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So the surplus money is divided democratically between the people in the group. It is also okay that different people get different amounts based on social standing. So... what is to prevent the rise of little tyrants everywhere? And, I repeat my question: Does the group have the right to steal your house? Does the group have the right to prevent you from leaving? Who makes the laws? Does the individual have any rights and who guarantees those rights?
The group leaders are democratically elected, and can be democratically impeached, so how can they become a tyrant, you and everyong in your group votes for people they actually know, there is no voting for some idiot on tv, and additionally, the elected group leader can be removed from office by the group if the individual fails or makes the group unhappy.
The group can't steal your house. The group doesn't have the right to prevent you from leaving, in fact any constitution for such a group would have protections to encourage a certain amount of moving people between groups to prevent inbreeding.
As for laws, there would be only basic laws at the "national" level, a truly educated society doesn't fifty laws about for minor task that must be done daily, the laws would be designed around the concept of "intent and purpose of a law is important, exect wording and technicalities are not" hence having judges and juries. Basic human rights and such would also be granted at the "national" level. Changing the constitution requires acts of congress of the group leaders of every group.
Education and group "sponsered" police forces garuntees those rights, and should there actually be trouble of that sort within a group, the people of that group can ask for assitance from neighboring groups. These police forces would also be the core of the "national" military should it ever be required, with martial arts as basic education and basic militia training during "high school" the general populace can for the most part take the brunt of any unavoidable violence, with the higher trained police forces taking point.
I really am disgusted with the idea and concept of needing some other group or entity to protect the peoples interests, I rather support the idea of making every individual capable and supporting the cultural concept of protecting each other, rather then looking to be protected. It is the highest victory of those who like to dominate to have the dominated believe in the need to be protected, because psychologoically speaking, it "legitimizes" the dominator, granting the dominator greater control.
Of course the right to protect oneself and one's neighbors becomes useless to those who don't actually learn to use that right, which is one of many reasons to include martial arts as basic education and a big reason for including basic militia training in high school.
It is also why I support gun rights. Crimes get so bad because people don't use those rights, not because they have those rights.
Edit: As for making laws at the group level, those methods would be left up to each group, except that such laws must be written down and codified, then accepted by the group. The idea is that people can try a variety of things and find the ways that work and the ways that don't. Democrats could make a democrat group, and republicans could make a republican group, etc, then when those groups have problems they can be fixed without disrupting everything and making things more peaceful because the democrats can live superdemocrat like with infringing on the desires of those opposed to living that way and still providing some sort of unity of belonging to the same "nation."
The idea of a monopoly on violence is that the state only has the right to commit violence. In this, it is of paramount importance that such violence is predictable and the rules for it are simple. The only alternative so far is that each person guarantees their own safety, usually through a capacity for retribution. It... Is not a good system.
The idea of a monopoly on violence is that the state only has the right to commit violence. In this, it is of paramount importance that such violence is predictable and the rules for it are simple. The only alternative so far is that each person guarantees their own safety, usually through a capacity for retribution. It... Is not a good system.
Sis, I think if you'd said that in eleven sentences instead of four, I might agree with you. (Don't be afraid to used clear, concise language.)
Okay... We come from societies where personal threat of retribution through violence was the best protection you had against violence, theft, and so on. Some areas are still like that, such as parts of the middle east. It makes each individual dependent on family and alliances with other families for protection, and resulted in retributive murders, private justice, blood feuds, expanding violence that can extinguish entire families. Honour killings is about this as well. Another expression of this is dueling, which were typically about honour, then a life or death concept.
To avoid all this, lawmakers instituted a monopoly on violence. The state was the only actor permitted to use violence. The rules for this use are meant to be clear, and it is supposed to be easy for someone to avoid being subjected to violence from the state. I am certainly not claiming this is how things are, but it is the point that they should be. An extra point here: we typically consider an act of violence to be a crime against the state, not against the victim. That is why violent criminal acts are not civil processes. It is also why retracting the report of the crime is not necessarily enough to kill the case. This last varies some between countries, of course.
See? Was that so hard? :P
The issue becomes, here in the US, there is not a monopoly on violence. We (every citizen) have the right to bear arms. (Unless we're drawing drawing a distinction between violence and self defense? I don't think there's a difference between the two.)
There are different constructs in this. Self defense is a mitigating circumstance, typically. Note that bearing arms and using them are very different things. The system without a monopoly on violence has legal provisions for blood vengeance - the state does not get involved, so people are at least in practice allowed to use their weapons. A serious difference is if a revolution breaks out, but that situation is already outside the normal legal system.
So, yes, you do have a monopoly on violence. If someone kills your mother, you do not get to kill the murderer's mother. Nor can you initiate lethal violence, that is manslaughter or murder. What you get to do is talk to the state about it. In states where carrying firearms is forbidden, you can get off shooting someone dead in self defense and still get stuck with possession.
Don't worry Madame Sissyl, I'll protect you.
Waitaminnit, is this guy bothering you?
[Blasts the Dicemeister with his concealed Taurus Judge]
Dicemeister?
My title is Lord Dice.
(Snooty inflection.)
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The idea of a monopoly on violence is that the state only has the right to commit violence. In this, it is of paramount importance that such violence is predictable and the rules for it are simple. The only alternative so far is that each person guarantees their own safety, usually through a capacity for retribution. It... Is not a good system.
First, I was speaking to more then just violence, though there is a difference between being allowed to start violence and being allowed to end it harshly.
Second, I would allow duels, but only when properly administered by an appointed official. And could be to first blood, or death.
Third, martial and military training does a boatload more then violence, it promotes greater self control, greater emotional control (severely lacking in this US, as indicated by domestic violence crimes), and would likely reduce crimes against other individuals, because the criminal to be, knows the would be victim has training to defend themselves, thus it is a much larger risk, though these criminals would probably still commit crimes but more likely to be white collor, like embezzling. Though, since a personal lack of wealth doesn't endanger one's survival, these crimes would still drop as a major motivation for commiting them, is removed.
Despite having the right to bear arms here in the US, this effect isn't seen because it is so rare to actually see someone that you know has a gun, that you can pretty safely pick people off the street and not worry about them having any capacity to defend themselves.
Combat training also improves strength, promotes exercise, and gives the nation an extremely high militia population for incursions.
This training also gives overly aggresive kids, a place to direct and release that aggression in a reletively safe manner, which also promotes more respect amongst individuals.
Fourth, the state will only respect those it represents as long as the state can suffer consequences for not doing so, however since it is the state that administers legal justice, if the people have to administer justice to the government, then there is no legal way to do so (at least not for anything major done by the government as a whole rather then just individuals who happen to work for the government) therefore, the people must have the ability to administer that justice, for without that ability, then the people are living on the goodwill of the government, and how long that goodwill lasts will never be forever. As I said before, corruption flows to seats of power, the people must have the ability to forcibly remove such corruption. It is the cycle of nature, one cycle that we cannot allow to be broken, and removing weapons from the populace seriously endangers that cycle.
Lastly, the day to day enforcement of laws would be done by the police force of each group, likely working with police of nearby groups.
The more structured culture also gives greater ability to find and deal with such things before they reach that point, and gives another avenue for enforcement.
Second, I would allow duels, but only when properly administered by an appointed official. And could be to first blood, or death.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but at this point, we've left a democratic government well behind us, right?
Taldor will rise again!
People don't commit violent crimes because they don't think they won't run into a consequence, they commit violence because we as a culture enshrine violence as a means to problem resolution.
Knock it all you want, but violence WORKS. Thats why people use it when there's power disparity.
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Third, martial and military training does a boatload more then violence, it promotes greater self control, greater emotional control (severely lacking in this US, as indicated by domestic violence crimes), and would likely reduce crimes against other individuals, because the criminal to be, knows the would be victim has training to defend themselves, thus it is a much larger risk, though these criminals would probably still commit crimes but more likely to be white collor, like embezzling.If that logic were true, then the presence of the death penalty would promote a reduction of capital crimes. But in reality, that decrease has never happened in states where the death penalty was in force.
People don't commit violent crimes because they don't think they won't run into a consequence, they commit violence because we as a culture enshrine violence as a means to problem resolution. It even comes down to issues such as bullies, Children who go to their parents or authority figures for the problem are seen as weak. The general story resolution is to go back after some montage training and beat the bully up yourself.
Actually you misunderstand,
It is not a risk of consequences, it is a risk of failure.
Modern day, a mugger has an excellent chance of successfully mugging someone in the city. The idea behind my concept of combat training means that the chances of a mugger being successful goes down.
Criminals such as muggers, look for weak targets, they take the easy prey. Eliminating easy prey, means only the strongest predators are successful, which means less overall crime.
It is a matter of success or failure, this is why tattling to parents and teachers doesn't work. The adults can not change the past, the bully achieves success, whatever the later consequences may be (which amounted to nothing in my experience). This achieveing success is a bigger encouragement for the bully to continue, then any discouragement from punishment after the fact.
Besides, it is a sign of weakness, not of physical weakness, but of emotional weakness. Such kids shouldn't need to go running and crying because some idiot starting saying mean things. They should be taught to be of stronger mind then needing someone else to solve all their problems. And they should be strong enough of mind to not need the acceptance of others anyway. Needing only your own acceptance grants an unbelievable strength that the majority of people will never know.
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Violence,
Violence is part of our nature, to continue advancing our so-called civilization, we need to come to terms with that, give violence a proper place, and punish it when done out of the proper place. Pretending that violence can be eliminated is as bad as allowing anarchic violence. Combat training, with sparring matchs, and other similar things, gives violence a proper place, and allows the teaching of PROPER use of violence, and to teach against the improper use of it.
Besides, eliminating corruption from positions of power, usually (not always, but usually) requires violence or threat of violence.
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Seriously... why is it that every time someone gets the idea into their heads to devise a New, Better, Way of Life, they begin by ignoring the good parts of the development through history that we have had? Ideas like abolishing the monopoly on violence, removing monetary exchange, putting in death penalties for all sorts of things, setting us all back to self-sufficient small-scale agriculture...
People...
WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN THERE!!! IT F&@~ING SUCKED, OKAY???!!!???
The past was dying from starvation. The past was half of all children getting killed because of minor infections. The past was being locked down on your farm and not being allowed to leave. The past was being taxed to the last penny of what you produced that was not utterly necessary to your survival. The past was blood feuds and opportunistic murders. The past was being sentenced to death for swearing.
It was s%$*. Be grateful you live when you do, and don't long for the past. It has little you really want. And for the love of whatever you consider holy, do NOT try to push others into your nihilistic little authoritarian utopia.
So there's this economist by the name of Steve Keene who basically wants to completely rewrite our economic model and make it more empirical. He really takes to task the entire neo-classical economics hierarchy. I can't claim to understand the mathematical nuance behind his work (yet, hopefully by the time I graduate with my econ degree I'll have my head around it), but he says a lot of stuff I like.
I'm putting this here largely for Anklebiter who I know is trying to give himself a crash-course on economics, but I encourage everyone to watch the interview. He's actually fairly charismatic as well, outside of his normal element of charts and graphs. For an economist anyway, which might not be saying much.
What I think you're saying there, LazarX, is that there's no point in ever disagreeing with orthodoxy.
I can't disagree more.
A lot of Keen's recommendations, like abolishing debt, are getting more and more mainstream traction. Do I think it will happen? I really have no idea, but the point of a science (or social science) ought to be making models that reflect objective reality, not going along to get along.
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Seriously... why is it that every time someone gets the idea into their heads to devise a New, Better, Way of Life, they begin by ignoring the good parts of the development through history that we have had? Ideas like abolishing the monopoly on violence, removing monetary exchange, putting in death penalties for all sorts of things, setting us all back to self-sufficient small-scale agriculture...
People...
WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN THERE!!! IT F$*&ING SUCKED, OKAY???!!!???
The past was dying from starvation. The past was half of all children getting killed because of minor infections. The past was being locked down on your farm and not being allowed to leave. The past was being taxed to the last penny of what you produced that was not utterly necessary to your survival. The past was blood feuds and opportunistic murders. The past was being sentenced to death for swearing.
It was s%!+. Be grateful you live when you do, and don't long for the past. It has little you really want. And for the love of whatever you consider holy, do NOT try to push others into your nihilistic little authoritarian utopia.
First, there is a police force, training everyone on martial arts is not about teaching them violence, most martial arts were practiced by pacifist monks for a reason.
The police have a right to violence, where as the people have a right to complete self defense, that does not include retribution.
As for the past, we have technology now, we don't need to group together for survival anymore because technology removes most of the man power requirements.
Going small scale doesn't imply lack of communication and trade. But social structures are more stable at small size groups then large ones.
I promote health, and in fact basic education would include health, first aid, and nutrition classes. No one is prevented from leaving, and in fact are encouraged to float around a bit to maintain a variety in the gene pools. There are no taxes because the bills are already paid. The past was filled with 95% of people being uneducated peasents who were incapable of survival on their own, my idea gives education to everyone, an education that is more definitive, useful, and complete then modern elementary school.
A monopoly on violence can take one of two forms, the first form, legal, is good and helps maintain peace, the second form, practical, is bad as it allows anyone in charge to do as they wish with absolute impunity.
I am not removing monetary exchange, I am simply making it for luxuries, while giving the essentials to everyone.
I never specified what I give the death penalty for, but pretty much, if someone can be usefull to the community, then don't kill. But if they commited cold murder, or can't be useful to the community, or are a continuing danger to the community, then kill or banish them. No point in wasting resources on something that will never give a return to the community.
So death penalty yes, but not excessively.
Lastly, who said every group is an agricultural group? You could have the Ford motors group who make vehicles and sell them to other groups and make their entire living from that. True self sufficiency is something to be encouraged at any scale, but really was refering to things like solar panels for water heating, wing turbines , or other environmental power sources that could run a group without needing to suck dry the central power grid, those kind of things. I never intended that each group would be completely independent and cut off from everyone else.
Any other concerns that I missed?
LazarX you have THE most defeatist attitude I've ever encountered.
I was not talking about just you, DLH. Is the local group going to have the right to decide if "someone is not going to give a return to the community?"
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So there's this economist by the name of Steve Keene who basically wants to completely rewrite our economic model and make it more empirical. He really takes to task the entire neo-classical economics hierarchy. I can't claim to understand the mathematical nuance behind his work (yet, hopefully by the time I graduate with my econ degree I'll have my head around it), but he says a lot of stuff I like.
I'm putting this here largely for Anklebiter who I know is trying to give himself a crash-course on economics, but I encourage everyone to watch the interview. He's actually fairly charismatic as well, outside of his normal element of charts and graphs. For an economist anyway, which might not be saying much.
Interesting, but it seems like a temporary solution to me. I think we need to remove money as the driving force behind life. Money doesn't make the world go round, but those in power want you to believe that because that concept makes their power grow.
What really makes the world go round is the creation, distribution, redistribution, and consumption of resources. Money is just a substitute resource so we can pay debts without giving away the things needed to survive or the things that have sentimental value, and truthfully, money is no longer backed by anything of value, and thus no longer represents anything other then debt.
Money isn't backed by anything beyond the government's ability to make good on repaying the debt represented by that money.
Keene probably has the most likely to be accepted solution to the economic crisis, but this solution is temporary, and shaky. Any solution where you need some entity to objectivly, unnaturally, and abstractly, restrict the natural tendencies of other entities will inevitably fail eventually.
I'm putting this here largely for Anklebiter who I know is trying to give himself a crash-course on economics, but I encourage everyone to watch the interview. He's actually fairly charismatic as well, outside of his normal element of charts and graphs. For an economist anyway, which might not be saying much.
Thank you. I probably won't start my crash course until the summer, but I'll watch this before then.
In the meantime, country music.
And more country music because I forgot to post one yesterday.
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*hasn't clicked on a single country music link yet*
I'm sure you're not the only one.
Consider them... bubbles. But I actually clicked one. Then I understood it really WAS country music. :.(
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Money was created so that people could trade for things without having to make change for a cow. It's worked amazingly well for it's purpose since then.What really makes the world go round is the creation, distribution, redistribution, and consumption of resources. Money is just a substitute resource so we can pay debts without giving away the things needed to survive or the things that have sentimental value, and truthfully, money is no longer backed by anything of value, and thus no longer represents anything other then debt
Plus much more portable
how can a commie be such a fan of country music? much of it is about working hard to take care of your own and being self reliant, aren't those the opposite of the commie ideal of conformity and working for the collective?
Yes, as we can all tell from my behaviour on these boards, conformity and borgism are valued communist ideals.
I haven't clicked on any of your links, Doodlebug; any Bering Strait in there?
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how can a commie be such a fan of country music? much of it is about working hard to take care of your own and being self reliant, aren't those the opposite of the commie ideal of conformity and working for the collective?Yes, as we can all tell from my behaviour on these boards, conformity and borgism are valued communist ideals.
Nobody said anything about borgs, it is a matter of working for self and family vs working for others which is the definition of communism.
Pfft. What do you know about communism? You can't even link.
I haven't clicked on any of your links, Doodlebug; any Bering Strait in there?
No, no Bering Strait. But the last one was funny--it was Guy Drake doing "Welfare Cadillac."
Hmm, since nobody likes country except me and Citizen R., hmm, well, how about some disco?
Pfft. What do you know about communism? You can't even link.To each according to need, from each according to ability. is that not the core of communism?
Assuming for a second that you know things that are true, why would it have any effect on my love of country music?
and country
Link 1
Another classic
Link 2
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Assuming for a second that you know things that are true, why would it have any effect on my love of country music?Pfft. What do you know about communism? You can't even link.To each according to need, from each according to ability. is that not the core of communism?
Country music fans as a whole are not fans of others running with the fruits of their labors and country music tends to espouse self reliance and hard work, not taking from others. its like finding out the pope listens to gangster rap, it just feels wrong somehow