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[Montague]

Police are trained to act the way they do for a reason. It is really too dangerous of a job to have police acting like Barney Fife anymore. They are trained to react to novel situations by pressing forward with the attack. They tend to cultivate a "us vs them" mentality with the public. They also interact with the dregs of society day in and out and it tends to muddy their interactions with your average more-or-less law abiding citizen. They also get burned out and pissy like any other human being.\

This disturbs the hell out of me, and I'm not sure why I didn't notice it before. You really think there's "a reason" why they can get away with basically murdering unarmed suspects, for elevating violence far beyond what is necessary, and for cultivating what you admit is an "us vs them mentality" with the public they're supposed to be protecting?

I don't expect them to act like Barney Fife, but I at least expect them to get more than a paid vacation for killing someone they had no reason to even feel endangered by, and I expect them to treat the public like the people they're supposed to be protecting, and not the enemy.

We need better training for police, especially when it comes to dealing with situations without escalating the level of violence (especially when there's no violence inherent to the situation in the first place). And yeah, I understand that burnout is a problem, which is why an officer's psychiatric state should be pretty regularly evaluated and support for them should be available.

I'm not defending police culture in the US or anything, just sort of explaining why. Police in Europe act a lot differently. Like, German cops almost never harass people, are helpful if you approach them, but if you commit a crime they will 90% of the time use shocking violence, just because they can. Saw one guy puking in an ally outside of a bar in Frankfurt, 4 cops in a minivan stopped at the curb, piled out and proceeded to beat the crap out of this dude with those whippy baton things while the guy was puking the entire time. Not sure what that was about, but obviously the law and police training differs from country to country.

Anyways, in the US, police are trained to be aggressive, because thats what works to keep them alive. When in doubt, its usually better to over react and take the heat later then to under react and potentially lose your life. Police have families and pensions to worry about, they're career isn't effected by what the public thinks about them. So what might look like police brutality might have been justified by the cop in the heat of the moment. They make mistakes like anybody else, but they are, however, trained to err on the side of violence.

So even if drugs were legal, you think employers should be able to fire someone based on what they do on their spare time?

How much freedom of self-ownership do you really have if your employer can still fire you based on it?

Sure. It is legal to drink 24/7. Its also legal for an employer to make it a condition of employment to not drink during your work hours. Letting people show up to work drunk or high is violating the employer's rights. Drugs can have long lasting adverse effects on people, THC metabolises slowly and can impair people days after they last used the drug for heavy chronic users. It isn't unreasonable for an employer to not want to hire somebody that could be effected, especially if they are the ones that must foot the bill for any mistakes they make. Should all employers not hire drug users? Nah, it'd depend on what the job entails and if it matters or not. I'd like to keep stoners out of air traffic control towers and nuclear power plants, if at all possible, thank you.

What part of this isn't slave labor? That's like saying internships aren't slave labor. They are. O you *cough* "volunteered" *cough* OK.... Whatever someone has to tell themselves to sleep better at night.... Only in prison, you can't leave, so even more slavey.

Have you read "Brave New World?" Compare it to "1984." The later we get censored, and we have no information. The former, we get too much information and it becomes meaningless.
This is the same "deregulation" line of thinking that lead to the current banking collapse. It doesn't work in practice. Rather, it works for a little bit until reality catches up and kicks everyone in the ass for ignoring it....

Free labor isn't slavery, man. Otherwise these people vounteering at soup kitchens, homeless shelters and whatnot are slaves. Sweeping off your sidewalk is slavery. Picking up a peice of trash and putting it into a trash can in a city park is slavery. Man, we are really oppressing the hell out of ourselves.

Also, "Brave New World" was fiction, even if it is ominiously similar to modern society. Also, deregulation isn't so great when applied to powerful businesses and other organizations able to cause damage with too much freedom. Individual freedom harms nobody but the individual, if anybody at all. You just restrict individual freedom when the concequences extend beyond that individual. Eg, my right to swing my fist ends at your nose. If it is a 'victim-less' crime so to speak, why should it be a crime at all? That is what self-ownership is, as opposed to somebody else or the 'greater society' owning you.

[G-Flex]

Individual freedom harms nobody but the individual, if anybody at all. You just restrict individual freedom when the concequences extend beyond that individual. Eg, my right to swing my fist ends at your nose. If it is a 'victim-less' crime so to speak, why should it be a crime at all? That is what self-ownership is, as opposed to somebody else or the 'greater society' owning you.

I hate how often I have to explain why all of this is wrong. Can someone else cover my basic spiel on how an individual suffering harms society as well, even if that individual caused the suffering himself?

[Tellemurius]

Individual freedom harms nobody but the individual, if anybody at all. You just restrict individual freedom when the concequences extend beyond that individual. Eg, my right to swing my fist ends at your nose. If it is a 'victim-less' crime so to speak, why should it be a crime at all? That is what self-ownership is, as opposed to somebody else or the 'greater society' owning you.

I hate how often I have to explain why all of this is wrong. Can someone else cover my basic spiel on how an individual suffering harms society as well, even if that individual caused the suffering himself?

You are not alone?

[G-Flex]

I apologize if that last post comes off as a bit hostile/frustrated. It's just aggravating having to explain the same kind of thing so many times, but I suppose that's not the fault of those speaking to me.

[Truean]

Free labor isn't slavery, man. Otherwise these people vounteering at soup kitchens, homeless shelters and whatnot are slaves. Sweeping off your sidewalk is slavery. Picking up a peice of trash and putting it into a trash can in a city park is slavery. Man, we are really oppressing the hell out of ourselves.

You don't see any difference between those things, which you can leave at anytime and prison labor which you can't? Not a thing?

As for Brave New World, any society that imploded instead of being invaded, works. Same thing for that happening before the invasions.

Also this pisses me off: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/same-sex-families-pay-thousands-002300778.html

[kaijyuu]

TBH I'm fine with people harming themselves. Perhaps psychiatric help and whatnot should be provided in the case of depression or some other mental illness causing it, but I'm not sure I like the idea of enforcing one's own safety. Strikes the same nerve as trying to enforce people to be happy.

[G-Flex]

Society has a vested interest in keeping people safe, even from themselves. A person being harmed (by themselves or something else) incurs a cost to society, because that person requires care, is less productive, and so forth, and also because the cost society puts into bringing up and supporting that person has less return on investment if that person doesn't live up to their potential, or doesn't live long... not to mention the fact that the person likely has social ties that would be strained by their being harmed.

[Tellemurius]

Society has a vested interest in keeping people safe, even from themselves. A person being harmed (by themselves or something else) incurs a cost to society, because that person requires care, is less productive, and so forth, and also because the cost society puts into bringing up and supporting that person has less return on investment if that person doesn't live up to their potential, or doesn't live long... not to mention the fact that the person likely has social ties that would be strained by their being harmed.

We aren't socialists, considering we live in a capitalist world where someone is suffering to another person's gain, no one really gives a shit.

[G-Flex]

We don't live in an entirely capitalist society; no such society exists. There's some element of collectivism to any society, or else it wouldn't be much of a society.

[Tellemurius]

We don't live in an entirely capitalist society; no such society exists. There's some element of collectivism to any society, or else it wouldn't be much of a society.

Yea there is collectivism. Its called underhand deals, inside trading, lobbying, any company skulduggery. A network of business owners that help themselves to higher grounds on the blood of lowly workers.

[kaijyuu]

Society has a vested interest in keeping people safe, even from themselves. A person being harmed (by themselves or something else) incurs a cost to society, because that person requires care, is less productive, and so forth, and also because the cost society puts into bringing up and supporting that person has less return on investment if that person doesn't live up to their potential, or doesn't live long... not to mention the fact that the person likely has social ties that would be strained by their being harmed.

SalmonGod would give a way better rebuttal to that than I would, I think. He gave a nice spiel a while back about how enforcing safety kills some parts of being human; his example was going for weeks out in the woods not being really acceptable anymore due to safety concerns. I didn't agree with him on every specific (namely reckless endangerment of others, not just yourself), but yeah.

Can I conjure people to debate for me? Is that acceptable? xD

[Montague]

Free labor isn't slavery, man. Otherwise these people vounteering at soup kitchens, homeless shelters and whatnot are slaves. Sweeping off your sidewalk is slavery. Picking up a peice of trash and putting it into a trash can in a city park is slavery. Man, we are really oppressing the hell out of ourselves.

You don't see any difference between those things, which you can leave at anytime and prison labor which you can't? Not a thing?

As for Brave New World, any society that imploded instead of being invaded, works. Same thing for that happening before the invasions.

Some societies imploded internally because of slavery and totalitarianism. The economy of Rome was destroyed by slavery, for example. Not because the proles drank too much or whatever.

Prison labor isn't slavery either, because they can just sit and read books in their cells or whatever instead of pick up trash on the hiway. They have options besides work and they are probably in prison for a good reason anyways. Prison labor is a privilege, so they can go out and do something to pass the time, it isn't something forced on them. This might not be true in every prison system in the world, but its generally how it works in the USA.

Uncompensated internships I agree are pretty shitty deals in most cases, but its not really slavery, since you could go work for some other company that might pay you. Internships are probably a somewhat unethical business practice. Not quite slavery, you could always say "fuck this" and walk off the job to find something else to do. Slaves can't do that.

As for same-sex couples paying more in taxes. Why is it ok for single people to pay more taxes then married people? Why should the government hand out tax-breaks to heterosexual couples? Why is the government in the business of getting people married in the first place? The entire instituion is baised and discriminatory against singles, so I think it should be abolished as a state function, period. How about giving people tax breaks for having kids and dependants and everyone just has to file their own damn taxes?

Society has a vested interest in keeping people safe, even from themselves. A person being harmed (by themselves or something else) incurs a cost to society, because that person requires care, is less productive, and so forth, and also because the cost society puts into bringing up and supporting that person has less return on investment if that person doesn't live up to their potential, or doesn't live long... not to mention the fact that the person likely has social ties that would be strained by their being harmed.

Your right about that, if you have say state-funded medical care and you are a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, Big Mac eating guy costing the taxpayer money for your unhealthy lifestyle is almost irresponsible in this case. However, if that guy must pay for his own health care, then there is no ethical problem there.

If a guy kills himself, sure he won't provide the society with his labor or tax revenue, but thats a pretty lame excuse for why he should stay alive against his will.

Self-ownership is also abou putting power in the hands of the individual to decide their own fate and make individuals responsible for their own decisions.

As for productivity of individuals, a person probably has already contributed to society in even a short, troublesome life-span then if they had never been born at all. So why should a individual be born with obligations? There is an argument against self-ownership if the society is highly communitarian, like Sweden maybe, where society treats people as long-term investments, but the USA is more individualist and people are treated as ends into themselves, not as means into an end.

[G-Flex]

SalmonGod would give a way better rebuttal to that than I would, I think. He gave a nice spiel a while back about how enforcing safety kills some parts of being human; his example was going for weeks out in the woods not being really acceptable anymore due to safety concerns. I didn't agree with him on every specific (namely reckless endangerment of others, not just yourself), but yeah.

It's a risk-reward thing. Plenty of experiences are valuable/necessary enough despite the risk that the risk is acceptable, and usually the bar is set pretty low in the sense that individual liberty usually is the overriding factor.

Your right about that, if you have say state-funded medical care and you are a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, Big Mac eating guy costing the taxpayer money for your unhealthy diet. However, if that guy must pay for his own health care, then there is no ethical dilema.

The parable of the broken window seems to apply here. If that man didn't have to pay for that medical care, then that money/value would have gone towards something else, hopefully something more productive than simply treating an illness that could have never existed in the first place.

As for productivity of individuals, a person probably has already contributed to society in even a short, troublesome life-span then if they had never been born at all. So why should a individual be born with obligations? There is an argument against self-ownership if the society is highly communitarian, like Sweden maybe, where society treats people as long-term investments, but the USA is more individualist and people are treated as ends into themselves, not as means into an end.

All societies treat people as long-term investments. People are raised, at high cost, for a couple decades or more (in the modern day), in order to become productive members of society. An individual has an obligation to society not only because of this (society bringing them up), but also because society continuously supports those people in a number of ways, what with no man being an island and all.

[Montague]

SalmonGod would give a way better rebuttal to that than I would, I think. He gave a nice spiel a while back about how enforcing safety kills some parts of being human; his example was going for weeks out in the woods not being really acceptable anymore due to safety concerns. I didn't agree with him on every specific (namely reckless endangerment of others, not just yourself), but yeah.

It's a risk-reward thing. Plenty of experiences are valuable/necessary enough despite the risk that the risk is acceptable, and usually the bar is set pretty low in the sense that individual liberty usually is the overriding factor.

Your right about that, if you have say state-funded medical care and you are a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, Big Mac eating guy costing the taxpayer money for your unhealthy diet. However, if that guy must pay for his own health care, then there is no ethical dilema.

The parable of the broken window seems to apply here. If that man didn't have to pay for that medical care, then that money/value would have gone towards something else, hopefully something more productive than simply treating an illness that could have never existed in the first place.

As for productivity of individuals, a person probably has already contributed to society in even a short, troublesome life-span then if they had never been born at all. So why should a individual be born with obligations? There is an argument against self-ownership if the society is highly communitarian, like Sweden maybe, where society treats people as long-term investments, but the USA is more individualist and people are treated as ends into themselves, not as means into an end.

All societies treat people as long-term investments. People are raised, at high cost, for a couple decades or more (in the modern day), in order to become productive members of society. An individual has an obligation to society not only because of this (society bringing them up), but also because society continuously supports those people in a number of ways, what with no man being an island and all.

In a market economy its hard to say if any money spent in one place is better spent in another. Obesity specialists, doctors and lawyers and casinos, cigarette factories all need jobs and customers. A self-destructive person might indeed benefit others in this regard. Its hard to imagine what the real cost to society might be, then, or what benefit would result if people did take immaculately good care of themselves. I think you might have a valid point, that individuals could ultimately screw over other people in some imprecise, indirect way by their own self-destructive actions, but I'm not sure how it truly relates to anything. I think people are ends into themselves and whatever choices an individual makes for themselves for the time they are around is probably their perogative and overrides any sort of hopes and claims or obligations that society might impose on them. People might owe a sort of debt for public education and whatnot, but I suppose it is an investment by society and there is expected to be failures and successes in any investment. It is a pretty cost-effective investment, though and giving people individual freedom probably outweighs their obligation to stay productive enough to pay enough taxes to be a net value to society.

Its true that people living in a society benefit from others, but much of that is settled through market mechanisms. Its harder to place what obligations an individual has for anything beyond that, or why that should justify their existance. In traditional economies, like Afghanistan or whatever, people raise kids so they can take care of them in their old age. People are basically born with these obligations to their family or tribe. I don't really like the idea of being born for a purpose and I believe obligations made should be consentual.

[ECrownofFire]

Society has a vested interest in keeping people safe, even from themselves. A person being harmed (by themselves or something else) incurs a cost to society, because that person requires care, is less productive, and so forth, and also because the cost society puts into bringing up and supporting that person has less return on investment if that person doesn't live up to their potential, or doesn't live long... not to mention the fact that the person likely has social ties that would be strained by their being harmed.

We aren't socialists, considering we live in a capitalist world where someone is suffering to another person's gain, no one really gives a shit.

... Capitalism doesn't mean causing suffering for gain.