[lbo-talk] Re: biz ethics/slavery/groups/constitutional

[andie nachgeborenen]

I am not sure what you mean here, John -- are you saying that the liberal faces a problem when someone doesn't agree on the minumum of basic procedures, and in that case is forced to shoot or imprison that person? Well, let's get concrete. liberalism starts from the fact of irreconcilable disgareement in a free society.  But it doesn't offer any guarantee of peaceful resolution of all difficulties. If there are people who won't play, like, say, Osam bin Ladin, because they reject the liberal prceduralist way of resolving disagreements, I don't see why it is a problem for the liberal if we say that in that case we have to call in the cops. It's only a problem if you think that liberals are never entitled to call in the cops, which is a conservative canard. 

 
BM thinds proceduralsim "useless" in preventing persecution and injustice. That's ridiculous, frankly. Liberal regimes have been the only societies in human history taht have systematically opposed persecution and injustice as  mater of principle. The ONLY such societies. They set the standard; no other kind of actually existing society has ever made social equality, political and civil freedom, and justice its central goals. None.  Sorry, Charles, Communist/Stalinist societies obviously made material equality important, but not political freedom.

 
Liberalism started as a way of avoiding religious persecution: a few hundred years ago it was perfectly normal for countries to go to war over religious differences and to burn heretics at the stake.  Liberalism was a response to that: its original advocates advocated tolerance for different religious viewspoints. Over the centuries liberal goals have expanded to include a very radical vision of justice, freedom, and equality. Progress hasn't been as fast as BM and I would like, and liberalism has not guaranteed results; a lot of liberal societies have been inconsistent in pursuing these goals. But these societies have pursued them, unlike fascist tyrannies, fundamentalist theocracies, Communist dictaorships, feudal and absolutist monarchies, and the other alternatives that history has thrown up for us to consider. So be careful before you throw away the political idea that has uniquely made what both of us would consider progress possible.

 
jks

John Mage <jmage at panix.com> wrote:
Chris Doss wrote:


> --- Brian Charles Dauth wrote:
>
> I do not ignore the ubiquity of moral disagreements; I am just
> seeking a method for arbitrating between them. I find
> cart-before-the-horse proceduralism to be useless in preventing
> persecution and injustice. --
>
> OK, so what do you do when you come across someone who doesn't agree
> with you on what injustice is? Shoot them? Send them to a reeducation
> camp?

The liberal proceduralist also faces that problem with someone who does
not agree on the "minima" of the LP's canon; but the proceduralist would
rightly insist on reversing the procedural sequence you suggest.

john mage

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