The way to show government should intervene into personal lives

[BananaStand]

I have never stated otherwise. I don't know what you've read that indicates to you that I would disagree with this statement.

Are you joking?? How about this..

There is no objective purpose for governments.

Or this..

The purpose is what it SHOULD do, which is perfectly subjective

No [the gov't doesn't need to have conviction in it's founding principles]]

Wrong. Just.....wrong.

When America declared itself a country...we didn't do so by saying "these opinions are pretty popular". We said "these truths are self-evident....."

"Truth" is not a noun that describes something subjective. That word was used on purpose, for a reason. It's important.

The process to amend - that means change - the constitution is described within that document. You may bother to read the document, before you insist you know what it is.

I'm well aware of that process, as I stated in post #55. However, just because the constitution can be changed, doesn't mean that it's defining principles need to be compromised. We amended the constitution to end slavery, because it is consistent with our values of equality. We amended the constitution to allow women to vote, because it is consistent with our values of equality. We amended the constitution to outlaw booze, then changed our minds because we realized the mistake. Outlawing booze is NOT consistent with our values of individual freedom.

If you were good at reading comprehension, you'd see that in the past I've argued in favor of changes to the 2nd amendment. The intent of the second amendment was to facilitate an uprising in the case of an oppressive government. That was ok when wars were fought with slingshots. Now, the US military can shoot you dead from outer space. So it's not unreasonable to think that the principles behind the second amendment are obsolete.

I get that the constitution can be changed. But there are hard and fast rules in there that prevent it from being changed in ways that undermine the values on which the country was founded.

If that's NOT the case.....then why bother changing the constitution at all? That would mean it's not worth the paper it's written on.

Now I realize there are examples of government actions that defy the principles of individual freedom. Maybe you've heard me railing against seatbelt laws. I also mentioned prohibition a few minutes ago. The individual mandate contained in Affordable Care Act was presented as "not a tax". But when subjected to constitutional scrutiny, it was decided that the mandate, as presented, was not legal. The government telling you how and when to spend your money is not in line with America's values emphasizing individual freedom.

However, the mandate was ultimately allowed because the judges chose to do some logical somersaults that resulted in the mandate being described as a "tax". And levying taxes is completely within the powers of the government.

So yes, I can definitely see how governments can sometimes act in ways that seem to defy their guiding principles.

Such defiances can be categorized as...

Judicial activism

And it's really really really bad. I think this is where we disagree. You seem to be saying that judicial activism is ok. It's not.

How is this word and/or its definition relevant to anything we're talking about?

Hmmm...maybe look up the definition and then decide if you want to re-ask this question.

Are you implicitly stating that every conviction is an unnuanced moral good?

I'm saying that a government can't be effective if it doesn't have conviction in a guiding set of principles. I'm saying that compromising those convictions is always going to be wrong. Individual freedom was undermined with the passing of the ACA. The justification was 'popularity'. The SCOTUS held that the election of 2008 was a referendum on universal healthcare, and universal healthcare won. So the court took it upon themselves to find a way to justify the law. I'm not using quotes on that because I dont' have the exact source. But I didn't make that up, that's the message that was conveyed by SCOTUS at the time.

That's BAD governmenting. That's a government using it's power for something OTHER than it's objective purpose.

If you think that's ok, I really don't know what to say. You must just really like having the government think for you. Keep voting democrat.

Doesn't that really put blinders on the learning process?

NO!! Not at all. If that were the case, then we wouldn't have civil rights, or women's suffrage. "learning" doesn't mean compromising your values.

I'm becoming more than a little concerned at the fact that you're an educator

You still aren't listening to my points. Read above to see that I'm not arguing the existence of the Constitution is subjective. I'm arguing the impetus to follow it is subjective.

What you're describing is a poor execution of government.

You're claimed refutation was based on a logical fallacy and you have therefore contradicted only yourself.
If your goal is to disprove Boost, then you need to take another shot at it.

Boost said that distaste for a government action should prevent the government from taking that action. I said "what about taxes"?

What's complicated about that?

I suggest you stick to your own statements. There's enough garbage in there to argue about. If Boost has a question, he knows how to find me.

You keep trying to refute points no one has made.

False. Again, it's my understanding that your only point is that it's ok for governments to compromise it's stated values when doing so is popular enough. I refute that. If you're gonna do that, then you don't really have values. And I don't see how a government can function without a fundamental set of guiding principles.

The only exception to that would be if the values can be rendered obsolete. An example is the case of the 2nd amendment protecting the rights of citizens to facilitate and armed uprising. But those examples should be extraordinarily rare.

And yes, popular will can and should dictate the day to day functions of government and the overall direction of policy. But none of that means that we ever have to compromise or lose conviction in our core values of individual freedom, equality, and opportunity.

I am an educator, and I deal with far more petulant and stubborn students on a daily basis.

Ugh....massive eye-roll. This is probably a topic for another thread, but I've had it up to HERE with teachers bitching about how hard their job is. What's wrong, 185 days a year isn't enough time off? Full time salary and benefits for a part time job is stressing you out??

You have yet to sensibly understand anything I'm saying

I think you're confusing a lack of understanding with a refusal to agree with what you're saying. I totally understand what you're saying. You're saying that people, subjectively, can change the functional aspects of government to suit the needs of their society. Obviously, that's true, cuz democracy is a thing. I can't imagine why you would think that I think otherwise. And if you really believe that I'm sitting here, making an argument so insane as to deny the existence of democracy.....then joke's on you for arguing with me. What would you be hoping to accomplish in that situation???

What you're failing to sensibly understand is that subjective changes to government need to be guided by objective core principles. Seat belt laws fail to follow this guidance. As such, they are a perversion of government. At best lawmakers were negligent in respecting core principles, at worst lawmakers were corrupted by special interest.

It doesn't matter that seat belt laws are popular. It doesn't matter that seat belt laws keep people safer, healthier, and therefore cheaper to keep alive. Those cost savings for society, no matter how much they amount to, don't matter. It has already been objectively decided that individual freedom is a core principle of America's government. Having conviction in that core principle means its priceless. Which means in terms of value, it will ALWAYS be greater than something quantifiable. That's why Boost's equation fails. It doesn't account for things that are priceless.

your repeated changing of the subject and insisting that I've said things I have not said. Just scroll up the page and see that I have had to clarify my points to you multiple times, often explaining the same point repeatedly.

Disagree. But I do feel I could say the same about you.

If you can't even acknowledge that the constitution has Article 5

Post #55

I'm trying to help you project the image of yourself you clearly espouse.

Stop.....please........my sides!!!!!

[Poopadoop]

Sadly I don't have time to read Mojo's diatribe and Banana's riposte, but I would like to say that having a government tell you to wear a seatbelt doesn't exactly strike me as over the top controlling. Are you really better off having the 'freedom' to be an idiot and end up with your face going through the windshield? Maybe to you it's a good trade-off, maybe not to the guy who has to clean it up.

Next you'll say the gov't shouldn't make them put warning labels on poison. After all if you want to drink anti-freeze, who are they to tell you not to?

[BananaStand]

I would like to say that having a government tell you to wear a seatbelt doesn't exactly strike me as over the top controlling.

Sounds like you're saying that it's 'somewhat controlling'. Which should be enough to disqualify it as a law in a country that values individual freedom above all else. It's not about the specific act of seatbelts and how invasive or non-invasive such a regulation would be.

It's about the principle, and compromising on convictions means opening pandoras box.

Are you really better off having the 'freedom' to be an idiot and end up with your face going through the windshield? Maybe to you it's a good trade-off, maybe not to the guy who has to clean it up.

Clean up guy has a job as a clean up guy because he chose to work as a clean up guy. He doesn't get to complain about messes. He's just paid to clean them up. So he's no worse off since all he's being asked to do...is his job.

And yes, if you're a person who values individual freedom, then you are absolutely better off if that is preserved completely, rather than compromised for money.

Next you'll say the gov't shouldn't make them put warning labels on poison. After all if you want to drink anti-freeze, who are they to tell you not to?

Not a relevant comparison. A warning label on poison is merely there to inform you of the risks, so that you can make an informed decision about whether or not to drink it. It's there to enhance individual freedoms. You're still very much free to drink anti-freeze, but now you know the risks.

If the government were to outlaw the drinking of anti-freeze, then that would be a perversion or corruption of the governments purpose.

A relavant comparison is if the government not only required seat belts, but also told you that you couldn't drink coffee while driving because there's a chance you could spill it on yourself and crash into a tree. While that's a real risk, and it probably happens every day, do you really want the government telling you what's too risky and what isn't??

[Poopadoop]

do you really want the government telling you what's too risky and what isn't??

No, I want the government to tell everyone what's risky, because the idiot drinking his coffee and talking on the phone while driving is not only putting himself at risk, he's putting me at risk. Moreover, even if he misses me and hits a tree, my taxes still go to cleaning up his corpse and putting his seven kids in foster homes. Fuck him and his freedoms; someone has to make rules and enforce them or idiots like this guy will just screw things up for the rest of us.

As for America valuing individual freedom above all else, that's patently false. Although they do value individual freedom, they don't just let people run amok doing wtf they want. There has to be a balance between freedom and responsibility and having some reasonable law and order.

[wufwugy]

No, I want the government to tell everyone what's risky, because the idiot drinking his coffee and talking on the phone while driving is not only putting himself at risk, he's putting me at risk. Moreover, even if he misses me and hits a tree, my taxes still go to cleaning up his corpse and putting his seven kids in foster homes. Fuck him and his freedoms; someone has to make rules and enforce them or idiots like this guy will just screw things up for the rest of us.

As for America valuing individual freedom above all else, that's patently false. Although they do value individual freedom, they don't just let people run amok doing wtf they want. There has to be a balance between freedom and responsibility and having some reasonable law and order.

If every time he spoke on the phone and drank coffee while driving it caused a child to be saved from a kidnapping, his behavior would reduce risk.

The point is that to say that something is beneficial, it has to actually be beneficial by net while accounting for all other relevant variables. People voting and bureaucrats making policy is an attempt to do that and its effectiveness is varied. The price system in a free market is believed by many very smart people to be more effective.

[Poopadoop]

If every time he spoke on the phone and drank coffee while driving it caused a child to be saved from a kidnapping, his behavior would reduce risk.

You might as well say 'if every time he drove into a tree he saved a squirrel he would have ran over had he stayed on the road'.

[wufwugy]

You might as well say 'if every time he drove into a tree he saved a squirrel he would have ran over had he stayed on the road'.

Sure. That being a reasonable proposition isn't something I intended to present.

I'd like to just make the case that if somebody proposes a law, maybe a good question to ask is "how do you know?"

It's like Sowell's three questions to any proposal:

What is the evidence
At what cost
Opposed to what

So, even if it makes quick-intuitive sense that it would be better for wearing seat belts to be a law, well, maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. We gotta quantify the costs associated to start to figure it out. And the costs are more than just what the government pays to enforce the law. The costs include things about what cops would otherwise be doing, what people would otherwise be doing, what car companies would otherwise be doing, and probably an unknown that at least attempts to adjust for unintended consequences, etc..

[wufwugy]

Sadly I don't have time to read Mojo's diatribe and Banana's riposte, but I would like to say that having a government tell you to wear a seatbelt doesn't exactly strike me as over the top controlling. Are you really better off having the 'freedom' to be an idiot and end up with your face going through the windshield? Maybe to you it's a good trade-off, maybe not to the guy who has to clean it up.

Next you'll say the gov't shouldn't make them put warning labels on poison. After all if you want to drink anti-freeze, who are they to tell you not to?

This assumes the benefit of seat belt laws outweighs the costs. We don't know that.

Indeed, one of the reasons for why free markets are effective is that they are the most reliable way to find out when benefits outweigh costs.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Sadly I don't have time to read Mojo's diatribe and Banana's riposte

It's not worth your time. Don't bother.