| | This post is in response to Jay's post 98.
John,
urQ "You are under no moral obligation to explain what you mean by "rational, objective application of KNOWN good PRACTICES". But please keep in mind, a refusal to explain yourself leaves serious doubt from me and I would venture to guess from others as well as to whether you know what you’re talking about. This is after all a philosophy forum, you decided to come here and post your thoughts."
Okay, if you can provide an explanation of the philosophical underpinnings for setting a speed limit of 35 MPH instead of 50+ mph on a broad four-lane country road, I will provide an explanation of a specific economic regulation which I might consider a "known good practice".
Sure, because driving 50 mph in a 35 mph speed zone could be argued that the motorist is driving recklessly and greatly putting other motorists at risk. The same philosophical argument that a man recklessly waving a gun in a crowded restaurant has complete disregard for the safety of other individuals who gave no consent to be put at that kind of risk.
urQ "If you are not interested in explaining them, I wonder if you are really interested in honest intellectual discourse, or you are more concerned with maintaining some pseudo-superiority feeling that you found a kink in Objectivist philosophy?"
An ad hominem?
I don't think so. I'm trying to understand why you stubbornly hold onto a view that you have objective standards based on known good practices to say what is or isn't a good regulation and that this would be in accordance with Objectivist goals, but you cannot articulate what that means exactly, when Objectivism as a philosophy clearly has but you seem to reject certain aspects of it. You then presume to say there is something lacking in Objectivism because it doesn't take the real world into account, yet you have not demonstrated that and when I press you to do so, you do not attempt to demonstrate how this is so. I think it bears suspicion on what you are trying to accomplish here.
What I feel is disappointment that Objectivism might be used to justify ignoring pertinent facts.
Which pertinent facts? The only facts I'm aware of that you brought up were futures commodity trading and the recent subprime mortgage crisis. There's nothing wrong with the former and no regulations are needed to restrict this free market activity because restricting it would be bad, not good, and mortgage crisis is due to the government by setting up quasi-public institutions that buy risky loans from other private banks, and the government implicitly backing up these loans. That's called a moral hazard, and the entire crisis was the result of government interference in the market. That doesn't warrant more regulation, and it warrants the repeal of coercive economic regulations.
urQ "I never delegated such a power to them."
This begs another argument entirely, that is probably not worth discourse. We were both, presumably, born under this system that our forebears established, and which did delegate those powers. And since it does not come up for a re-vote every year, neither of us has ever had that opportunity. Our only choice is to conform -
A legitimate government is one that only prohibits the initiation of force. If a criminal is stopped or punished, does the victim need to sanction the punishment or capture before others can take action? If the government makes the law that says that criminal wronged the victim by initiating force, is force used against the victim? Of course not. But when the government assumes to make an economic choice on behalf of an individual without his consent in what would otherwise be a voluntary trade with another individual where no criminal used force (force includes fraud) then that government institution becomes an initiation of force to which no one has a right to use. I do have the right to delegate to my lawyer for example, choices that affect my legal standing, I do have a right to delegate to my auto-mechanic, the mechanical choices needed to fix my car. Both of these examples were free exchanges of value to which I freely delegated these particular choices to another individual that accepted it, that is they are economic choices free from force. In the case of a government institution deciding what kind of stocks I can buy, or what kind of mortgages I can buy, it has no right to do this because I never delegated the authority to them to make what should be a free economic choice that affects only my life.
Yours, honestly, would more likely depend upon a successful revolution. This, of course, has no bearing upon the relative values of our ideas... only upon their practicality.
Well I never called for a bloody revolution if that's what you mean by revolution. I said specifically in post 94: "certainly I can’t stop the government from [stealing from me] under our current mixed-economy culture. But that doesn’t make it right. I can only hope by spreading free market ideals that we can convince others that a mixed-economy approach is not in our best interests. In the mean time, attempts to mitigate socialist programs is not a fruitless endeavor, and supporting political candidates that believe in smaller government has worked in the past, and is the only rational approach now since we still have the power to speak freely and make attempts to persuade our fellow citizens to see our point of view"
Political advocacy through free speech and political support for candidates that believe in smaller government is not at all a fruitless endeavor. If so I don't know why your approach is actually all that much different from mine (the approach again being political advocacy).
urQ "Again, how?"
I don't know how many adjectives it would take to provide enough emphasis to KNOWN GOOD PRACTICES to make you consider that regulations might be reviewed one at a time on their own merit to assure that individual's property interests (rephrased for clarification) are protected.
Again, what makes something a "known good practice"?
(Edited by John Armaos on 8/06, 6:07pm)
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