Brian Charles Dauth <magcomm at ix.netcom.com> wrote: Dear List:
jks writes:
> It's supposed to be tepid and superficial. It's very carefully designed to
avoid deep questions about which people cannot agree. Choices about what to
do about suffering are mainly best left to the legislature.
Why just the legistlature?
* * Well, whatever competent bodies a democracy delegates to make policy. Administrative agencies do a lot of that too, of course, though via powers delegated by the legislature. In common law countries some courts havea bit of policymaking power too, though much decreased. Who do you have in mind to make these decisions?
> And you have an approach that is immune to this? Please share it with the
world!
Well, I will think about it. But your liberal proceduralism clearly has failed.
* * * There is no alternative. Really. None. No acceptable one. I mean, there's tyranny or civil war, but those are really bad ideas, don't you thibk?
> I should also say that the whole point of the constitutional protections
for discrete and insular minorities is that anti-minority legislation has to
pass by a lot more than a supermajority -- basically it requires a
constitutional amendment.
Well, the amendments passing in the states seem to need only a simple majority. I realize the U.S. Constitution is different.
> I guess it depends on the law of the state in question. I dpn't know, for example, what it takes to amend the Illinois Constitution. Could luck it up.
> BD: DOMA also needed only a simple majority.
> jks: That's not a Const. Amendment
I know that. But DOMA is an act of persecution against queers that required only a simple majority to be enacted.
* * * Right. Your point?
> Are you sure? Would you want to require a supermajority to pass civil
rights legislation?
To pass legislation that restricts rights -- yes it should require a supermajority.
* * * Well, any legislation restricts somebody's rights. I know you think this is a nitpicky point, but it's not so easy to determine whether you have a discrete and insular minority that arguably requires special protection as opposedto a special interest that is just taking advantage. I agree that gays & lesbians are a D&IM, btw. To get what we both want -- something like constitutional protection for gays & lesbians, requires, among other things, litigation. Like the lawsuits that won us Roemer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas, the cases that practically ban anti-gay legislation.
> Not exactly, I think. Domination is actually suffering disadvantages for
the benefit (in a broad sense) of a dominant group. Lack of control of one's
own destiny -- well, that's the human condition, hmm?
You have misdefined domination. To dominate is to have control over others. Exerting that control is domination. The reason behind the domination (whatever it is) does not alter the fact of the domination.
*** No, sorry, domination is a word that has a lot of meanings, but mere control over others isn't enough. I have (some, decreasing) control over my kids. I don't dominate them. Partly that is because that control is exercised to the exrtent that I can manage it for their benefit. So the purpose and effect of the control matters.
> But who cares if it can be measured (assuming that is true -- without
getting complicated about it, the issue is very vexed and very complicated),
the question is, how much does matter?
It matters a great deal since it offers an alternative to the useless liberal procedural approach. It focuses on the effects of legistlation, laws and institutions rather than if the right color paper was used. Of course, the legal profession is based on the existence of these procedures, with lawyers acting as sherpas through the complicated, yet tepid and shallow, maze of procedures.
* * * I see. You prefer to give untrammel power to expert adminisdtrative agencies that can measure (so they claim) the amount of suffering caused by policies they implement (and devise?), but without holding them to any procedural standards. Just lets the experts figure out what is right and do it without any constraints (except maybe, no picking on minorities?) After all, who but alawyer with a financial interest in making people's lives complicated would ever insist on due process and tedious technicalities like that when people are suffering? -- Basically, you advocate a technocratic benevolent dictatorship. Sorry, not me, BM, I'ma bore, but I consider teipd, shallow, superficial liberal proceduralsim to be the crowning political acheivement of humankind, and I would defend it against your alternative with force, if need be.
> Should I care, or how much should I care, if putting someone who has done
something bad in jail will only increase the amount of net suffering?
If you care about the construction of a just and fair society I would think that you would care about suffering and its creation and diminishment. Is your sole interest in proper procedure?
* * * Sure I care about suffering. Other things being equal, I and most people agree that it is bad. But other things are not always equal. But my point is that suffering is not self-evidentally bad, and not necessarily to be reduced. Justice and fairness may require that we increase it, for example, in punishing criminals. Even if suffering can be measured, and I will now tell you, less circumspectly, that it cannot in any useful or coherent way -- arguments provided on request -- it doesd not follow from that that we should do anything in particular about anything in particular.
> you can't favor your religion's tenets this way.
I am favoring empirical, pragmatic investigation and fact which happens to be the approach of Buddhism (as well as other philosophies). I would still favor empiricism and pragmatism whether or not Buddhism did. As I noted in my previous post, I know of no community/society that seeks to increase suffering for its citizens.
* * * Really? You don't? The motto of the State of Michigan is, If you seek a pleasant penninsula, look around you. Circumspecare, if I recall my Latin. Do that. You won't see a pleasant penninsula. You also won't see a society that particularly seeks to decrease suffering for its citizens.
I am glad that you favor empiricism and pragmatism; although that leaves us in a minority here on this list, probably -- let's leave Buddhism out of it. But empiricism and pragmatism won't tell you what to do, just how to get what want and what might happen if we do this or that. It will not, in particular, tell us that reduction of suffering is more important than, say, increase of freedom. Or wealth. Or national power and prestige. Or, in fact, that equality is better than domination.
> Ah, so people are free to differ unless they disagree with your religion.
That is a common view, I am sorry to say.
Again, people are free to believe what they want. What I am talking about is the infliction of suffering.
* * *Like I said, you think that people can disagree with you as long as they do what you think is right. That is a widespread attitude, marginal better than the one that also requires professed agreement, but it is still, well, illiberal. And since you reject the idea that we decide between different views of what would be good to do by proper procedures, you are left with improper ones, or mere force. There is, as I said, no alternative. It's not a good system. It's just the one that is better than any other.
jks
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