The wait and see party. There is going to be a lot to wade through in the next several years.

Well, I saw a speech from good 'ol Mitt, and he said he wants to repeal and replace. Then he continued to say he wants to do everything already in this bill, except the mandate, which pays for it. That kinda confused me.



Also, why is Mitt so against something that HE kinda laid groundwork for? Isn't the healthcare plan in Massachusetts pretty popular, and successful? I don't know, I don't follow this too closely, but Mitt seems to be coming off as a massive hypocrite (then again, what politician doesn't?).

My point was a very narrow one: that state and local governments can be bastions of corruption and tyranny even more easily than a national government can. That's it. Of course Madison still argued fervently for limited government, federalism, separation of powers, states' rights, etc.

You're rightfully suspicious of the powers of the federal government. I am too; I'm just equally as suspicious of state and local governments, and I believe Madison was correct in arguing that the tyranny of the majority is more easily controlled in a larger republic than small ones. That doesn't mean the federal government has to dominate the states. It is just an observation of the nature of republics and one of the reasons our federal system is superior to confederate or unitary systems.

If you want to argue that we should have smaller, more autonomous units of governance I would refer you once again to the Articles of Confederation, which is really what you seem to want. But as 4/5 has alluded to, within ANY autonomous governing unit there are still majorities and minorities and a process has to exist that allows for the creation of rules and laws. And even with local democracies minorities will be forced to put up with shit the majority wants to do that they don’t. The question is whether or not the rules are made through a free and fair political process (which, by our standards, the law in question was) and whether or not they violate our rights (and whether or not your interpretation is correct in some cosmic sense, it is not, and has not been, the controlling legal interpretation for several generations). But fortunately there is a right of exit in America. if you don’t like it you can always go somewhere else, right?

I agree communities need a bill of rights. I suspect my bill of rights would be larger than yours, and incorporate much of FDR’s Second Bill of Rights, which is the standard in pretty much every modern liberal democracy but ours. My point is that since you and I cannot agree, we have a political process that helps us fight out those disagreements. You win some and you lose some. I am consistently let down by my fellow countrymen and my political process. I rarely get what I want. But I cannot unilaterally impose my will upon the PROCESS (nor would I, since I am a philosophic liberal). Let us not forget that. This is a process outcome. It isn’t tyranny. This is not taxation without representation. it is majority rule. it is actually supermajority rule.

As far as that other stuff goes, like I’ve argued, economies do not consist of self sufficient individuals. We have not been in a state of nature for hundreds of years. Economies are giant systems that individuals participate in, under rules that they did not individually determine, and probably did not individually consent to. The legal structures that create and protect money and property, determine their worth and value, determine the rules and punishment for defaults and honoring contracts, research and develop the technology that makes exchange possible, regulates conditions under which people can work and buy and sell their labor, protects intellectual property, distributes the products of wealth, etc. All of this not only exists in the presence, but is part of an unearned inheritance and has attached to it obligations to the future. This is the backdrop of any basic exchange. Our exchanges exist within a system. Our ideology tells us to deny that it is there, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it exists.
There is nothing ontologically necessary about any particular element of that system. And as such its rules can be structured to encourage certain moral outcomes. You and I have different views about what those outcomes should be. We have a political system to help us navigate those differences peacefully.



The more you interact with society the more the rules apply to you because you are engaging in behaviors or having experiences that have rules attached to them. When I choose to get into my car I am suddenly bound by all sorts of laws that didn’t matter while I was sitting here. Our rules apply to the Amish if they choose to engage in the behaviors that the rules are attached to. No doubt there are some exceptions we’ve granted that are religious in nature, but we are willing to grant religious exceptions to all sorts of people, not just the amish.


Welcome to the precepts of liberalism, not libertarianism. And what we are dealing with is a change to our regulated free marketplace.



You’re not really trying to understand this, are you? This is a religious argument for you and you are basically quoting scripture.


None of this REQUIRES distribution. But none of this invalidates distribution either. These are differing conceptions of what constitutes a human right, what obligations those rights impose upon a community (and rights always come with obligations others are bound to respect), how we hierarchically rank these rights, etc.
You’re a social darwinist, LWing. That’s fine. William Graham Sumner is probably my favorite person to teach, and my students usually come out of that unit thinking I agree with him. It can be very seductive, especially since it provides both a moral and pseudo-scientific cover for greed and selfishness. I think that is an incredibly cramped, morally bankrupt philosophy. That’s fine too. We can either shoot each other over this disagreement, or we can take our case to the public, and let the better man win.

Because we live in a world of global finance capitalism, international business, and massive corporations. The Lockean small independent farmer and local businessman still exist but they started become anachronistic 150 years ago and this process has been accelerating ever since. the words still have moral weight and existential power, but they are no longer properly descriptive. Maybe that sucks, but it is still the case. And when conditions change philosophies need to change with them.

and I guess now they will...

and I guess now they will...


There is a breathlessly cavalier ignorance about the financial conditions so many people are forced to operate under that I don’t really even known how to respond to this.


There you have it folks. Littlewing. Champion of human dignity.

Sure, and no one is dismissing your right to be unhappy about this particular spending decision. But someone has to make this decision. And we can punish the people who made that decision and change the law if we collectively don’t like it. And we will have a much easier time doing this than amending the Constitution.

Yes, that is one moral position some people can choose to adopt. And our political system balanced that out against competing moral positions, and this time it lost, and no one had to get shot to settle that question, for now.



And what does harm mean?

yes, that is one possible meaning. I would suggest to you that if this is so blindingly self evident we probably wouldn’t be having these issues. Either that or we are just all pathologically stupid. If that is the case I guess it would explain why you are so frustrated.

yes, that is one possible meaning. I would suggest to you that if this is so blindingly self evident we probably wouldn’t be having these issues. Either that or we are just all pathologically stupid. If that is the case I guess it would explain why you are so frustrated.

The fact that states and local governments can be bastions of corruption and tyranny does not discount that it is easier to monitor and avoid than an ENORMOUS federal government that is a bastion of corruption and tyranny. Let alone more easily. The problem with the size and scope of our government is that it's impossible to monitor. It's impossible for the people to know what is taking place within the federal government. It's much more easier to monitor and adjust to corrupt local governments because you are closer to its actions and effects.

I'm equally suspicious of local and state governments as well. But I understand that it's much easier to change course at the local and state level than at the federal level. And here's the fact of the matter - our federal government DOMINATES the states. As Stip points out, there is no bound on our federal government.

well depending on how the laws are interpreted there are potentially few boundaries on state governments as well. The supreme court can always go back and decide that the bill of rights does not apply to states. it took them 100+ years to reach that conclusion in the first place.

what about the pages of text Hamilton wrote arguing the opposite, within the same work? And if you are going to lecture people about context at least get the author of not only the two most important Federalist papers, but what is likely the two most important pieces of American political theory, correct.

I think we're starting use the term "tyranny" and the phrase "tyranny of the majority" so loosely as to take away any meaning. Being able to better monitor state and local governments has nothing to do with being able to prevent a tyranny of the majority. The ones controlling those governments, and in turn said to be acting tyrannically, are the majority! There is no check for the minority, because the majority group has placed its interests so far above those of the minority that they have no recourse, and even if they did all they could do is attempt to get the majority to change its mind. The reason this is easier in a smaller government is because of the simple, natural fact that the smaller a group gets, the more similar the opinions will be.

It isn't that it can't occur in a national government, but it is more difficult because there are usually found more diverse opinions and it is that pluralism that prevents a tyranny of the majority from taking root. The fact that it is a larger republic, with more diverse groups makes it more difficult for any one specific opinion (specifically one that would infringe upon the rights of minorities) to carry the day. Again, it's not impossible, it is simply more difficult.

Re: the size and scope of the federal government and the relationship between federal and state governments, I agree with you.

Can someone summarize the last two or three pages? Thanks.

PM theplatypus, he can catch you up.

I disagree. I don't mean to sound as if we should be inflexible, but when we're dealing with something as fundamental as the rights of people and the optimal ways to govern in order to safeguard those rights, isn't philosophical consistency important? Obviously the specifics change, and the laws have to be flexible to ideas that would have been completely and utterly unforeseeable, but the philosophical framework should remain in place. This isn't even to say that we need to take a strict constructionist view of the Document itself, but rather the philosophy behind it: social contract, popular sovereignty, limited government, protection of minorities, personal freedoms in any case when it doesn't infringe on the individual freedoms of others, etc. I don't see why any of that needs to change.

Stop it with this false dichotomy. We don't articles of the confederation to have more autonomous state's rights. My point stands on how more localized methods of government is to the benefit of the people. The more broader you grow government, the more finite it becomes, and the more and more people are ultimately dictated to. The more room there is for people to pursue governments that suit their way of life, the larger and larger the majority rule becomes, and the smaller and smaller the minorities become, resulting in a situation where less and less people are dissatisfied with their form of government. A union of states affords more freedom to more people than Leviathan.

To claim that their is a right of exit in America is also absurd. It is exceptionally difficult to leave America for another nation. Including Canada. A union of states with autonomy is far better than than overarching continental government. Even Europeans have more freedom of movement to live in nation states that best represent their ideals than we do. It is far more equitable and fair for people to move across unions of states than across oceans to other nations.


If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it? You know, there is freedom of exit from America if that's what you really want.



But that political process has become broken as majorities of the populations are voting in their own economic self-interests at the expense of other peoples labor. It has become broken as the bounds of our constitution have unraveled into a garbled mess of law that has no accountability.



The Louisiana Purchase, the buying of Ben Nelson, the Slaughter Solution. These things aren't super majority rule. This is corrupt politics that benefits some at the expense of others - whether they like it or not. Being forced to purchase something is tyranny.



Actually, they do. Economies function on self-sufficient individuals engaging in mutually beneficial transactions with other self-sufficient individuals through the process of specialization. I won't knit-pick on your remaining paragraph, I will only say that the majority of those structures are meant to protect individual rights in the economic sphere - the redistribution you advocate violates these same rights.



But those rules are merely meant to prevent HARM to those that you are engaging in. The rules are not meant to harm one person to benefit another. You are bound by rules in your car for two reasons. 1.) You are in the public domain, you are not engaging in a private, free transaction with another private party. 2.) It is to protect the rights of those you share that public domain in.



Redistribution is NOT regulation. Someone not having healthcare is not a result of the direct actions of someone else. Just because you don't have healthcare does not mean that you have been imposed upon in some artificial manner. However, when you redistribute, you ARE explicitly harming someone else.



Scripture? I'm agnostic and anti-religious. The last thing I would quote is scripture. Not trying to understand this? Stip, I quoted you. Those things are internal contradictions with one another. You can't say that humans are ends in themselves and then bound them to something you feel is greater than themselves.


But this is why I keep asking you about the origin of debt. It is the only way you can justify redistribution in any real sense. It's trying to define why subjective viewpoints on human rights, particularly positive rights, can be imposed upon everyone against their will. Obligations ARE NOT RIGHTS! Earlier I said that positivist rights equate to slavery. Explain to me how you can dissolve this argument? If I have a right to healthcare, does that not mean that I have a right to force someone to provide it for me?



No I'm not. In fact, I find that highly offensive. I'm an exceptionally charitable individual. Just because I do not think I should be BOUND BY LAW to the care of others, does NOT mean that I'm a social darwinist. What a false dichotomy - utopia or nihilism. Typical base rate debate...



Thomas Jefferson: I fear our revolution will have been in vain if a Virginia farmer is to be held in hock to a New York stock jobber, who in turn is in hock to a London banker. The opportunities for avarice and corruption would certainly prove irresistible. - Thomas Jefferson

What you are arguing is scale. At what point does scale make all of this necessary and invalidate the 18th century lexicon?

- Why should they?

- Why should they?

Why should they bow to another man's dictate?



Well again, this goes back to inputs and outputs. You examine a person's financial status and decry its unfair to them that they must pay for medical care. But care not for the rights of those that provide it. The provider is enslaved to the poor man when other paths existed for that poor person to care for themselves.



Again, utopia versus nihilism. It's either the benevolent tyrannical dictates that protect the masses, or complete destruction of everything we know and love. People dying in the streets. You hang on your emotions while ignoring rationality. It's a banal position.



The person that has to make that decision is the individual. Not some politician.



Can't yell fire in a theater.



No, that is THE meaning. To favor progressive jurisprudence over clear meaning is some kind of etymological fallacy. Just pretend the words don't have meaning. Declare that clear words actually have some broader meaning.



We have these issues because we now look to JURISPRUDENCE before the constitution itself. What's more, is that we ignore 18t and 19th century jurisprudence and only examine the most recent cases - pretending that the 18th and 19th centuries didn't even exist.



Same as the above. We have these issues because a group of people didn't like the plain English of our constitution because the amendment process was too difficult and burdensome to impose their redistributive policies for the common good. So they ignored the clear enumerations and 150 years of previous jurisprudence and imposed their new jurisprudence. Just because they could.

That's impossible. Unless specifically incorporated the Bill of Rights does NOT apply to the states. In fact, unless specifically incorporated, none of the constitution applies to the states.

this thread has me fascinated.

go on...

We're muddying different things here. When it come to corruption and abuse it is easier to monitor, When it comes to things like tyranny of the majority and disagreeing with a form of government, it's best to vote with your feet. I see the two as independent entities of one another.

Pluralism acts to prevent tyranny of the majority? Have you been paying attention to Stip in this thread? It's a professor justifying tyranny of the majority.

Do you really think that our states are, as a total, more corrupt than our federal government?

I haven't been talking about corruption. I have no idea about states. I'm certainly no expert on state governments. I'd guess that some are less corrupt, others are about as corrupt, and others still are even more corrupt than the federal government.

Yes, pluralism acts to prevent tyranny of the majority. Stip is justifying what he believes to be democracy, you tyranny. His remedy is to vote, and that this is merely a policy issue to be solved at the polls.

I don't want to sound overly cavalier about disregarding the past either. I don't think ends necessarily need to change either, but the structure under which those ends can be safeguarded and encouraged--the means to those ends--that may need to be more responsive. I am speaking in abstractions here, which is frustrating, since I don't think this is an either/or proposition, so it will really depend on what the issue is.

I feel at this point I have nothing fruitful to add to my debate with Littlewing, and since it takes me 30 minutes align the quotes properly I am walking away.

I will say this. Social Darwinists were often quite charitable individuals, personally. Their concerns mirrored yours to a T. If you've never read What do the Social Classes Owe Each Other by William Graham Sumner I would check it out. You'll love it.