Posted on 08/31/2005 7:01:36 AM PDT by ZGuy
I based my comment on the following excerpt from the news story;
the employee contacted Pacific Justice Institute, a legal organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties. PJI attempted to resolve the matter peacefully, first contacting and informing the employer that its actions were in violation of state and federal law. However, the California company refused to change its position and continues to ban the employee's pro-marriage message.
As a result, PJI joined with affiliate attorney Laurie Messerly in filing a federal lawsuit on the employee's behalf.
We DO know a lot more than might otherwise by the simple fact that PJI has obviously answered for itself the questions you've raised, plus a lot more I'm sure.
What's on that bumper sticker? I'd like to know too, I don't, but I'm safe in saying that PJI does, and they also know if others are allowed to have similar things in their cubicles.
Is that legal proof of lawbreaking? No, but it's safe to say PJI thinks it is, and they already know more about the case than we will ever read or know.
This all began by my objecting to someone posting before they read the article. Do I KNOW they didn't read first? No I don't, but the post showed an ignorance that suggested that.
After re-reading it, it still does.
Not quite: you are arguing that laws that violate our Constitutional rights and take away our liberties, are liberty. That's the kind of statist doublethink that Orwell wrote about. "If Napoleon says it, it must be right."
Our law has never, ever allowed people to do absolutely anything they wanted, say abolutely anything they wanted, buy and sell absolutely anything they wanted,
It has always allowed lawful possessions to be sold to anyone of the owner's choice. Until recently. You've mastered goodthink.
"Not quite: you are arguing that laws that violate our Constitutional rights and take away our liberties, are liberty. That's the kind of statist doublethink that Orwell wrote about."
I am arguing no such thing. I don't think that regulations on commerce are violations of our constitutional rights or take away anybody's liberties. I think that such laws are necessary to curtail abuses of liberty. We have always had such laws, always will, and it's a good thing, in my opinion. Can law itself become abusive and oppressive? Obviously yes. HAS IT, by refusing the allow the liberty of contract to extend to, say, the liberty to practice racism in a commercial setting. No, it hasn't. This is a reasonable law aimed at an unreasonable abuse of liberty, in my opinion. You obviously differ. You think I am wrong and oppressive, and I think you are wrong and that the results you espouse would be oppressive. Neither is destined to convince the other, therefore, we must each appeal to powers greater than ourselves. I am willing to test my claim through the democracy. Do the PEOPLE want the freedom of contract to extend to the point that employers can practice racial, religious or ethnic discimination. I think that a large majority of the voters do not.
You do not care what the majority of voters think, or what I think. Rather, you think that your own particular view of what constitutes liberty is the proper definition, that anyone with a different view is wrong, even Hitlerian (it is you who have used the words "sieg heil" in addressing me). You believe that your opinion constitutes the final position on what the law is.
It does not.
"It has always allowed lawful possessions to be sold to anyone of the owner's choice. Until recently."
It has NEVER done so. Certain lawful products could not be sold to slaves. Certain lawful products could not be sold to children. Certain lawful products could not be sold across borders. Real property could be restricted by law from being sold to certain races or creeds. Lawful products could not be sold to enemy nations or, in certain periods, neutrals. Further, the standards of what constituted a lawful product, sizes, weights and measurements were imposed by government since time immemorial. You have this view that there was no regulation in the past, and we have entered a world of regulatory hell. There were always such restrictions.
You might respond "And they were always wrong", to which I would respond "Sez you. I disagree. Regulation of commerce has always been practiced, and always been necessary."
...even when they take away our right of free association. Your doublethink is truly Orwellian.
You do not care what the majority of voters think, or what I think. Rather, you think that your own particular view of what constitutes liberty is the proper definition, that anyone with a different view is wrong, even Hitlerian
Quite the contrary! I will not impose my idea of freedom on you in any way! Now kindly show me the same courtesy. Oops, you can't, because your idea of freedom involves controlling me.
sizes, weights and measurements were imposed by government since time immemorial.
You aren't completely ignorant of history, but your view is deeply revisionist. For a good chunk of recorded history, weights and measures were matters for the contracting parties to resolve, not imposed by the government at all. You keep taking the existence of certain rules as proof that the world would fall apart if the government weren't there enforcing them. Explain that to your pals in blue, currently looting NO.
"For a good chunk of recorded history, weights and measures were matters for the contracting parties to resolve, not imposed by the government at all. You keep taking the existence of certain rules as proof that the world would fall apart if the government weren't there enforcing them. Explain that to your pals in blue, currently looting NO."
Let's just stick with the history of the Common Law, since that is our tradition. The Magna Carta (1215) contains weights and measures standards for the whole realm of England, and indeed establishes them as mandatory, and Magna Carta was renewed 38 times to the present date. Weights and measures standards have always been a province of the Federal government. Even the Bible establishes weights and measures and requires a norm.
Now, you speak of this "good chunk" of recorded history. When? Where? Before 1215, perhaps? Before the English language and our Common Law even existed?
I think you believe in a myth, a mythical time and place when there was no government and kings or Congresses didn't impose commercial rules.
Now, you may well believe that things would be better without them, but you are not going to be able to point to an actual time period in Anglo-American history - this "sizeable chunk" - when there were not weights and measures standards. You're not going to be able to do it in Continental European history, either.
I will grant you that there were no weights and measures standards in either sub-Saharan Africa or among the North American Indians before colonization. I don't view either Africa or pre-Columbian America as models of freedom or commerce that I have the slightest interest in emulating.
Freedom of necessity involves punishments for those who abuse their freedom. When you start doing things, in your freedom, on your land, that have negative effects on me, at a certainly point your freedom has to be curtailed so that my own can be enjoyed.
The abuse and insults you like to resort to, such as the insinuations that I am ignorant of history (actually, I keep citing to real history, and real law, and you keep responding with mythical history and more insult), seig heils, salutations to "herr kommisar" and - in you latest - references to the looters in New Orleans as "my pals", do not make your case. In fact, they harm it considerably to everyone else on this board. They make you look like a petulant teenager arguing with a man. It's your play if you want to keep up that crap, but it demeans you and makes me look positively sober and wise by comparison.
I said "history", not "american history". What does it buy you to joust with straw men like that?
Freedom of necessity involves punishments for those who abuse their freedom.
You don't appear to know what freedom is. It can't be "abused". For example, I don't have the freedom to kill you. If I kill you, I haven't "abused" any "freedom"; I've committed a crime. This idea that freedom is a dangerous thing that has to be regulated, lest it be misused, is another symptom of your basic disbelief in freedom itself.
When you start doing things, in your freedom, on your land, that have negative effects on me, at a certainly point your freedom has to be curtailed so that my own can be enjoyed.
"Negative effects"? That's the argument for totalitarianism. You can ban me smoking, if it makes your insurance payments lower. You can force me to eat spinach and tax my cheeseburgers for the same reason. In fact, you can regulate every aspect of my life, since everything I do "affects" you one way or another. For example, when I got married, I did you the incredible damage of taking an awesome potential wife away from you. Now you can't have her--where before, you just might've.
such as the insinuations that I am ignorant of history
You mean when I said you clearly aren't ignorant of history? Well, though you aren't ignorant of history, you do seem to have reading comprehension problems.
"I said "history", not "american history". What does it buy you to joust with straw men like that?"..."you do seem to have reading comprehension problems."
And I said ANGLO-American history, and I cited the Magna Carta of 1215. I also cited the standards of weights and measures in the Hebrew Bible, dating variously from c. 1500 BC to c. 500 BC. I mentioned the Constitution as one of THREE historical reference points, two of which were not American at all. Back at ya on the "reading comprehension problems.
As to this: "You don't appear to know what freedom is. It can't be 'abused'."
That is absurd. There is freedom of private property. There is freedom to keep things on private property. There is freedom to burn things on most private property. There is no SPECIFIC law, in many jurisdictions, that says that you cannot erect stink pots right next to the property line, and burn them just to be offensive to me and make my life miserable. This has always been covered under the general law of nuisance. You don't have the right to do lawful things either intentionally to vex everyone around you, nor in such a way that is grossly indifferent to the effect your actions have on everyone around you.
You have the right to a yard, and a dog. Dogs can bark, and they can crap on the lawn. If, however, you have a dog that howls all day and night, and the piles of crap from the dog that build up in a tiny yard become a stinking mess of flies and odors, there is probably no specific law in your town that says that dog poop cannot be allowed to pile up, nor that specifies certain hours in which dogs may bark. What there is, is a general law of nuisance, as old as the hills and made by judges (nuisance law comes from the Common Law, not statute, although it has been encoded in many places). And the whole thrust of the law of nuisance is not to state with any particulars the details of what you can't do, but just to generally state then what you do - lawful though it may be - once it becomes an eyesore and an offensive mess to your neighbors - is an abuse of your right of private property, and the power of the community can be brought to bear to make you stop it.
Can "abuse of liberty" laws be abused?
Of course. Telling people they cannot smoke in their own cars or homes is indeed an abuse of liberty. Telling people that they cannot burn stink pots in their yard so as to offend the neighbors is not an abuse of the abuse of liberty laws.
Freedom is a wonderful thing. But there are bad people who will exploit it to bad ends, and they cannot simply be allowed to do it. The First Amendment says freedom of the press shall not be infringed. Laws that punish child pornography explicitly infringe freedom of the press. They do so because the alternative will be more child pornography, and allowing that to go unchecked is worse than restricting the freedom of the press on that vector.
Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing. Crying "fire" in a crowded theatre, or "bomb" in a crowded subway, is an abuse of free speech so egregious that it has to be regulated. So is screaming obscenities at a teacher.
The right to keep and bear arms to defend one's self is a good thing. It cannot be allowed to extend to the "right" to erect a missile battery in one's yard on short final to LaGuardia, allowing one to cook off someday and shoot down jetliners.
The right to hire and fire people at will is a good thing. It cannot extend to the point of having the right to fire employees if they will not perform sexual services for you in addition to whatever else you hired them for. And this remains true in Nevada, where prostitution is legal. Prostitution is legal, but you do not have the right, as an owner, to impose duties of prostitution upon your office staff in addition to their filing duties.
You are arguing that you do, in fact, have the right to do all of those things unless they are prohibited by specific laws. Your argument extends further, that liberty is absolute, cannot be abused, and that laws cannot be passed to abridge it.
This is all utterly absurd, and no society would long remain peaceful if that were actually the law. What would happen, instead, is that people would become ENRAGED at the abuse of liberties by others, and given that there was no resort to law to peaceably settle the dispute, it would be settled in vast number of cases by direct violence.
Historically, we went through this period of law. It was called "fuedalism", and the days of the duel. It did not work well, at all, because physical force and the capacity to commit very effective violence are in no sense at all tied to either justice, wisdom or discretion. You don't end up having liberty at all when you don't have laws limiting its abuse. You simply have the rule of the strong, who have vast amounts of liberty and abuse it at will, over the weak, who have no liberty other than what the strong permit them to have.
I don't want to live that way.
I doubt you want to either. You just have this platonic ideal that people free without any limits will mostly be peaceable, orderly and have few disputes. This may be the case in Paradise. If men were angels, we would not need laws. But down here on terra firma, that never has worked, and never will work. The Wild West was a pretty free place, in the sense that there was little law. It was also a very unpleasant and dangerous place to live. You can experience it today, if you want to. Just go plant your homestead down in some dry gulch on either side of the Mexican border, and see how much you really enjoy living with the lawless.
Absolute liberty is not achievable among creatures dependent upon limited resources and the soil in order to survive.
This is good; by raising this issue, we can zero in on your misunderstanding of freedom. My freedom of private property lets me start fires--but it doesn't allow me to set a fire on my land that catches onto your house, because then I've violated your private property rights. Similarly, I can generate all the stink I want on my land, but I have no right to send the stink onto your land. If I can't keep my stink to myself, then you are exercising your property rights correctly when you send the police to stop my stink-bombs. It isn't a matter of "abusing my freedom"; it's a matter of infringing yours.
Earlier you stated that I'm abusing my freedom when I "affect" you, and that's why I said you don't understand freedom: everything I do "affects" you. If I date your girlfriend, I "affect" you. But in reality the limit of my rights only kicks in when I violate your rights. The stink-bomb example is a good one, and it has an informative wrinkle. If I move to new uncharted territory, and I start a homestead, and for whatever whacky religious reason, I begin burning stink-bombs on my land, can people who move to the territory later force me to stop? The answer is no: they moved into a stinky neighborhood, and I was there first. I homesteaded not only my land, but the easement to generate stink within a certain radius. It matters who was there first.
Similarly, if I store junk cars on my yard and create an eyesore, that may or may not infringe your private property rights. If I was there first, for example, you may be out of luck. But if I buy a nice property in a nice neighborhood and crap it up, then it's quite likely that you have a case that I've damaged your property rights in the view, for example. Similarly, you can stop me from building a giant wall on my property that blocks your view, if a grand mountain view was a part of your existing property. I would in fact endorse certain cases of control where you might imagine I'd oppose them.
But the deciding factor isn't whether I "affect" you. It's whether your rights are actually being infringed. You don't have the right to stop your girlfriend from dating whom she pleases, so if I date her, I haven't infringed on anything. But I've certainly "affected" you.
Which brings us back to "abuse". I can't "abuse" my freedom by killing you, because I never had the freedom to kill you in the first place. I can't "abuse" my freedom by burning down your house, because I never had that freedom in the first place. If I burn stink-bombs on my land, I'm not "abusing" my freedom: I'm infringing your property rights, which I never had the right to do in the first place. If I can keep the stink off your land, or pay you compensation that you'll accept, then I can indeed burn my stink-bombs all I want. Stink on my land is a freedom I do possess, but stink on your land is not.
(Which raises an interesting point. If I smoke cigars, and the smell goes in my neighbor's window, he does have grounds for action against me. This came up when some crazy law was passed, and Freepers generally cried fascism. It is in fact basic property rights. I have a right to smoke if I want, but I don't have a right to send smoke in your window.)
Who, how, when....etc. is missing. This is just a promotional piece for the Pacific Justice Institute as it stands now. Need some facts.
"The answer is no: they moved into a stinky neighborhood, and I was there first. I homesteaded not only my land, but the easement to generate stink within a certain radius. It matters who was there first."
To a degree, this is true.
However, if enough people move in, such that it changes the character of the area, your earlier prevailing use may become a nuisance which you might be compelled to stop doing.
See the pig farming cases from the Midwest.
Now, you probably see in this an infringement of the rights of the pig farmers. And I would agree: there WAS an infringement of their existing rights. But those rights were balanced by the rights of everybody else, and in the final analysis, lost.
Your analysis seems to be "First in always trumps." It is not an illogical position, but it is a legal rule, and law is subject to democratic revision. "First in usually trumps" is the actual rule-of-thumb, and it is workable.
Exactly as I said: you don't actually believe in private property rights. If enough people dislike what I'm doing on my property, not infringing the property of others, you believe they have the power to compel me. If I and my neighbors don't like the bar on the corner, we can shut him down--even assuming that we never have issues of drunks making themselves a nuisance on our property, say. I'm afraid that ain't right, even though it is what people often do. You can't move into an area where I've been operating coal-fired machinery for decades, and after buying a sooty house, declare that I have to stop running my factory. Conversely, I don't have the right to move into a neighborhood with non-sooty houses and start belching soot onto someone else's property.
See the pig farming cases from the Midwest.
Sometimes it's OK to own a person. See the Dred Scott case.
The correct solution to the problem is to buy out the pig farmer, not to muscle in on his property rights. But whenever a person's interests are involved, property rights go out the window and we seek to use the government as our own personal thug.
And I would agree: there WAS an infringement of their existing rights. But those rights were balanced by the rights of everybody else, and in the final analysis, lost.
In other words, you don't actually believe in freedom. You believe in freedom except when it suits your interests to impose your will on others. The difference between you and a Stalinist is only one of degree.
law is subject to democratic revision.
You are confusing law and morality. If people want to, they can vote to institute a socialist regime. Hitler was democratically elected, and the enabling acts were passed quite legally.
(NOTE: to pre-empt a stupid objection, Godwin's law doesn't apply here. nobody's calling Vicomte "Hitler". The reference proves that it is perfectly possible for a democratic body to legally enact horrific laws.)
History: Hitler's party got a plurality in Parliament, so he was Chancellor. This did not grant him the power to do the things he did. After the Reichstag fire, he staged a coup, and at that point assumed the powers to do as he did. Hitler was elected in the same sense that Napoleon III was elected. There was an election, which resulted in him occupying an office of limited powers. From that office, he staged a coup that gave him plenary power. That is not "being elected", at least not in the sense that that Nazis had a democratic election from which they obtained a majority to change the laws to press forward with their program.
The equivalent would be if, today, George Bush and the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared a national emergency, based on terrorism, proclaimed martial law, and then started issuing dictatorial decrees, gassing Jews, etc. In no sense could it really be maintained that the Americans elected Bush to do that.
The difference between me, or you, and a Stalinist or an anarchist is only a matter of degree. These things are on a sliding scale. I like timely public transport, so did Mussolini. This does not make me a fascist. I believe that there needs to be a strong national defense. So did Mao. This does not make me a Communist. I believe that there should be repression of crime. So does Kim Jong Il. This does not make me whatever-he-is.
In governance, there is only a limited range of options available. When speaking of real property, land is there, people have to live on it, and the same issues are going to come up again and again. The issue of limits will come up. When you say I don't believe in property rights, that is not true. I believe in strong property rights. I do not, however, believe in UNLIMITED property rights. Unlimited property rights is called sovereignty. I believe that a man is free in his home. I do not believe that a man is an absolute sovereign in his home. Society: the country, the state, the city, the law: these place demands on him that he must obey.
You seem to believe that freedom is the absense of law.
I think that freedom is the absence of unreasonable law, but that the absence of law is more akin to oppression.
Gee, they didn't offer him 'sensitivity training' before demoting him? I suppose if he wanted to gush on about gay marriage or paganism, that would be terrific, promotion worthy behavior.
BZZZZZZZZZZZT! Sorry, you lose, but thanks for playing. The Enabling Act which gave Chancelor Hitler dictatorial powers was properly and lawfully enacted by the Reichstag. But you already knew that, which is why you mentioned the Reichstag fire--in order to cast aspersions on the Reichstag's perfectly lawful decision to pass the enabling acts. Hoodwinked they may have been, but they voted freely without any guns pointed at their heads. Just as gas price controls, if they're passed in the wake of Katrina, will be perfectly legal even though they'll be utterly disastrous.
The difference between me, or you, and a Stalinist or an anarchist is only a matter of degree. These things are on a sliding scale.
No, not exactly. I believe that certain rights are inalienable, which means that I can't take them away from you even if I'm (1) elected, (2) starving to death, and (3) really, really eager to do so. You, on the other hand, have stated your belief that a popular vote is a sufficient basis for taking away some or all of my rights. To you they aren't inalienable; they're a gift from the government, that can be taken away at will.
I believe that there should be repression of crime.
What makes you dangerous is that you don't have an unchangeable definition of "crime". Tomorrow, selling my leftovers for more than you think I should charge might turn out to be a crime.
You seem to believe that freedom is the absense of law.
Where in the world did you get that? There should be a law that punishes murderers with death, and it shouldn't be possible to evade, change or get around that law. Rape, theft, and other infringement of personal and property rights should similarly be absolutely illegal. The government should have no power whatsoever to legalize rape or murder, and it should have no power whatsoever to illegalize my use of my property, when I don't infringe anyone else's rights. That's a far cry from "absense of law".
You think that the law should sometimes be a tool for stealing land from pig farmers, and just generally taking things that you really really want.
Nah.
I look at the world in terms of pragmatic, concrete realities.
Something you said, here, really says it all: "I believe that certain rights are inalienable, which means that I can't take them away from you even if I'm ... (2) starving to death,"
And you seem to include property rights in that list.
Well, I think that the preservation of life exceeds property rights.
You see in all of this a threat to your liberties.
I would say that you have lived in a regime of limited, but real, liberties all your life, and always will. There cannot be any absolute liberties (although the right to take what you need to feed yourself if you're starving comes pretty close, in my mind, to being an absolute right) because that then becomes a foundation for abuse, and you don't currently have any absolute liberties.
You claim you do, but this is a bare claim. De jure you certainly do not: the law does not say you do. De facto you obviously do not. And yet you are still quite free to pursue your life, at least within the limits of the laws of physical nature in most cases. You have a theoretical belief, which the world will not let you practice, of a set of rights you possess which the world cannot abridge. Which gives you a permanent source of grievance, I guess, against the world and against me, because it and I will not agree that there is any such right over which you alone are supreme and sole arbiter of its limits.
Since I am a pragmatist who dislikes theory unconnected to specific fact patterns, it would help to focus on a concrete example and stay upon it.
You used the example of the cigar smoker in his house, next to yours. I gather that you believe that if he was there first, smoking his cigar, and you move in, that you must tolerate his cigar smoke and ought to have no recourse to do anything.
I gather this because you made the same argument concerning pig farms, the offensive part of which is the odor which emanates therefrom.
So, if the cigar smoker was there first, smoking his cigars, and they drift into your house, you just have to take it.
Ditto, presumably, if his wife is a cigarette smoker when you move in. By contrast, if their son takes up cigarette smoking after you move in, you (apparently, if I understand you right) would argue that you have the right to do something to intervene legally to stop him, because you were there in a place without cigarette smoke before he started adding cigarette smoke to the mix.
So, you do at least concede that it is the law that has the power to judge these things. That you could, for example, hale the neighbor into court for smoking his cigars that come into your window, and he would have to go.
You just think that when the court hears the case, the rule that ought to bind them is that the smoker who was there before you, wins. The smoker who comes in after you, loses.
Suppose he quits smoking for a time, but then takes it up again. Does a right to cause a nuisance have to be continuously exercised or be lost? I note that, once again, to have anything be a rule at all, you have to agree that everyone at least has to be subject to adjudication. Everyone is under the jurisdiction of the court and has to answer. It's just that the law should distinguish who got there first.
Do I read you right?
Is it that a fair statement?
Or do you go further and assert that the original smoker does not even have to go to court when challenged on his smoking by a latecomer.
But if that's the case, and someone else moves in that house and starts smoking too, and merely asserts on his own that he has the right to do so, inherited from the previous owner, if he is his own judge and jury and does not have to submit to the court, how can you make him stop?
I don't see how a workable system could be drawn out of this at all.
Not a good example because its apples and oranges.
Wrong. We're talking about freedom. Freedom, and the limitations of it enter many area, including both apples and oranges.
Me: And I am not free to fire your sister because I don't like chicks.
You: This is a good example and ... why not?
1) The law.
2) Assuming your response will be that the law should not be that way, I suppose I would have to explain why it should.
I just don't have it in me. It seems too obvious. Here's what I'll say. I think that an employer should be able to fire his or her employee for almost any reason at all, including but not limited to: poor performance, attitude, dress, punctuality, backtalk, whatever, I could name 1000 more, or even for no reason.
I just don't think it's right, and I don't think it's American to fire a person for something they can't do anything about, their race or their gender.
OK, so if you're "starving", you give yourself permission to loot. That means you're a looter; just as the looters in NO didn't do any looting last week, all looters only loot when the conditions are right. And for you, stealing becomes permissible when you're "starving". Which raises a key question: what is "starving"? Do you mean, "hungry"? Can you steal food if you're hungry? No? OK, then what if you're hungry and your fridge is empty--can you steal then? No? I hoped not. OK, then: what about if the fridge is empty and the roads are all flooded. Can you rob the neighbors then? You probably would rob a grocery store (i.e., "the faceless rich"), but you wouldn't rob your neigbors. At least, if your fridge has been empty for two days, you would start to consider robbing a store. If you've been without food for a week, you might rob the neighbors.
What's interesting about that is that the hurricane is only two days old; even if these people ate nothing, most of them wouldn't be dead yet (assuming they drank water). So are they "starving" yet? Was looting yesterday bad, but today is OK? Or still not OK today, but OK tomorrow? Do they have to actually be on the brink of death first? Do you require that they apply for charity first before you will tolerate their stealing?
Most likely, you can't answer any of those questions. You believe people usually shouldn't steal, but at some arbitrary point of your choosing, you decide that stealing is OK after all. In my book, that makes you a thief--like the lady in the joke, we've established what kind of person you are, and we're just haggling about your price.
You see in all of this a threat to your liberties.
Not quite. If you're starving and I don't feed you, I'm a monster. But even if you're starving, you don't have the right to rob me. Stealing is wrong; there aren't special rules making it sometimes OK.
De jure you certainly do not: the law does not say you do.
You are mistaken: the Constitution guarantees certain rights which, de jure, can not be compromised by any law. The same guys wrote a declaration that characterized those rights as "inalienable" and "endowed by our creator". Technically, they can be repealed de jure by a Constitutional amendment, but they have not been. Laws which violate those rights are unlawful, even if they are strenuously enforced.
De facto you obviously do not.
You are correct there. Most of the bill of rights stands on quicksand now. The difference between you and me is that you're OK with that.
Which gives you a permanent source of grievance, I guess, against the world and against me...
One deals with the injustices of life, if one doesn't want to go mad. But that's not a good reason to surrender sanity by choice, and start calling injustice justice. (If you're missing the barb, I'm contending that you have done this.)
Since I am a pragmatist who dislikes theory unconnected to specific fact patterns...
Precisely what I just said: your only mechanism of coping with injustice is to decide that it's just after all. You find it necessary to adopt insane thinking in order to avoid going mad.
So, you do at least concede that it is the law that has the power to judge these things.
"The law" can "judge"? You seem to be anthropomorphosing something here. Don't anthropomorphose things; they don't like it. What's "the law's" address? How tall is it, and what kind of car does it drive? Thanks to your fallacious injection of an abstraction as if it were an entity, most of your conclusions will be skewed. Sorry.
Individuals are the only entities with concrete existence, not governments, markets, societies or "the law". People do things. When you refer to "the law", you really mean, "A particular policeman or judge, acting as my agent." To condense all of ethics into a single couplet: I have the power to defend myself and my property; and I have power to delegate my defense to an agent if he and I agree on this arrangement. A judge has power to defend my property, precisely because I already had that power. His power is really my power, delegated. On the other hand, he doesn't have the power to take away your land, precisely because I don't have that power. It's really quite simple.
The Constitution almost perfectly embodies the ethics I've just described--the exceptions being, mainly, the power to grant patents and the power of eminent domain. I can basically endorse a country actually following the US Constitution. Unfortunately, no such country exists. The difference between me and you is that I realize how badly flawed our country has become, whereas you respond to the increasingly unethical behavior of government officials by recalibrating your ethics, and declaring their wrongdoing moral.
I usually describe that as a "religious belief in the righteousness of government." Orwell's version of that is Boxer's motto: "If Napoleon says it, it must be right."
Suppose he quits smoking for a time, but then takes it up again. Does a right to cause a nuisance have to be continuously exercised or be lost?
Fair question. That's a matter for dispute resolution; for example if the house changed hands during the time I wasn't smoking, then there is a presumption, which must be taken into account, that the new homeowner had purchased a house without the smell of smoke in his kitchen. The law doesn't answer every question; otherwise there'd be no need for a judiciary or mediation.
People get fired for things they can't do anything about all the time.
"OK, so if you're "starving", you give yourself permission to loot. That means you're a looter;"
No, it doesn't.
I have a young child.
Were I in that hurricane country, trapped in the city, I would break into houses and stores to obtain water and food for my child. And the law should be such that I have committed no crime and am not subject to any punishment. After the fact, the person from whom I requisitioned the property needed to preserve the health and perhaps the life of my child should have civil recourse to ask me to pay for the materials taken, and to pay for whatever damage I did in entering the property.
That should be the state of the law, and actually, it is.
And it has been the law. It was the law when the Founders wrote the US Constitution.
That law is based on a hierarchy of values rooted deeply in both Judaism and Christianity, that life is sacred, and property, less so. Given your screen name, I assume you know this.
You have chosen, instead, a different hierarchy of values. One which places a loosely-defined concept of "liberty" above everything else. We have different values systems. You find mine threatening. I find yours unworkable.
No, it doesn't. I have a young child.
Um, yes it does. Your stated reasons for looting don't make you any less a looter. It only--you hope--makes people believe that you're a good and respectable looter, deserving of sympathy.
I would break into houses and stores to obtain water and food for my child. And the law should be such that I have committed no crime and am not subject to any punishment.
So you're a looter who believes that some types of looting should be legal, even if other types of looting are illegal. Gotcha.
And it has been the law. It was the law when the Founders wrote the US Constitution.
You'll have to show me where in the books looting was legal. Don't knock yourself out looking, though--you'll be wasting your time.
You have chosen, instead, a different hierarchy of values. One which places a loosely-defined concept of "liberty" above everything else.
You mean, I have the weird, inflexible idea that since stealing is wrong, it also isn't right? Not even sometimes when you really, really consider yourself justified in going on a robbing spree? Um, OK, I confess. I'm guilty as charged.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.