Why shouldn't we use Government to force behaviors or outcomes we like??
The following was originally posted as a comment on a long discussion thread attached to a FB friends posting of this slate article:
Ann Romney Acknowledges, Embraces Sexism
By Amanda Marcotte | Posted Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012, at 12:46 PM ET
Last night the RNC made its appeal to female voters, and Ann Romney's speech really was an exemplar of the form, putting a sorority girl grin on a description of women's lives that, stripped of sentimentality, reads like a laundry list of the daily injustices women face for no other reason than being women.
A long discussion led to this comment by the articulate and intelligent poster David:
"I prefer to live in a place where we do help each other out and where we do assume women are smart enough to make decisions about their own bodies."
This is a classic straw man increasingly being used against libertarians and small government conservatives. But it is completely false, and worse, it presumes that the only way to achieve "good" outcomes in society at large is for government to force behavior and actions.
Here's my response:
[My initial comment]
Warning!! This is long, cranky (low on sleep recently, for some reason! :-)), and philosophical! With that out of the way............
While there's not much need for me to jump in here, as Su and Tracey seem to have this one well in hand, I can't resist. I must note that David makes some interesting points... For example, I, too, would like "to live in a place where we do help each other out"... it's just that I'd like to do that in a place where I can help out my neighbors by choice, not as forced by government. You see, there's a difference between "government" "doing" something (really government does nothing, it just forces individuals to do things), and "individuals choosing to do something". Moreover, while David has a clear picture of what he thinks is right for government to force us to do for others, I wonder if we can agree that reasonable people can disagree about difficult judgment calls and fundamentally moral questions. We need not even consider the complicated issues that so dominate our so-called national discourse (health care, abortion, insert wedge social issue here), just consider a "simple" case: can government require devout Muslim women to bare their faces for photo IDs?
Don't you see that deciding for people what is moral or good, and moreover taking people's money and deciding for them how to spend it, no matter how moral or good you think the outcome is, is, in itself, antithetical to freedom? But then, you wonder, is freedom such a good thing if it implies the freedom to do bad things and make bad choices? Think about it... is there morality absent freedom? If there are no choices, or only an approved set of choices, is there morality and goodness? And even if there is, is that the life you want for yourself and us all?
David juxtaposes Ann Romney's apparent sympathy for the challenges of life against her ideal that "government" shouldn't "help" individuals. He suggests that it's one or the other... either, absent the better angels of government force we devolve to brutal savagery, or an overarching "benevolent" power (government) forces us to some arbitrary level of civilization.
I reject this.
I choose a more complicated world, where reducing suffering requires me to make my own hard choices to be moral, and to give of myself, where I cannot lazily rely on some gentle cattle prod to force me to goodness, and where I cannot fall asleep at night patting myself on the back for having forced the unwashed to behave in what I believe is a better way.
You will all laugh and ridicule and claim this is about *issues*, not ideals, and dismiss me as an extremist and crank, but listen to yourselves. You claim that your opponents are anti-women or anti-business or anti-whatever... but that is all bullshit and smokescreen. All relevant participants want the same thing: a better life for every citizen, and denying this is a child's evasion of real debate.
In truth, all of this reduces to a stark philosophical question: will we be a free people, warts and all, or will we empower an over-class to force those who disagree with us to behave as we want? This is not a new fight... it's an extension of all humanities struggle to wrest civilization from our world. It was the founders fight against England and amongst themselves. In Obama and the policy questions of today we only come to a kind of culmination... never in recent history has the division been so stark. I know my choice, and you can trace all of my policy positions directly to it... but have you made your choice? Have you considered the relation of your individual policy positions to this fundamental question?
[David then replied. Here is my point-by-point deconstruction of his reply]
@David: Thanks for the reply... and, yes, we disagree. Here's a point by point response. Please call out where you find particular disagreement/agreement or find my arguments weak! Thanks!
--"Matthew, I think you have pretty much just taken things to the other extreme. You say, "Is there morality absent freedom"? Well, is there freedom absent morality? No. "
As a logical construct your assertion is non-sensical. Morality is a doctrine or system of morals. Morals are principles or habits respecting right and wrong. Note that these concepts rely on the presence of choice--real choice: right or wrong. As freedom is the power to determine action free of external control--that is, the availability of choice--the absence of freedom is the absence of choice, and my construct is consistent and sensical. Your assertion is that absent any system of principles respecting right and wrong there can be no power of self-determination. This is not a logical construct. A system for right and wrong is in no way a requirement to be free of external control. Put simply, can animals be free? Surely they have no morals! Surely they can, in fact be free! Hence, your construct is non-sensical.
Worse, you have already missed the point. No one is suggesting that civilization can be, should be, or is "absent morality". The question is do you advocate that one group can dictate morality to another group via government?
There's an awesome discussion here, because I, in fact, advocate that there is a structure in which it is wholly appropriate to dictate morality!! It's called religion! It is no coincidence, then, that a founding principle of the American experiment is "religious freedom". What differentiates religion from government? The legitimate use of physical force (e.g., imprisonment). Religion itself can be defined a voluntary submission to an externally dictated morality! So, again, the question is not should we absent ourselves of morals, but rather should government dictate them.... and this already answered: religious freedom.... so NO!
Further, you might be tempted to claim, well, even the founders dictated morals! Why, then, is it ok to dictate some morals, but not others, via government? But this is false. Here is a key point: "We take these *truths* to be self-evident..." Why the word "truths"? Because what is dictated is not "morals", a system of principles respecting right and wrong. As noted, above, morals require choice... and with some things we acknowledge no choice: e.g., life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is to say, "rights" endowed to humans by their humanity alone, are not morals, not recommended choices, but absolutes. Therefore these things we take as self-evident are not a dictation of morals.
Clearly, you might point out, this creates a challenge... when is something a right, and when is something simply moral? But this is simple!! Rights are inherently individual, and internal! They must be, lest they conflict. Those things that involve externalities must be morals. Where a concept necessarily implies or requires control of others (note the parallel to the definition of freedom itself, referenced above), it is not a right. Hence, health care--a moral good, not a right! How can it be a right? Health care is the labor of others on your behalf. You cannot have a "right" to it... You may believe that you have a moral obligation to provide it to others, you may even believe that "we all" have a moral obligation to provide it to each other, but it cannot be a right!
In any case, your assertion is meaningless.
--"Freedom absent morality is pure, unadulterated Darwinism. "
Naming something is not an argument, especially naming something with such a twisted and misused term like "darwinism". What do you mean, in fact? I'd love to hear your enunciation of a definition for "darwinism"!
I assume you are suggesting some kind of non-civilized, school-yard, king-of-the-hill, where the strongest/most vicious/most lucky "rules"? But, building on the above, this is a false canard, as no one is suggesting that we absent ourselves of morality. We simply advocate that we leave morality to religion, and restrict government to adjudicating rights and contracts, as well as international relations. **Note, I do not enunciate all the proper roles of government, as there are many, and they are complicated, and that's not the discussion here. Just be sure to understand that as no one is suggesting an amoral society (if such a thing is not a non-sequitur), no one is suggesting a society absent government itself (again, assuming such a thing is not a non-sequitur).
--"We make decisions, as a nation, every day that dictate things we will do "with other people's money". We build roads and bridges, we build a military, we build schools, etc. You describe complicated social wedge issues...well, what we are talking about are basically economic wedge issues. I would assume you are ok with using public funds to build roads. "
Your assumption is tenuous, at best! Also, you lump very different possible government functions together and seek to claim that it is all or nothing. Using what you call "public funds" to pay for a professional military is incredibly dissimilar to building roads, and both are incredibly dissimilar to building schools, which I presume you intend to pay to staff and run with "public funds".
You also still skirt the point: securing our rights most certainly requires that government possess the tools and personnel required to apply physical force--something only government is entitled to employ. But this requires no "moral" question. As for roads and bridges, ask yourself, what's the difference between rail and road transit in this nation, and why have our national transportation systems evolved the way they have. I certainly DO NOT concede that "public funds" should be used for roads and bridges. But in this case, I do see that there is a strong argument for doing so! As for schools... clearly there are moral questions as to the method and content of schooling... as such, government should not fund schooling. At least, certainly not the federal government.
Ultimately, your point is self-defeating. That government has in the past dictated what is to be done with individuals money on certain topics is in no way an argument for the rightness of government dictating what to do with people's money. As you yourself highlight so passionately, that we enslaved people in the past is no argument that doing so was or is right.
--"What if I don't drive? Does that mean you are going to use MY money to build YOUR roads? That's communism! "
Ummm, no. That's not communism. Communism is an economic system in which the government owns the means of production--that is, industry. Public money paying nominally private companies to build roads is more in the vein of state socialism. But, again, naming is meaningless...
(cont...) --"You believe that keeping government as small as possible will bring about a magical utopian state."
This is a completely false straw man!! I believe no such thing! I stated explicitly that I chose a *messier* world! The progressives are the ones dreaming of a utopia. I *explicitly* argue that utopia is impossible... that perfection is impossible, and the question is rather what is the best available imperfect system. As all of human history attests, the system that maximizes freedom is best. Such a state is in some senses the antithesis of a utopia. Consider your reference to slavery. How do you feel about an argument that goes something like this: A rich individual promises you all the luxuries of life, in exchange for your freedom--that is, in exchange for you being a slave. What do you pick? Reducing free choice in exchange for the promise of economic security is exactly such a choice. For me, I ask for a life of risk and uncertainty... but one of freedom. This is not utopian. If anything, it is brutally realist.
Consider those persons escaping real suffering to come to this country... how do they phrase why they came? Was it for an easier life? A less risky life? No. It was for "opportunity". They have no illusions that this is a utopia... rather, they believe that they will be free here.
--"You claim to have this remarkable faith in humanity which the rest of us can barely fathom, but you see most of us as "lazily rely(ing) on some gentle cattle prod to force (us) to goodness, and where (we) cannot fall asleep at night patting (ourselves) on the back for having forced the unwashed to behave in what (we) believe is a better way". The fact of the matter is, we decide, through the political process, what is in the national interest. "
And here, you again reveal our fundamental difference. You believe that it is moral and right to force others to accept your view of the "national interest" on all things. If it is the national interest that abortion is murder, then it is you who argue government should have the power to outlaw abortion. I argue that government *should not have that power*. Do you see? I need not dictate to anyone the moral question of whether abortion is murder... that it is a moral question at all means that government (again, at least the federal government) has no power to make the determination!
And again... it is not me, but you with the remarkable faith we can barely fathom... I said that my vision is messier! I do not have an absolute faith that "everything will be alright". As I argued above, it's not at all about identifying the perfect system. Such a thing doesn't exist. But somehow you believe that there is a way to dictate in such a way that we can all be free! But what about those who disagree with you? In your world, can both you and your "disagree-er" be free? Or is it right to use government to force the other to act in support of your beliefs?
**sorry, baby is crying, and it's my turn... more later!
[I never did finish... I have to do some work. Maybe later I add more.]
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Ann Romney Acknowledges, Embraces Sexism
