[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Sounds good to me ;)

[Miller, Jeremy]

> Well, much of the philosophy I've been describing borrows heavily from
> anarcho-syndicalism.

I see... but I never claimed myself that what I was talking about had
anything to do with anarchism.  Or that it didn't.  That it was against or
supporting. That it was related or not.

> A little revolution, now and again, is a healthy thing.

Sure.  Just be careful, and be armed with the knowledge that it is possible
for it to be very ugly.


> Well, what I intended when I wrote "the more appropriate way of
> interpreting that same data" was that their definition of "terrorism"
> clearly includes police and military (the use of violence and fear to
> coerce a population or modify its behavior) and their special 
> exception
> for "illegal tactics" draws an illusory distinction.

I prefer not acknowledge the definition that refer to (disagreeing with it
myself), and stick to the dictionary version.

Use of violence is (or at least should) be the last resort of the police.
I'd wager (with no supporting data :) that the vast majority of cases do not
require it.  And this is directed against an individual, not a population.

 - Note... I think you might have crowd control tactics in mind, and agree
that these are special circumstaces where you may very well be quite
correct.  I believe these sort of circumstances to be the exception to be
addressed, not the general rule. -


> Well, I don't think that's who we have in prison anymore.  I think our
> prisons are mostly just full of desperate poor people who 
> were born the
> wrong color in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You are right.  But this doesn't mean prisons can't serve a purpose... it
means they are being misused.


> > Agreed, and this is the best reason to codify as little as 
> neccessary.
> 
> Or nothing at all.

To be determined, I suppose? :)


> > You gave a definition of conservative earlier, something along the
> > lines of "one who wants little change, and the status quo."  I think
> > of it more as "one who is conservative about what powers should be
> > given to the government, as opposed to reserved for individual
> > people".
> 
> Your definition is a synthesis of some of the basic tennets 
> of classical
> liberalism.  Look into it.

I am aware of this.  It's funny how things get switched around over time,
isn't it?  They certainly don't think it anymore... or rather the current
ideas no longer fit the name.  Libertarians seem to remember it, though...
perhaps having a good deal to do with choice of name.  (Liberty, liberal...
not that far apart, are they? :)  Although they often have some other issues
that leave much to be desired.

A funny thing I often notice so many conservatives claim to be
"conservative" remind "liberals" (current definition) of this fact.  Then
turn around and be quite unconservative when convenient.


> Personally, I think that what the mainsteam press calls 
> "Conservative" and
> "Liberal" in the United States is just two factions of the same
> conservative movement.  They differ only in their belief in 
> how best to
> maintain the status quo... and many of those differences are being
> resolved.

:)


> > Perhaps that really is what he meant, and you've finally found
> > somewhat common ground?  Whoah.
> 
> I didn't mean to imply that that isn't what he meant, but I had been
> interpreting him as meaning "Any law is null and void..." 
> rather than "All
> law...".  Does that make sense?  We use the word "all" when 
> we mean "any"
> quite frequently.

I was just joking, mostly.  (But not entirely, due to the similarity.)



> > Ah, there's the rub.  The hard part.
> 
> It's not as hard as the conservatives would have you think.  
> I point again
> to Ward's talk at PLUG on WikiWiki Web and how aghast and 
> befuddled folks
> were who had been told all their lives that enforced rules 
> kept people in
> line (as opposed to the truth: people keep themselves in line 
> and rules
> just make them want to see how far they can push things).

I wonder if this would still hold true if there is more at stake (and more
tempting things to gain) than a web discussion.

Not meaning to trivialize it... that is pretty interesting, and pleasant to
hear.  But I worry nonetheless.


> > If everyone played along, it might work.  Again, that's the 
> hard part.
> 
> I think it's the natural condition and this society beats it 
> out of us.

:)

> the way things are done in this society.  Greed, usury, and 
> selfishness
> are praised in no cultures but ours and only fairly recently there.

I wouldn't say only fairly recently.  I'd follow ours back to feudalism at
the very least, and call it 1500 years as an extremely gross estimate.  I'd
wager it goes back further than that.  I'm not sure I'd limit it to our
culture, either.


> > > People who do damage to themselves are sick.  When you share the
> > > belief that all people are truly created equal, then 
> damage to one is
> > > damage to all.  Hate, greed, and violence become 
> self-damage and can
> > > be recognized as sickness.
> > 
> > I've heard something like that before. :)
> 
> You hear it all the time, from both the good and the evil.
> 
> To which were you refering?

Both.  From the good who at least try, and from the evil that just give it
lip service while doing otherwise.





> to both parties in the case and heard a "guilty" confession.  By the
> strict letter of the law, the man had, in fact, committed a 
> crime.  The
> judge had a good laugh and fined the man one dollar for his 
> transgression.
> 
> I ask, was justice served?  From any side, I think the answer 
> is, "No."  
> On the one hand, the judge himself was mocking the law and his own
> requirement to punish for the conviction.

I think he was exercising his right as a judge to apply the law (and the
intent behind the law) to the current situation.

A law was broken... he purposely damaged someone elses property.  The judge
could however, see that he may have been justified in doing so.  And seen
the inability for current law to account for that fact.

>  On the other hand, 
> if the law
> shouldn't be applied to this kind of protest or jape 
> (depending on your
> view), then no conviction should be rendered.  It's one of those cases
> where right and wrong themselves are kind of fuzzy and 
> relative the law
> can't really handle it.

Which is why a judge is sitting on the bench, and not a sheet of paper that
matches a crime with a standard punishment, with no capacity for mercy or
understanding.

> No system of law can be written that mimicks the complex 
> decision-making
> that is the evaluation of right and wrong.

Which is why we have judges and juries.

>  The flexibility 
> necessary to
> do so allows for massive abuse by corruption or effectivelessness by
> neglect.

And you are correct.  This is where more attention may need to be paid.


> Law-based society takes the freedom and the requirement for 
> vigilance upon
> the magistrates, judges, justices, and police and away from 
> the people.

No it does not.  Vigilance is still a the job of the people.  (Or should be
anyway.)  Those persons are a resource (trained professionals) when action
beyond simple observation is neccessary.

> If it just comes down to a case-by-case judgment call, why bother to
> codify anything?

Because we have people called "judges" to handle those instances.  And even
better, cases where the judge simply runs a process by which a "jury" does
the judging.

Juries have a lot of power, for that very reason.  (Though they are
reccommended to use it sparingly.)


> And squirrels don't store more nuts than they need.

If this is always true, perhaps we should be employing them as weather
predictors.



> Building a strong community of reliable, comfortable people that love,
> trust, and care for one another is much more likely to 
> provide comfort in
> your dotage than the accumulation of money and property.

Yes.  But may one not attempt to do both?  Especially if one intends to
share it?

The difficulty most have with relying solely on other people is due to the
the long history people have of letting each other down.



> > other human emotions/drives/states are pretty normal...
> > understandable... but not desirable.
> 
> That's a good point and an important distinction.  I should 
> just make a
> point of saying, "No, I suppose you can't blame him for 
> wanting, but you
> sure can blame him for taking!"

Exactly.


> That's another flaw of society, though... this expectation 
> that one must
> provide for themself even when they can't provide for 
> themself.  It's a
> contradiction that excuses the accumulation of wealth and denial of
> charity.

I won't argue that it is not a flaw.

We've only been failing to correct it for a few thousand years or so.


> > At some point they can't, and having something put away for 
> that time
> > will allow them to continue contributing to society in other ways.  
> 
> By "other ways" do you mean non-commercial ways?

Not neccessarily.   I mean in ways other than those they may have done for
the majority of their lifetime.  Perhaps a desire to do some things that
don't have monetary return.  Or more likely an inability to continue
previous activity due to physical condition.

> I just want to make a point that you don't STOP contributing 
> to society in
> your old age, just to commerce.

Which is what I just said. :)


> I think the failure of our society to reward anything but 
> commerce with a
> comfortable living should be the biggest red flag that something is
> horribly wrong.

Hmm.  Perhaps so.


> Don't you see how this comes down to basing your greed and 
> selfishness on
> fear and hopelessness?  I think we can do better.

Let's make a bit of a distinction, here.

1.  Greed: Hoarding more than one could need or use, and keeping it from
others.
2.  The natural drive for continued survival, and doing what is neccessary
to do so within the current environment.


I believe I agree with you on the first.  But I think one ignores the second
at grave risk.

I hope we can do better also, to improve the current environment, so that
what is required for survival no longer requires the behavior that you call
greed.


> I swear, if society is an organism and culture a 
> consciousness, ours is
> manic-depressive.  Let's try to get that chin up, ok?

:)


> I think that's a rationalization to excuse acting on fear and
> hopelessness.  A positive future starts with faith in a 
> positive future.

Here's a thought... should one never act on fear?  I think fear is a natural
reaction to danger.  It exists to prompt one to attempt to avoid that
danger.


> Yeah, I'm not sure how that's done, really.  Start with 
> yourself and help
> EVERYONE.  Get rid of the notion of "deserving".

The only reason I include the term "deserving" is to make a distiction for
those who truly are not in need, and take improper advantage of the
generosity of others.  There are those types, and then there is everyone
else.

Some try to ALWAYS get their needs met by someone else because they are
simply lazy.  They see no incentive to do otherwise, so do not.  A few may
abuse it as the first step in exercising their own greed... by taking much
more that what they need and more than you can spare.  Perhaps resorting to
violence to do so.

One should be generous... but not naive.


> Well, I'm particularly thinking of people who say things 
> like, "I'm not
> going to help her, she is big and stong and can help 
> herself!"  This is
> where selfishness begins and the fabric that holds a sharing society
> together starts to unravel.

Agreed... but as explained above, not the sort of case I had in mind.


> The only decisions a person has to make in such a situation is whether
> they CAN help and whether help is desired.


And my distinction would center on whether it is desired.  More precisely
the difference between whether help is what is truly desired, or something
else.