> > I don't knowwhat Smithain volintarism is, but obligations are things you
> > ought to do because they are commanded by norms you ought to acceot.
>
>=============
>
>Adam Smith. Who commands, who decides the ought?
Politically, we do, democratically. in th4e moarl real, there's disagreement on the point. I'd say it is decided by facts about history and human nature, but I'm a naturalist.
Lawyers and military personnel love those concepts almost as much as
>moral theologians.
Well, I am a lawyer. And try to get by without 'em. Zen Buddhists can, maybe. Not you.
I repeat, probably not for the last time, that liberal
> > denocracy means:
> >
> > (1) Competitive elections for representative government
> >
> > (2) Universal suffrage
> >
> > (3) Extensive civil and political liberties.
> >
>===================
You know, for more than 20 years I have stopped here, without the slightest proclivity to to adopt:
>
>(3a) Liberty of Contract
>
>(3b)Free alienability of property
All these years and I'm still a socialist, what a thickheaded morin I msut
be not to see why I should take this next step.
>
>You're almost there Justin, Posners and Epstein and all the others have you
>in there sights.
>
You and others here keep implying taht there's some more than merely historical connection--obviously liberal democracy depended historically on the rise of capitalism--but never give any arguments for it. Frankly, I've neverseena ny good ones fdrom right wingers either. So, put up, please, what's the argument?
>
socialism is supposed to make life boring for most people--boring,
> > safe, and happy. You want interest, go to Ramallah.
>
>======================
>
>To get them the US would be turned into a giant Ramallah.
Boy, you are full of good cheer!
> >
> > Like Dr, King? Was he a knave?
>=================
>
>If we agree theological discourse does not refer and is false then yes.
>Deceiving others to achieve a semblance of
>freedom is ok with you and me if, of course, it leads to the kinds of
>freedom we want. But we can't then turn around and
>call those who deceive to achieve freedoms that constrain our freedoms a
>bunch of liars because they hoodwinked a
>majority to do it. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I'm lost here. Dr. King believed tahst ort of talk, so it was OK for him to use it. I can't because I don't. The fact that I think his premises were false doesn't mean that I feel obliged to criticiaze him for using them to achieve our common goals.
Btw I don't think the ideologists of theenemiesa re conscious liars, most of the time. Like members of Orwell's Inner Party, thet really believe that shit. The point about them is not that they are liars, but that what they advocate is oppressive. I'm proabbly an unsual American in that I do not consider hypocrysy to bea serious vice. It is, as Oscar Wilde once sid, the tribute that vice pays to virtue, and so I take it as a sort of compliment, insofar as I am virtuous.
>
> > Sez you. We need govt, sez Madison., because we are not angels.
>=====================
>Governance and government are not identical.
Sure. And anarchsim and the withering away of the state are hypothetically possible.
Well there's a paradox of majoritarianism for you. If over 50% of the
citizenry no longer believes we live in a liberal
>democracy what criteria are the minority going to use to persuade them
>they're wrong if the minority would have to give
>up an enormous amount of freedoms to allay the majority's assertions?
Democarcy decides policies, not truths.
>
>See you're an anti-majoritarian on morals so you can preserve some
>Archimedian point to judge when a majority engages in
>the use of collective action for the sake of goals you don't like.
Yes.
>I smell a double standard somewhere.
No. It's the difference between policy and truth.
The moral
>problem has not been solved any more than Keyne's economic problem has been
>solved.
What's The Moral Problem?
> >
> > Right, I keep telling you, I'm a pragmatist. Nobody takes this
>seriously.
>=================
>
>Because pragamatism has as many problems as a lot of other epistemic takes
>on living.
Who are we prags to deny it? To invert what Spinoza saiud, it may not be the true philosophy, but it is the best one.
>If we live in a democracy then you've undercut your ability to say the
>politicians in the US are corrupt.
??? The fuckers take bribes, that doesn't mean they aren't democratically elected . . . .
>
>Like Wittgenstein we've left the US just as we find it.
>
>
What did you expect on LBO?
jks
_________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com