, quacks who support homeopathy vs. doctors who recognize it as fraud), and determine (after being fully educated) which one is bullshit, and which has merit.
It would be a small inefficiency, but it would keep the system itself honest while remaining flexible (the only other way being to write all of the qualification in stone- which would remain honest, but would be inflexible to additions or necessary change).
The general uneducated population could be set to vote on the matter of which issues are of perceived to be in contention to determine when a new debate is needed (while not actually voting directly on those new social issues).
1. That's crazy. Seriously, you need to fix your brain.
2. It can still be a problem if it is a waste of resources that could be used elsewhere. If some people are not as intelligent as others, wasting educational funding on them (provided there's something else to use it on- say, educating them on music or something, or educating others more) is not good.
Different people (not by race, necessarily, but by individual) have some fundamentally different aptitudes and potentials.
Assuming equality in any sense is counter-productive.
The only thing I believe we should be considering for equality is a valuation of another's suffering- that is, we shouldn't accept that one's suffering is less important because that one is less competent.
That's just my opinion, though- the majority of people disagree with this, and do value less another's suffering if that one isn't as useful or close to them (and believe strongly that the law should likewise not value that suffering as much).
Intellectual capitalism- a capitalism of potential intellect and ideas (which are a kind of human capital), 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps with wit and hard work' capitalism- not that of inheriting capital, or dealing with large pools of monetary resources and bad luck.
If the Meritocrats decide on the merits, they create a feedback loop, and only allow their own in, so a Meritocracy has the inherent flaw of potentially becoming a Totalitarian one as this loop closes in on itself- which could potentially become irrational.
The only non-democratic fix I can see (short of Computer SI) for this is some fundamental 'written in stone' requirements outlining the exact nature of merit.
I don't condemn them, I just recognize how they live in central Europe and recognize their needs. To some limited extent. There is nothing personal about it, it's a conundrum to be solved. Current gypsy slums and ghettos do not give them any opportunity to improve their situation, they encourage laziness, stealing, promiscuity, alcoholism, and so on. There are of course Roma individuals that live a normal life, have jobs, houses, even university education. But they had to sever contacts with their more wild relatives, because they considered personal property to be family property, therefore their property.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.