In all seriousness, I think I'd personally peg the United States as LN.
I argue for the US being TN. We've got a CN populace being governed by a LN government which is run by Truly Stupid (TS) officials.
I argue for the US being TN. We've got a CN populace being governed by a LN government which is run by Truly Stupid (TS) officials.
Impostor!
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In truly chaotic societies you are subject to arbitrary violence, seizure of your property, and so on, without recourse. No one values that. Being able to stay up past ten o'clock doesn't mean you have a chaotic society. At best you would CG as one of these imaginary anarchic communes where there are no laws and everyone somehow lives in harmony - but places like that don't actually exist.
And, let me get this right - the headcutters of ISIS are more lawful than the US? I don't know why I'm bothering to reply to someone who can seriously imply that.
Yes. Just more evil. (Assuming they're actually obeying their own rules and not making up arbitrary crimes to punish people for.)
All societies have rules. Of the Good ones, more chaotic ones place more value on individual freedoms and on justice over letter of the law. More lawful ones value tradition, structure and making the laws cover more and more edge cases so you don't need to make exceptions to reach justice.
At least that's how I see it.
Americans really make me laugh sometimes. Your society is not really that different to western Europe in organisation, yet you have this notion of yourselves as being so much more "free" than everyone else (and by implication Chaotic). Yet the vast majority of Americans live in urban communities, with all the municipal services and organisation implied by that. It is a technological society, with all the sophisticated supply chains and organisation that go with that. You have one of the largest bureaucracies in the world, with a vast number of regulators for many activities at both federal and state level. You have a large, powerful armed forces. You have law enforcement agencies at federal, state and municipal level and the same for your courts system. Your taxation system is byzantine. Your politic operates at multiple levels.
America is one of the capitalist countries on earth. As I said above, capitalism requires the rule of law, and effective justice system, and enforced property rights. Capitalism is most definitely NOT the law of the jungle as it is often portrayed, it requires an effective governmental system in which to operate. In other words, it is a construct of a lawful system. There is a bit of a disconnet between all you "whoo Chaos!" types and the system you actually live in.
Moreover, the freedoms in the US are also set out in specific detail in various constitutional documents and elaborated upon in reams of legislation. A significant proportion of the founding fathers, and in particular the people who drafted the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, were (I believe) lawyers. So your freedoms are framed in a specifically legalistic way and are, in any case, also strictly limited. You cannot, for example, kill someone just because they have annoyed you in some way, or because the happen to be a different religion, without some expectation that you will have some element of the law enforcement agencies on your case.
Moreover, the things you can do in the US are not all that different to the things you can do in western Europe. I'm trying to think of something you can do that is radically free compared to here in the UK. The best I can come up with is the right to bear arms, which is considered to be a pretty dumb freedom here. However, it is also the case that Switzerland has a high level of gun ownership, so it isn't unique (and Switzerland isn't exactly the most chaotic place out there either).
You notion that having your own rules somehow makes you lawful is frankly laughable. If those rules then change when it becomes convenient, it's just another form of arbitrary. Lawful isn't a state of mind, it is a system - at least in the context of what the OP's question was about in what makes a society Lawful Good. It takes much more than good intentions.
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The US people seek justice, yet don't like the justice dished out by the courts.
The people try to bend the laws to their desires instead of what the laws were created for.
The people use laws to subjugate others by making those who work hard for their money to forcefully give money to the lazy people.
The people run their big businesses to cut govt. corners and ethical corners for the bigger buck.
The US is NOT LG, not the society and not govt.
Th basic problem is that the OP's question is basically faulty. Alignment isn't simply like that when applied to people, and applying it to a whole country is even more fraught with danger. Any conclusions would be extremely debatable, at best. RPGs are not real life.
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^Actually, the basic problem is not with the alignment system, but with the fact that the US has an unusually high level of cognitive dissonance, which wreaks havoc on alignment detection algorithms.
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Thinking about this on the way into work this morning, I came to the conclusion that you simply can't apply the alignment system to societies in this way. You can generally only express a totally "chaotic" approach to life - freedom to worship, freedom to love, freedom to pursue an ideosyncratic lifestyle - in a modern western-style nation because it is only with advanced societies - democracy, the rule of law - where your rights to do such things are defended by the state. But the very existence of a strong state that can both defend and serve the individual while maintaining the level of accountability to avoid becmong despotic implies a high level of lawfulness - legal protection - as the law must apply equally to those at all levels of society.
On the flip side, in a society where such legal protection does not exist, you are much more likely to be punished for being different, individualistic and "chaotic". More primitive societies do not value the rights of the individal anything like as much as western-type democracies do. So even though you may not have the edifices of law, in fact your ability to express yourself differently will be prosribed by the society you live in. You are probably much more likely to suffer arbitary violence and other sanction, without recourse, for trying to do so. See ISIS as an example, but there are loads of others.
So, in other words, you can only be genuinely chaotic in a law-based society. The paradox of which basically makes the alignment system pretty useless for describing societies.
You can close the thread now - I've found the answer.
Aubrey I would be OK with your assessment, if a majority of its peoples and business find ways to break the laws if they can get away with it. Its why we are some of the worst drivers in the world.
Sure we have regulations on businesses, but that only applies to those who don't pay off their corrupt politicians.
Speaking of corrupt politicians, they can get away with many broken laws as long as they can continue to bribe their constituants with pork barrel spending.
We put criminals in jail for 20 to life, yet they get out after serving 5. We have people who should be criminals, but because they are movie stars or sports players, they can get away with anything but murder. But their fans still love them and excuse them away.
We dont keep the sanctity of marriage, when 65% of marriages end in divorce because of infidelity.
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Majority of people and businesses breaking the law? I expect we have all done speeding at some point but I don't see that as moral decay. And try driving in India if you think American driving is bad, or in lots of places in the Third World where road-based mortality is far higher than in the developed world. Or maybe Honduras, with its astonomical murder rate. I also think it is unlikely that there is a lot of corruption in the regulatory systems (incompetence is a different matter) since blatant abuses would be noticed. Again, maybe consider Russia, where the tax police are used as a way of crushing political dissent and destroying livelihoods. As for corrupt politicians: vote to get rid of them - you have the rights and abilities, unlike a lot of other places.
And I always get uncomfortable when people think they can second-guess the courts - they have legal barriers like reasonable doubt to ensure that its not too easy to deprive someone of their liberty - which is a good thing since that is a big deal, and I certainly wouldn't want to be locked up on flimsy evidence. Maybe sometimes the guilty do go free, but that is the price of freedom at a certain level. I don't see it as a problem with the system as such, nor is it obvious evidence of corruption in the US court system (unlike, say, Indonesia and lots of other places) nor are they a tool of the regime like they are in some other places (China, Russia, and lots of others). And I'm also not aware that infidelity is a crime except in some very repressive places.
I'd say most of what you said was basically untrue, or at best a very partial interpretation of the evidence. Sure, there will be exceptions - and oddly, people hear about them through your free press. If there weren't exceptions we wouldn't need laws and law enforecement. You seem to expect perfection, but then again people aren't perfect - that's why we need laws that are enforced and democracy. But overall I think you are failing to see the wood for the trees - the reason the US is extremely prosperous is due to the general successes and robustness of the system that works in general. There are many much worse places to live.
Because of my time spent in the armed forces, I have been pretty much all over the world. I understand the differences between my country and others. Our constitution was completely Ignored by our current President. When leader can break our founding laws and then be r3-elected. We are rotting. Speeding at some point? The speeding is constant. You take those same Indian drivers and put them in America and make sure they know the rules and laws they will not be the ones in the accidents. Their driving capability is far superior to ours.
Our free press was bought and now have their own agendas. They no longer serve the truth. Just more fabrications.
Maybe at some point in the past your analysis would be correct. But not today. Our country is on the brink, and if changes are not made, we will no longer be so great.
As far as how wealthy we are, China owns us.
Just because a country has laws, does not make it lawful. If not chaotic, I would go with Neutral.
You don't have to buy it. My experiences tell me different. Go ahead and make your judgements, especially from your position.
The fact that America is generally a good place to live, work and invest suggests it is probably a lot more lawful than that. Real chaos would be somewhere like Somalia.So...LE then? ;-)
I'm not even joking when even in my teen years I've always viewed the US as a Lawful Evil society. Even more so now as an adult.
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The Puritan colonies in 17th century New England would be a good example of a lawful good society.The Quakers would peacefully disagree.
The Massachusett probably would too. Well maybe not peacefully.
I am well aware of the witch trials and the Quakers that were hung. And that Rhode Island was where most of the puritan outcasts moved.
People who believe themselves to be good and righteous, acting as God intended, don't have to worry about their conscious. They know they are in the right. With their actions already justified under God's law, they have little need for tolerance of other points of view.
Thus my comment: not that we would want to live there.
We put criminals in jail for 20 to life, yet they get out after serving 5. We have people who should be criminals, but because they are movie stars or sports players, they can get away with anything but murder. But their fans still love them and excuse them away.
We dont keep the sanctity of marriage, when 65% of marriages end in divorce because of infidelity.
Source for that last? Best I can tell, even the widely quoted "50% of marriages end in divorce" is fiction. Maybe closer to a third.
And obviously not all divorces are because of infidelity.We also do put criminals in jail for life for ridiculously small crimes (three strikes laws). Some do walk when they should be convicted. Many also are convicted (or accept a plea bargain for fear of a much harsher sentence) when they're innocent. Given the ridiculously high percentage of the population in prison, the problem with our justice system isn't that we're not locking up enough people.
I will try to find it, but from the top of my head I'm thinking it was from an artcle in a magazine at the doctors office. Its possible it was referring to christian marriages, although I think it was the states in general.
There were a minute # of slave owners who treated the slaves with respect. Even friends. The slave owner worked the fields with the slaves and were truly only slavers because that was only way to save them. They educated their slaves which was against the law. If you called that slavery would you call it evil still.I've got some swampland for sale. I have a feeling you might be the buyer I have been looking for.
I'm glad that you addressed this. This is typical right-wing revisionism to put forth the idea that "Hey! American Slavery wasn't that bad! See another thing that these silly negroes cant complain about anymore!"
There may HAVE been an arrangement or two like this. But the vast majority of them were the other type.
Because of my time spent in the armed forces, I have been pretty much all over the world. I understand the differences between my country and others. Our constitution was completely Ignored by our current President.Do you want to cite specific examples, or are you just taking your mind programming straight from Rush Limbaugh and the clowns at Fox News?
Just because you may disagree with a politician does not make his actions automatically unconstitutional.
Rush, and the Fox news just like the other news outlets have their own agenda. They will equally portray only their side of the story.
He created a law(cant remember which one), skipping entirely the legislative branch.
I think people here have a very different definition of what "good" is or how "good" works than I do.
Selling yourself into slavery isn't exactly what you'd call "good". How bad did things have to get for a person to sell themselves as chattel? If you are slave to a master can that master beat or rape you with impunity? As a slave do have any rights? More importantly, as with here in the US, how much of those rights ACTUALLY protect you and how much of those protections aren't worth the paper they're printed on?
A "good" outcome would be someone apprenticing that person in a trade or skill so that they could eventually sustain themselves again. There are always going to be lazy screw ups who don't want to do anything and leech off of the populace but I believe a fair amount to the people want to EARN what they want.
But Good? Just like Evil has to be an active thing. You have to be ACTIVELY doing something to promote (don't know if that's the right word in this case...) "Good" or "evil". Thinking good thoughts isn't cutting it. Thinking evil thoughts isn't cutting it.
The very notion of owning another person whether it's against their will or voluntarily is abhorrent to me personally but no matter how many times I hear it, I'm always surprised by the matter-of-factly way people discuss any type of slavery.
Because of my time spent in the armed forces, I have been pretty much all over the world. I understand the differences between my country and others. Our constitution was completely Ignored by our current President.Do you want to cite specific examples, or are you just taking your mind programming straight from Rush Limbaugh and the clowns at Fox News?
Just because you may disagree with a politician does not make his actions automatically unconstitutional.
Rush, and the Fox news just like the other news outlets have their own agenda. They will equally portray only their side of the story.
He created a law(cant remember which one), skipping entirely the legislative branch.
No. He didn't. Administrative rules, sure. Executive orders, yes. But all presidents do that.
He didn't create a law because he can't. If it's not passed by Congress, it's not federal law. That's a matter of definition.
You're going to need a lot more than "can't remember which one" for evidence here.
He started the enforcement of his "law" without waiting for either the legislation or judiciary.
I will try to find it. He did it under the guise of an executive order that fell within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch.
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Look, the current PotUS is a total clown, but he's not doing anything his predecessor (who, btw, was also re-elected) didn't also do. And both of them routinely get away with stuff that would have given Nixon wet dreams.
Look, the current PotUS is a total clown, but he's not doing anything his predecessor (who, btw, was also re-elected) didn't also do. And both of them routinely get away with stuff that would have given Nixon wet dreams.
No disagreement
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You don't have to buy it. My experiences tell me different. Go ahead and make your judgements, especially from your position.
Fair enough.
Though I get the impression the basic intent of this thread was maybe to slag off the US rather than discuss ethics and morality as such. I think it's a bit sad when (some of) the people who live in one of the beacons of the free world can't see the advantages they gain. No country is perfect, but there are some truly awful places to live, run by absolutely awful people who have no checks to their predations. And as a consequence their peoples suffer misery. They make the problems in the US look like pretty small beer, and anyone banging on to the contrary probably needs to gain a sense of perspective.
Oh, and the D&D alinment is system is a truly useless way to analyse a country.
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Look, the current PotUS is a total clown, but he's not doing anything his predecessor (who, btw, was also re-elected) didn't also do. And both of them routinely get away with stuff that would have given Nixon wet dreams.No disagreement
Agreeing with Kirth. Nuff said.
I will try to find it, but from the top of my head I'm thinking it was from an artcle in a magazine at the doctors office. Its possible it was referring to christian marriages, although I think it was the states in general.We put criminals in jail for 20 to life, yet they get out after serving 5. We have people who should be criminals, but because they are movie stars or sports players, they can get away with anything but murder. But their fans still love them and excuse them away.
We dont keep the sanctity of marriage, when 65% of marriages end in divorce because of infidelity.
Source for that last? Best I can tell, even the widely quoted "50% of marriages end in divorce" is fiction. Maybe closer to a third.
And obviously not all divorces are because of infidelity.We also do put criminals in jail for life for ridiculously small crimes (three strikes laws). Some do walk when they should be convicted. Many also are convicted (or accept a plea bargain for fear of a much harsher sentence) when they're innocent. Given the ridiculously high percentage of the population in prison, the problem with our justice system isn't that we're not locking up enough people.
This isn't helping your case.
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Look, the current PotUS is a total clown, but he's not doing anything his predecessor (who, btw, was also re-elected) didn't also do. And both of them routinely get away with stuff that would have given Nixon wet dreams.
Disagree with the first, agree with the remainder.
Alignments don't map onto the real world like that. In DnD/PFRPG/whatever, alignments are objective properties of people, things, acts, etc. They'er just as much a part of a person as height or weight. In reality, however, "good" and "evil" are subjective value judgments that we make on an individual or cultural level about those sorts of things, and as such only exist in the abstract.
I do believe that American society is under strain, but it's not about marriage rates, or who is marrying who, or who's fooling around in the bushes. It's about the increasing lack of ability to be civil to each other, the lack of respect for shared public spaces, but most of all the inability to disagree in a civil manner. In other words it's no longer "I disagree with you", it's become "You're wrong! and you and your family should die in a fire!"
Now this I can get behind.
It's about the increasing lack of ability to be civil to each other
Lemme stop you here for a second. Do you remember the '70s? I do. Being civil to one another is NOT something that decade had going for it; on the contrary, people for the most part seem a lot more polite today than they ever did then.
And in the '50s, people didn't just say "you're wrong" -- they brought you up before the HUAC, branded you a Communist, and blackballed you from employment.
Go back a couple hundred years, and gentlemen didn't just disagree over politics; they shot each other.
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There is such a thing as too polite and too politically correct.
Nonsense. Finding a way to insult someone within the strictures of politeness and political correctness is great mental exercise.
When I say sanctity of marriage, I am speaking of when two people enter into a social and legal contract that besides everything else, they will remain in a monogamous relationship with one another.
Ok say it is Christian Marriages. , for a group who claims love and forgiveness, and doing the right thing. The number of weddings that end due to unfaithfulness is pretty bad.
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I concede
Without my sources, it is hard to state information without it being hearsay or rubbish. Its irresponsible of me to throw out numbers I can not back up. My apologies.
Though I get the impression the basic intent of this thread was maybe to slag off the US rather than discuss ethics and morality as such.
This is false. I didn't really get on a soap box until post 188 or so as a response to something you said. In fact I was ready to be done when I said "I think we have concluded that a lawful good society is a fantasy" around post 90 or so.
I am honest about my intentions, I find it inappropriate for someone to suggest something about someone you know nothing about.