From: marky@engin.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young)
Subject: Re: Taxation as Theft
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 93 01:15:30 EST
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>In article <Y2d=t7@engin.umich.edu> marky@engin.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young) writes:
>>If I choose to advance my survival by stealing from you, I am violating
>>your right not to be prevented from advancing your survival.  Unless, of
>>course, you have far more than you need for your survival.
>
>ah, nice argument (aren't we getting darn cozy).
>
>but who defines how much i need and how much you need?
>
>the rights to property are a subset of the rights to survival and flow
>directly from the right to life. on what basis do you violate them?
>if you say "because i need to" then you are not an advocate of
>individualism at all.

I am _not_ an advocate of individualism -- at least not as you seem to
understand it.  When I steal from the rich to feed myself, my defence is
necessity, and my lawyer will spit back your words at you:  "the right
_not to be prevented_" from advancing my own survival.  If your right to
property truly flows, as you have said, from the right to survival, then
the fact that I left you with enough to survive on is sufficient defence.

This is not my position, but my interpretation of your position.  You
have justified your right to property through a right to survive, yet
deny that my right to survive in any way impinges on your right to
property.  Since property is only a derived right, I don't see how it
can supercede axiomatic rights.

It is my position that it is nature that decides how much you need
and how much I need, and our society that decides whether and how much
your right to property should be infringed to support my right to
survive, and that that is a right and proper function of society.  If
one or the other of us does not like it, we can leave and find a new
society more to our liking.

It's sort of a "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to
the death your right to say it" situation.  I may not like the rules
that the gov't has set up for redistributing wealth, but I believe that
it is within its legitimate interests to make those rules.
>
>i still don't see the point anyway. compromise only is necessary because
>not all people agree. i am discussing the merits of a society where
>all people promote the same moral standard. i know this will never
>happen, but that is irrelevant to the discussion, which is theoretical.
>
Oh, if that's the case, then my system is perfect.  Everyone has 
_exactly_ the same morality, so there is absolutely nothing the
government can do that offends anyone unless it offends everyone.
Therefore, the government's course of action is clear.

But that's not the way you've been arguing, if you'll forgive me.  You've
been arguing that certain actions by the government are immoral; in
particular, taxing people to provide welfare.  You have been arguing in
favour of your morality as a basis for legitimate government.  Gerald
has been doing the same from a different set of premises.  I have been
putting my poor efforts at arguing that legitimate government is 
government that respects as much as possible the morality of _all_ its
citizens.  I know that my efforts are poor because you and Gerald keep
on telling me I'm in favour of genocide.

>>Note that this does not mean that there are no actions that are
>>inappropriate for any human government (see my response to Gerald
>>concerning the mistreatment of dissidents) -- just that such actions
>>are inappropriate because they offend humans.
>
>which humans though? what if they are offensive to 49,999,999 humans
>and not offensive to 50,000,001 humans?

************************************************************************
The number of people that are _not offended_ is irrelevent.  The number
of people that _are offended_ is relevent, as is the _extent_ of _each
person's_ offence taken.  

Have you taken calculus?  Let x be the amount of offence an individual
feels, and n(x) the number of people that feel that amount of offence.
The total offence taken is then integral(0 to infinity)(x * n(x))dx.
Clearly, it makes absolutely no difference whether n(0) is 10 or 
10 billion:  it just doesn't add anything to the total offence.
************************************************************************

Democracy plays no part in morality.  You cannot change my feelings
by out-voting me.  In your example, 50 million people are offended by
the action.  If anything near 50 million people are _offended by _not_
taking the action_, then you have a dangerously polarized society, and
a government that is in a NO-WIN SITUATION.  Whatever it decides will
be inappropriate.  If possible, the society should be split into two
more homogeneous societies -- the Czecho-Slovak solution.  If it is
not possible -- the Bosnian situation -- then there is really no
legitimate government possible, and people will have to muddle along
as best they can.  In time maybe an understanding will arise.  One
can always hope.
>
>so what is your morality based on? whim? every morality is based on
>something. what comforts you?
>
(I'm sorry for the "comfort" crack.  It was inappropriate.)

My morality is based on that of my parents, on my upbringing, and on
my sense of empathy.  I have not codified it.  I believe that the
attempt to boil morality down to a few hard-and-fast principles is
dangerous -- because only an approximation can be obtained that way,
and thus damage is done to some of your initial moral principles.

I draw comfort from the fact that many of my friends and family
reflect my values.  I get discomfort from the fact that some of my
friends and acquaintances disagree with my values.  But I do not
then dismiss these people as immoral.  I know that they are trying
to come to grip with a hard and imperfect world, and they are
making the best sense of it they can.  If they have reached some
conclusions that are different than mine, it is not necessarily
them that are wrong.  I investigate my values in light of these
disagreements, and either strengthen or weaken my convictions.
Since I am still learning my morality, it is premature to
codify it.

>>I know that my value system is no more privileged than anyone else's,
>>but that does not stop me from believing in my value system -- I do so
>>because it is mine, and it would be ridiculous for me to prefer
>>anyone else's to my own.
>
>say what? why do you believe in it if you don't think it is superior
>to the others out there?
>
Because it is mine, and my value system has caused me to build it
that way.  This is not circular, it is merely recursive.

>>I grant no such moral authority.  You aren't abstracting far enough.  No
>>government has morality.  Only people have morality, and every person's
>>morality is sovereign to that person.  The government cannot force its
>>citizens not to be offended.  If the people are offended, then the
>>government is doing something wrong.  
>
>so? they do things which are wrong all the time. the only power
>you give to the people in this system is the ability to say
>"the government is wrong! we are offended!"?
>
I have not outlined a system of government, as you seem to be saying.
My understanding was that we were talking about what makes a government
"legitimate", or what makes its actions "appropriate" or "moral".
This is not the same as arguing political systems.  You seem to
believe that the legitimacy of the government is bound up
_intrinsically_ in its forms.  I believe that the legitimacy is
bound up in its representation of the people through whatever form.

>>I do not think _my_ morality is special in any way to anyone
>>but _me_.
>
>then who cares about it? 

No one but me and my friends and family, as far as I know.  That's
why I wasn't talking much about it in my earlier posts.  It's
also irrelevent to the discussion.  I'm not talking about _my_
morality, I'm talking about the government's "morality".

>then would you have had no problem with Nazi Germany?

I have plenty of problems with the Nazi government of Germany.
My personal feelings are largely irrelevent, however, to a
discussion of the legitimacy of that regime.  The regime was
illegitimate because it offended "common decency", which is
another term for the morality of the people in general.

That's all I'm arguing.  Gov'ment is legitimate to the extent
that it respects common decency.

>>You find any form of government other than democracy offensive.
>>You find simple majority rule offensive.  By simple logical
>>operations, we can thus infer that only a government that is
>>democratic and has some protection against majority rule has
>>even a remote chance of being inoffensive to everyone.  Since
>>very many people feel the same way (hey, me too!), it seems
>>likely that such a form of government will be the least 
>>inappropriate one around.  Congratulations.
>
>wow. what a paragraph. reminds me of a Klein bottle.
>i *know* there's a circular argument hiding in there somewhere,
>but i just can't figure out exactly where.
>
You don't "know" it since it isn't so. It's simple logical 
constraints:

 1-The government is legitimate only if it has the support
   of the people.  
       ~legit(X) <= ~support(X) 
 2-The people only support democracy.
       ~support(X) <= X <> democracy
 3-Thus, any form of government other than democracy is 
   illegitimate.
       ~legit(X) <= X <> democracy.

(1) is from my definition.  (2) is a premise that applies to
western populations.  (3) is the resolvent of (1) with (2).
If the people support some form other than democracy (that is,
if (2) is not true), then that other form can also be the 
basis for a legitimate government.

>[A _lot_ of argumentation suggesting I'm in favour of
> genocide deleted]

All of your arguments about minorities being oppressed are
wrong.  You have attributed to me an axiom I don't have --
that if less people are offended than are not offended, then
the action is OK.  You have also assumed that I think that
people must bend to the will of their government.  Neither
of these is the case.

...mark young
Newsgroups: can.politics