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Joined: October 16 2006
Location: FL, USA
Status: Offline
Points: 17493
Posted: January 17 2011 at 00:57
^As I said, I'm not talking exclusively about the god-related thing, but about any belief that is so engraved in a person's mind that stops him from seeing other alternatives. Maybe I choose poor words. People are free to believe in what they want. But the mind has to be released first from chains generated since one is born and is made to accept that certain things are inmutable. Like the whole concept of your life having to be in part decided by others. Only when you are free of those chains you can actually choose by yourself. And many people here have actually chosen religion, the other kind, the god-related one. I respect that. But this same freedom to choose in what deity one chooses to believe or not should also exist when the time comes to decide everything else. And when most of the choices are already done for you (or barriers built in front of you) the choice is not free. Not at all.
Joined: September 15 2007
Location: Vitória, Brasil
Status: Offline
Points: 7971
Posted: January 17 2011 at 01:02
The T wrote:
^As I said, I'm not talking exclusively about the god-related thing, but about any belief that is so engraved in a person's mind that stops him from seeing other alternatives. Maybe I choose poor words. People are free to believe in what they want. But the mind has to be released first from chains generated since one is born and is made to accept that certain things are inmutable. Like the whole concept of your life having to be in part decided by others. Only when you are free of those chains you can actually choose by yourself. And many people here have actually chosen religion, the other kind, the god-related one. I respect that. But this same freedom to choose in what deity one chooses to believe or not should also exist when the time comes to decide everything else. And when most of the choices are already done for you (or barriers built in front of you) the choice is not free. Not at all.
I respect your beliefs Caio.
hmm, I see your point, but this kind of religious zaelotry only stands in the US as a political force, in the western world. And there are so many cases of close-minded ideals that are ruining the world nowadays. . .
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19535
Posted: January 17 2011 at 08:17
JJLehto wrote:
Shame Ivan is gone....
Not sure if you're serious Joel but: I would like to ask him why marijuana should be illegal when it grows naturally on the planet. It's not made in some factory and filled with hundreds of chemicals and poisons. Same with shrooms.
If God created the Earth and everything then why are those things illegal?
Thousands of poisonous plants and fruits grow naturally, some will kill you in minutes.
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19535
Posted: January 17 2011 at 08:23
The T wrote:
Damn how did I miss this discussion? Hate working sundays...
I can't believe that people are so convinced that what the law says is sacrosanct because apparently we wrote it. I used to say things that were almost similar to this but even I reckognized laws didn't have value per se. Laws have a value when they help make protection of rights better, not when they complicate everything, create a whole subworld of danger, imprison millions of people some of which otherwise would be productive, increase violence (people will go to further extremes in order to avoid getting caught - also, the fact that something is illegal puts in the user the idea that if he doesn't "score" every chance he has it might be the last chance he ever has to score, obviously forcing him to act more irrationally), creates an entire problem for everybody, generates horrible drug cartels in third world countries that are now pretty much ruled by them (north Mexico), while people STILL GET GODDAMN HIGH BECAUSE THEY SO WANT.
.
Who will decide which law we have to obey and which not...You?
The law is there because it's the expression of the community morals and values, some are not, but individually we can't decide.
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
Posted: January 17 2011 at 08:30
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
JJLehto wrote:
Shame Ivan is gone....
Not sure if you're serious Joel but: I would like to ask him why marijuana should be illegal when it grows naturally on the planet. It's not made in some factory and filled with hundreds of chemicals and poisons. Same with shrooms.
If God created the Earth and everything then why are those things illegal?
Thousands of poisonous plants and fruits grow naturally, some will kill you in minutes.
This doesn't mean you have to eat them.
Iván
Also doesn't mean they have to be illegal. If you drink Drain cleaner it will kill you.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19535
Posted: January 17 2011 at 08:33
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
JJLehto wrote:
Shame Ivan is gone....
Not sure if you're serious Joel but: I would like to ask him why marijuana should be illegal when it grows naturally on the planet. It's not made in some factory and filled with hundreds of chemicals and poisons. Same with shrooms.
If God created the Earth and everything then why are those things illegal?
Thousands of poisonous plants and fruits grow naturally, some will kill you in minutes.
This doesn't mean you have to eat them.
Iván
Also doesn't mean they have to be illegal. If you drink Drain cleaner it will kill you.
But selling some products is illegal unless you have a determined line of work or company.
Actually, growing the Giant Hogweed is illegal in most USA and Europe.
Iván
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - January 17 2011 at 08:34
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
Posted: January 17 2011 at 08:34
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
The T wrote:
Damn how did I miss this discussion? Hate working sundays...
I can't believe that people are so convinced that what the law says is sacrosanct because apparently we wrote it. I used to say things that were almost similar to this but even I reckognized laws didn't have value per se. Laws have a value when they help make protection of rights better, not when they complicate everything, create a whole subworld of danger, imprison millions of people some of which otherwise would be productive, increase violence (people will go to further extremes in order to avoid getting caught - also, the fact that something is illegal puts in the user the idea that if he doesn't "score" every chance he has it might be the last chance he ever has to score, obviously forcing him to act more irrationally), creates an entire problem for everybody, generates horrible drug cartels in third world countries that are now pretty much ruled by them (north Mexico), while people STILL GET GODDAMN HIGH BECAUSE THEY SO WANT.
.
Who will decide which law we have to obey and which not...You?
The law is there because it's the expression of the community morals and values, some are not, but individually we can't decide.
Iván
In part T and in part I. If I were on a jury for a drug case, I would nullify so quick that the DA's face would melt.
You're not offering an argument Ivan. You offering uncertainty as a counter, which is very very weak. We have a situation where immoral things routinely become law. Your counter to a suggestion that this is not an good system is "Yeah but how else could it be?"
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
Posted: January 17 2011 at 08:35
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
JJLehto wrote:
Shame Ivan is gone....
Not sure if you're serious Joel but: I would like to ask him why marijuana should be illegal when it grows naturally on the planet. It's not made in some factory and filled with hundreds of chemicals and poisons. Same with shrooms.
If God created the Earth and everything then why are those things illegal?
Thousands of poisonous plants and fruits grow naturally, some will kill you in minutes.
This doesn't mean you have to eat them.
Iván
Also doesn't mean they have to be illegal. If you drink Drain cleaner it will kill you.
But selling some products is illegal unless you have a determined line of work or company.
Actually, growing the Giant Hogweed is illegal in most USA and Europe.
Iván
Jesus Chirst Ivan we're not talking about what is legal but what should be legal. A correct answer to anything raised in this debate is not "Well that's illegal"
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19535
Posted: January 17 2011 at 08:37
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Who will decide which law we have to obey and which not...You?
The law is there because it's the expression of the community morals and values, some are not, but individually we can't decide.
Iván
In part T and in part I. If I were on a jury for a drug case, I would nullify so quick that the DA's face would melt.
You're not offering an argument Ivan. You offering uncertainty as a counter, which is very very weak. We have a situation where immoral things routinely become law. Your counter to a suggestion that this is not an good system is "Yeah but how else could it be?"
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but a society needs laws to work, I never believed total anarchy.
If here are bad laws and there are terrible ones,. there are methods to nullify them, but while they are not nullified, we must obey them or accept the consequences.
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
Posted: January 17 2011 at 08:42
Ivan wrote:
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Who will decide which law we have to obey and which not...You?
The law is there because it's the expression of the community morals and values, some are not, but individually we can't decide.
Iván
In part T and in part I. If I were on a jury for a drug case, I would nullify so quick that the DA's face would melt.
You're not offering an argument Ivan. You offering uncertainty as a counter, which is very very weak. We have a situation where immoral things routinely become law. Your counter to a suggestion that this is not an good system is "Yeah but how else could it be?"
Yes, but a society needs laws to work, I never believed total anarchy.
If here are bad laws and there are terrible ones,. there are methods to nullify them, but while they are not nullified, we must obey them or accept the consequences.
Iván
Essentially you've just traded "anarchy" (where you've of course practiced the classic equivocation melding the political definition of anarchy with the definition meaning chaos) for despotism. That's probably fine for rich white guys or professionals like yourself, but it's really not as nice for a lot of other people.
Society doesn't need law; it needs order. The funny thing is that people don't follow the laws they don't really believe in anyway. Your crux of the law just becomes a means of punishment rather than some order establishing force.
Edited by Equality 7-2521 - January 17 2011 at 08:42
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19535
Posted: January 17 2011 at 09:03
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Essentially you've just traded "anarchy" (where you've of course practiced the classic equivocation melding the political definition of anarchy with the definition meaning chaos) for despotism. That's probably fine for rich white guys or professionals like yourself, but it's really not as nice for a lot of other people.
In first place, don't catalog me if you don't know me.
I'm not remotely rich, my friends here on PA know that I'm passing terrible economic problems, I'm about to loose the department I bought (my first department bought when I was 40) and due to my age (46) is very hard to find a stable job that would allow me to get a new mortgage for another 15 years.
Yes I look white, but being Peruvian I'm a mixture of races, including native Peruvian, a race I'm particularly proud of.
And if I'm a professional is because I broke my a$$ studying 6.5 years (that's the time we study laws in Perú) and paid for my career because my father lost the job and couldn't get another one, luckily I had the help of my mother who is an antique dealer and she started from nothing.
I lived in a country with terrorism (in daily bases), with prejudice and dictators who created terrible laws, and even when I entered in politics and protested in the streets against unjust laws (with guns pointing at us by the military who were in the power), I obeyed the laws while they existed.
I could give you a lesson of real life.
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Society doesn't need law; it needs order. The funny thing is that people don't follow the laws they don't really believe in anyway. Your crux of the law just becomes a means of punishment rather than some order establishing force.
How will you provide order without laws?
A country is not a small community where you can do that,
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
Posted: January 17 2011 at 09:33
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Essentially you've just traded "anarchy" (where you've of course practiced the classic equivocation melding the political definition of anarchy with the definition meaning chaos) for despotism. That's probably fine for rich white guys or professionals like yourself, but it's really not as nice for a lot of other people.
In first place, don't catalog me if you don't know me.
I'm not remotely rich, my friends here on PA know that I'm passing terrible economic problems, I'm about to loose the department I bought (my first department bought when I was 40) and due to my age (46) is very hard to find a stable job that would allow me to get a new mortgage for another 15 years.
Yes I look white, but being Peruvian I'm a mixture of races, including native Peruvian, a race I'm particularly proud of.
And if I'm a professional is because I broke my a$$ studying 6.5 years (that's the time we study laws in Perú) and paid for my career because my father lost the job and couldn't get another one, luckily I had the help of my mother who is an antique dealer and she started from nothing.
I lived in a country with terrorism (in daily bases), with prejudice and dictators who created terrible laws, and even when I entered in politics and protested in the streets against unjust laws (with guns pointing at us by the military who were in the power), I obeyed the laws while they existed.
I could give you a lesson of real life.
I called you a professional, not a rich white guy. That's not cataloguing you, as you've made it clear countless times that you're a lawyer.
Thanks for the autobiography, but it doesn't really address this issue.
Ivan wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Society doesn't need law; it needs order. The funny thing is that people don't follow the laws they don't really believe in anyway. Your crux of the law just becomes a means of punishment rather than some order establishing force.
How will you provide order without laws?
A country is not a small community where you can do that,
Iván
What would the size of the country have to do with anything? You seem to assuming order has to come from a central authority. Otherwise I'm not sure why the size matters.
We have a whole libertarian thread if you really want to go into it. I think it suffices to say for this discussion that most order now is created by societal conventions and personal morality, and not from government mandate.
Edited by Equality 7-2521 - January 17 2011 at 09:33
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19535
Posted: January 17 2011 at 09:50
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
What would the size of the country have to do with anything? You seem to assuming order has to come from a central authority. Otherwise I'm not sure why the size matters.
It has a lotto do.
I studied (personally) cases of small communities in the Peruvian Andes, that self regulated without participation of the Government, but as soon as they grew the problems started, because the more people in a community, the more perceptions about how a society must work.
They all had to create at least a way to decide what is the best for the community to work...In this moment, the laws started to exist, and when they created laws, somebody to enforce those decisions, a Government was formed.
Iván
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - January 17 2011 at 11:43
Joined: October 16 2006
Location: FL, USA
Status: Offline
Points: 17493
Posted: January 17 2011 at 13:33
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
What would the size of the country have to do with anything? You seem to assuming order has to come from a central authority. Otherwise I'm not sure why the size matters.
It has a lotto do.
I studied (personally) cases of small communities in the Peruvian Andes, that self regulated without participation of the Government, but as soon as they grew the problems started, because the more people in a community, the more perceptions about how a society must work.
They all had to create at least a way to decide what is the best for the community to work...In this moment, the laws started to exist, and when they created laws, somebody to enforce those decisions, a Government was formed.
Iván
Isn't it a better idea to leave those communities to self-regulate themselves than pretending that a central authority will be able to understand and best decide what is best for them? You say size becomes a problem, then the solution apparently is for just one single entity to control this entire big thing? I think that the bigger the community, the more it should be self-regulated since it becomes quite difficult to manage it from a central position.
Joined: October 16 2006
Location: FL, USA
Status: Offline
Points: 17493
Posted: January 17 2011 at 13:38
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
The T wrote:
Damn how did I miss this discussion? Hate working sundays...
I can't believe that people are so convinced that what the law says is sacrosanct because apparently we wrote it. I used to say things that were almost similar to this but even I reckognized laws didn't have value per se. Laws have a value when they help make protection of rights better, not when they complicate everything, create a whole subworld of danger, imprison millions of people some of which otherwise would be productive, increase violence (people will go to further extremes in order to avoid getting caught - also, the fact that something is illegal puts in the user the idea that if he doesn't "score" every chance he has it might be the last chance he ever has to score, obviously forcing him to act more irrationally), creates an entire problem for everybody, generates horrible drug cartels in third world countries that are now pretty much ruled by them (north Mexico), while people STILL GET GODDAMN HIGH BECAUSE THEY SO WANT.
.
Who will decide which law we have to obey and which not...You?
The law is there because it's the expression of the community morals and values, some are not, but individually we can't decide.
Iván
Well, who else can do it for me? You? The president?
Regardless of what the law say, each person in the end will be the one choosing which laws to obey and which not to. That's how it works anyway. Criminals commit crimes regardless of what law says. Maybe you have the idea that without some laws everybody would be criminals?
The law is the expression of what a bunch of legislators, usually not really representative of the middle average inhabitant of a community, think is better for the people. That you have been taught (and have to believe, for the sake of your profession) that the law is the ultimate sacrosanct expression of what is best for a community doesn't mean it actually is.
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The T wrote:
