The expasion of Government - Does it Promote World Peace?

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http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/topic/20/1371.html

Most of what has appeared in this thread should really be posted in AoLS. Comments on specific issues regarding politics should be here.

That has hardly been the experience here in the US. Under the neo-conservative movement here government has exploded in size and scope. The current regime has not only expanded the size of government, but has burdened the American citizen with huge debt. None of this has led to greater peace or stability, but has in point of fact, made the world less safe for most everyone.

A large part of this expansion is to feed the giant corporate welfare state, which includes the military-industrial complex, and favorite "projects" of the current administration.

[ September 25, 2005, 22:17: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

That is not true. This is what totalitarians would want you to believe in though. Remember what I said before, that these people feed upon false social conflicts and demands? It is exactly this I mean.
They claim the society is more complex now, and as such, they require even more money from us, and to restrict even more our liberty, in order to fix and attend these conflicts and demands.

Exactly, but what did I say about sexual harassment before? It is totally stupid to make laws against it. Why? It criminalizes a natural behaviour of males - to hit on women - in on hand; and in the other, it assumes women are infantile creatures that need the state to say a big NO to a rude guy.
You see what I mean? It all comes down to taking away autonomy from us. Normativating behaviours which should be dealt by civil society.

How? A big NO should be enough.
Hehe. Imagine such scenario: Your father hitting on your mother some decades ago - I am sorry if you dont like me to use your parents as an example, but I mean no harm, it is merely illustrative - but at that time she was not really too fond on him, and told him to look elsewhere. Ok, then lets assume they were co workers, and a few days later he tried again, but this time he was far more skillful. They go on a date, then start a relationship, after some years get married, and finally give birth to their son.
Imagine if this same woman, some decades ago, thought herself harassened, because, well, men should not hit on women
Do you see how this restricts people's autonomy? Do you see how this is an impediment to the natural fluidity of the civil society? How this paralizes the flow of people's interaction? And most importantly, do you see how this is utterly UN-necessary?

No. No one should, by the reasons I explained above. The state should not interfere in our lives like that.

Actually, the way I envision the goverment, it should be so small that the question of voting becomes irrelevant. Burocrats, as long as they have no saying in how I should conduct my own life, can get elect however they see fit. As long as I rule over my own life, I dont need the "right" to vote.

 

An employer -- believe it or not -- is not allowed to conduct himself like a horny college student and hit on his employees. Even the ones his natural desires tell him it would be fun to insert his member into. Just because a female is attractive, it is not a license for you to continually subject her to unwanted sexual advances. Believing it does would qualify you as a creep. Being a creep whom is also your employer qualifies that person as an economic nightmare. And believe it or not, attractive women want careers just like everyone else.

If you think that by ruling your own life means that you are allowed to do whatever you please when you please, you are not going to survive in the adult world. Grow up. As men we are no longer allowed to conduct ourselves in a recalcitrant manner; in the modern economic world, recalcitrance equates to uselessness, and that is a fatal flaw one cannot romanticize.

 

It can still be refuted by what I said before. I dislike many things, it does not mean the goverment should waste it's time normativating everything that annoys me.
Now that is what I call growing up - since you brought that up below. Accepting the fact the society and the people do not act the way you would want them to, and do not require the state to come over in your defense, like a small child bullied in school would do.

Where would you get this idea? I am not an anarchist - I despise anarchy. My views are more or less a traditional liberal take on society.
No one should do whatever they wish, but we certainly do not need laws that prohibits men to hitting on women; that obliges men to help their women back in home; that denies the right of parents to educate their children as they see fit; or, well you get the idea. In other words, goverment should worry about the state, not the civil society.

 

I showed that an urban woman is disenfranchised by an employer whom is continually rebuffed by her. If the government did not protect female workers from such horrible bosses, what recourse would they have other than economic loss?

Come up with a solution (that is always the hard part, isn't it?)...

[ September 26, 2005, 00:38: Message edited by: Late-Night Thinker ]

 

As a Jeffersonian, I agree in principle with what you are suggesting here. Yet, again if we use the example of Franklin, in how many places do they overlap? For instance, he started the first public lending library, first fire department, helped create and direct Eastern PA's militia, form a police patrol, and craft the first public university. Ben was the first "civic" minded American, both in and out of government during his time. No one believed more than he did that a person's merit and accomplishment should mirrior his/her success more fully and he set the example with his own accomplishments. Yet, he made a strong exception regarding the sick and the aged. It seems to me that it is not quite as cut-and-dry and we would like for it to be.

 

Sure, it is not a simple matter, and we need to draw the line somewhere.
However, the examples I have been giving for a while seem purely totalitarian measures.

 

Svy --

"Criminalize the natural behavior of males"? You trivialize the meaning of sexual harassment, by simply calling it "hitting on women". When it happens in the workplace, it goes FAR beyond that description. People's careers have been ruined, when individuals hold the committance of sexual favors over employees heads....making them a condition of promotion or salary increase. I would hope we've moved a stop beyond the caveman mentality.

 

I think men should be free to hit on women wherever they feel like - ok, the church is not a good place. If they start to get obcessive, or violent, there are already especific laws to deal with them.
Why is that women love to call everyone who is not so enthusiastic about the zillions of demands from feminists a caveman?
My question to you though is, do you need the state to answer for you? Dont you have personal autonomy enough to tell off a jerk? I mean, you could even ask your brother or husband/boyfriend to give a nice beating to a particularly insistent *******.
While things could be much more easily resolved, people tend to complicate them. Why is that?

 

This is why I bring the cavement mentality into my argument. You think beating up people is preferrable to having laws that protect EVERYONE's rights in the workplace? You think THAT's a preferrable society?

And you miss my point....it goes well BEYOND the issue of a person hitting on another. It's used to play roulette with people's CAREERS. You're lumping all "hitting on women" to be the same. It isn't. I can perfectly well defend myself or fend off any unwanted advances OUTSIDE of the workplace. It's when a boss USES that behavior....and he holds your career in his little hands. See the difference?

 

You did not notice I was joking?

But there lies the mistake in your reasoning. There is no such a law that protect everyone's right. By deffinition, a law that garantees the right of one, implies a duty to another. It always works both ways.
My preferrable society is one that a few mindless burocrats dont have the power to decide who holds the right, and who holds the duty, regarding the interaction between individuals in the field of civil society. Because, with all due honesty, it is not their business, but ours.

Yes, I see it, but I am not convinced yet. If you are not satisfied with your job, then you should pack your bags and look for another.
People should always be held responsible for their actions, and I dont think a woman that complied with the "sexual harassment" from her boss for years, have the moral right to sue him after she gets fired for whatever reason, and feels like revenging against him on that account.
You might say that is unfair? Ok, but then I will give you a different argument.
You complain bosses played roulette with women's careers, assuming they would decide their future in the company - or whatever - on the basis of their allowance, or not, to have a sexual relation with them. Dont you agree this is a bit subjective? How can you measure if your success of failure in your job, is the result of an ill intentioned boss, or your own incompetence? You cant.
How can you assure women dont play roulette with the careers of their male bosses, if they do not get promoted, having such a powerful weapon as "sexual harassment" on their side?
Notice we are not fixing this problem at all. Before we had the prettense that a male boss could sexually blackmail their women subordinates, as they held power over the future of their careers. Now the suspicion is in the opposite end. Women can blackmail their male bosses, on the account that they can always argument: "I refused to have sex with him, that is why I was fired".
Unless we assume women are more honest and thruthful than we men are, the situation has not improved a bit. We just changed the roles played. That is like chaging six for half dozen. Is that desireable?
That is why I am against the meddling of the state. Whenever they take an action to fix a "social conflict", they produce many new ones, which are, most often than not, worse than the original one.
You could always ignore the fact there is an industry of sue going rampant in the US - which is the result of "laws to protect everyone's rights - but would that be honest from you?

 

I would say that it can promote peace; I do not believe that it has been the agenda in many countries, and I believe first and foremost that the role of democratic government is to provide a certain base level of support - a minimum standard of living. In that sense, it can provide that peace, provided that the SOL isn't set too high. That is where developed nations such as the US and others run into trouble.

Internally, however, I would argue that beyond that base level, government should stay out of people's lives as far as possible. Encouraging social transformation through awareness of emerging or identified social ills, promoting social norms that are based on greater tolerance and respect for individual liberties and addressing issues that affect the aforementioned responsibility are matters which I feel any government has a duty to be active in, or at the very least, to consider and review.

Wandering ...

@ Svy,

My reading of this is that you feel threatened by affirmative action. I can understand that - sometimes it pisses me off as well. Your latest arguments, though, seem to be informed by a fear that women will blackmail men "because they can" and not on reality. Where's your evidence for that fear? Can you justify it? Believe me, as a criminologist I've seen plenty of evidence to the contrary - it's not easy getting a domestic violence or apprehended violence restraining order enforced by the cops.

Yes, affirmative action and this sort of legislation discriminates against men. That's because the existing system already discriminated in favour of men in the ways that Spelly has pointed out.

Typically, when someone seems like that sort of conniving bitch/bastard, everyone around them at work will shut them out as far as possible, make notes and save files to prove they have acted properly, and be exceptionally careful about what they're doing. That's been happening for a long, long time, and it's only recently - with the advent of such laws that you seem so opposed to - that this has been something that women could do much about.

It's not a "nature of men vs nature of women" argument; it's an issue of social structure which has, until recently, put men in positions of authority in greater numbers (for a variety of reasons, few of them conspiratorial in nature).

 

Since I am already tired and leaving, I will comment on only one part of your post, which seem to be the core of it anyway.

Isnt the industry of sue a self evident proof? People decide to sue their bosses/companies in the mere assumption that, in their own perception, they were prejudiced for unfair reasons. Sometimes they do it so because they have a distorted interpretation of the motives for their firing - or because they were not promoted, or whatever. Sometimes they do it out of pure malice.
How has these laws improved the situation? As I said, it has only inverted the roles of who blackmails, and who is blackmailed - which is always an assumption anyway.

 

It becomes very objective when a private e-mail is uncovered showing the boss saying: "Great legs...too bad she won't put out...and it's review time too." And before you continue your "you" rhetoric as in past posts -- this did not happen to me. Just a suggestion -- it might be nice if you take a more objective stand in your posts, losing the "you" in every other sentence.

As to this:

The protection principle is meant to be seen a little differently I think. While individual rights are of course part of our very being -- there is also the recognition that laws exist to not only protect individuals singly, but society as well. That means that laws seek to protect the bulk of the individuals, full well knowing that others may not agree.

 

I'd agree about the "unintended consequences" aspect of your argument, Svy - typically, that's where the worst damage occurs, irrespective of the situation. The damage can be financial, legal, social, operational, or any number of other areas.

And I thought I was cynical... then again, those without power never seek it for equality, in my experience; it is always to fight back or oppress in kind. I don't think it's quite so conspiratorial as this.

It depends on your position, I suppose. If you're the one who's had to quit your job or been fired because you won't put out, then it's great (I'm taking a gender-neutral line here, since it's possible for men to be sexually harassed as well). It means that the people who were in a position to behave so disgracefully can be dealt with appropriately.

There is a definite difference between a couple of off-the-cuff remarks and harassment; the "culture of litigation" makes something of a mockery of the concept of reasonability, but IIRC, the worst of it centres around people trying to avoid taking responsibility for being incompetent or stupid. While I don't doubt there are a few false or malicious claims, if/when they are proven false, the complainant is potentially up on perjury charges.

In the end, as I said earlier, the issue of intervention and legislation at this point is about addressing a potential abuse of power (boss over employee) rather than giving women the upper hand over men. It has to discriminate because the playing field is not level, and seniority or power should never come with a license to abuse it.

 

I'm going to do something that I don't often do, and that's chime in without going back to read the history. Not only do I not have the time, but from what I've skimmed here, I have a feeling that I'd end up rather angry.

Syv, in an ideal world you're right - government should be small. Heck, I'm a libertarian - little would make me happier politically than for the federal government to have no powers other than to provide for a national defense and interstate commerce. Government rulemaking and spending should be kept as local as possible. The problem is, as soon as you have ONE level of government, someone is going to claim that you need an overseer on top of them, than that layer expands until it needs an overseer, etc., etc.

The monkey wrench in the works is PEOPLE. Whenever two people interact, there's a power play going on. Sometimes it's very subtle and fluid and meaningless, like conversation between friends. But at other times it becomes overt and one of the people has genuine influence over the life of the other, sometimes without the other's choice or consent.

Unfortunately not every person in the world has only wholesome, unselfish motivations when it comes to dealing with others. Making sure such interactions are fair - if not equal - is the objective of law, after all (in a philosophical sense, at any rate).

 

Spellbound,

I suppose Beren was speaking to us, so I will rather send you a PM when I have the time. The same for NonSequitur. Now let me get on topic...
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Exactly! But that is what totalitarians claim and wish. We should not fall to their sophisms. If we are to fall prey to their demands, when will we stop? There can be no final and absolute power/police to overseer all the others, because there will always be claims that we need another one to make sure this one is not being arbitrary.
The only kind of power structure, or ordering that can find a satisfatory justification, is the religious, because it implies we have God, whom is, in essence, above all us, and his laws are supreme, none shall surpass.
The juridical system also emplies a similar deduction. There is the fundamental norm, which serves to legitimate all the other below it. What legitimates the fundamental norm? Nothing. It exists in order to make life in society possible, to legitimate the power of the state.
What I mean is, we should draw a line somewhere, otherwise we wont be able to come to any conclusion. However, dont you agree a liberal state is actually the best way to deal with this problem? A liberal state implies a small goverment; a small goverment implies less duties and attributions given to burocrats; less attributions given to the burocrats imply a smaller need to overseer them.
On the other hand, when it is created higher levels of goverment police, it ensues a snowball that will be hard to stop.

I agree, but that is part of life. If we are to assume interaction between people will always - or most likely - ensue a conflict that is detrimental to one part, and as a result we need to emit laws to control these interactions, the snowball will roll till we reach the Big Brother.
I guess the main point is not even this, but, how exactly some power hungry burocrats are more fitted to fix "social conflicts" than people themselves?

I agree, but the concept of fair and justice, is that all shall be treated equally. When you treat someone unequally, in order to attain equality, this is not justice, but un justice. And who decides who should be given special treatment, who exactly is not having opportunity to equality?
It seems to me it is that scenario: "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than the others".
If men were not judges of such questions, then I would give up and conceed, but since it is men who make these decisions, I guess the best we can hope is that everyone is treated equally - with no special treatment.

 

The expansion of government does not promote world peace. Instead it strips the rights of the individuals for the "benefit" of society. I am not an anti-government person, for I believe that individuals do have to sacrifice for the benefit of society, however I believe it is a fine line that government shouldn't cross.

 

I believe the government should first of all be supportive and accessorial. This doesn't mean that most matters should be handled by a reverendum or that local governments should deal with international politics but that the government should have the power to move in when there's a need. Here's the catch: when there is a need.

I don't like anarchy. We need a stable system that won't go to shards overnight. But I'll never buy any "extreme security measures" theory. Especially not when it comes from the government side. In short: if they want any more invigilation power or any more taxes, they can get bent. There's already enough. Corporations weren't so bad, although they did have some downsides that played on my nerves with a particular intensity, and neither is local government.

I suppose if we're going to have a stable system and a stable democracy, we have to start from the lowest level. That would be local governments. Wonder how many country-wide problems can be fixed by a good cleaning up in local authorities and associated circles. And up and up on the ladder until we have the central (federal or whatever you have) parliament and executive.