From: kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrm 762-6417)
Subject: Re: music censorship in WA state now in effect
Organization: Cores 'R Us
Distribution: seattle
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 20:57:31 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.142521.25860@mdd.comm.mot.com> mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell) writes:
>in seattle.general, kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrm 762-6417) said:
>
>
>>In article <1992Apr8.210536.21677@u.washington.edu> iho@cac.washington.edu writes:
>>>gilbert@mdd.comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) writes:
>>>>
>>[...]
>>>> What she asked for was for some governmental agency to make a
>>>> VALUE JUDGEMENT (so she wouldn't have to pay attention) for ALL of
>>>> us.  What she is really after is to be able to PRESUME that any music
>>>> her kids get ahold of will be OK with her.
>>>
>>>In my opinion, that's what government is for: to force the values
>>>of the majority on the rest of the population.
>>
>>Is this flame-bait or what??  Are you serious??
>>
>>>                                                I don't think that's
>>>a bad thing.
>>
>>Don't be shy.  Please tell us, if you will, what is *good* about that??
>>
>>>              In order to have an orderly society, each of us has to
>>>forfeit certain liberties.
>>
>>This whole forum must *really* piss you off!  Don't you wish you
>>could put a stop to it?  Don't you wish people were more respectful of
>>the authorities?
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>kurt@grogatch.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)
>
>
>I'm perplexed by your responses.  I think John is right on target.
>
>The majority of our society holds values, for example, that it is
>wrong to rape, pillage, cheat, steal, murder, etc.

Then they ought to stop doing that.  The government should, too.

>Thru our representative system of government, we've also as a society
>set other limits.  Minimum drinking age, minimum age to buy tobacco
>products, prohibition of recreational drug use, speed limits,  seasonal
>bans against watering the lawn during a drought, etc.

Jeez.  I don't remember being asked about anything like the above.
Representative?  Gimme a break.  Neither freethinkers *nor* anarchists
get any representation at all.  You must mean, "representative of the
majority" :( .

Where did the *value* (commonly held belief) of *having* a lawn come from?
By slavish adherence to a convention that gets passed on from generation to
generation of law-abiding citizen.  First society creates the problem.
English-style lawns in Phoenix or Southern California are examples.
Then society guarantees that the problem won't go away by creating a class
of people whose interests are vested in the continued existence of the
problem, all in the name of ostensible prevention.  In the latter case, these
might be the water cops, their bosses, the whole infra-structure (such as,
for example, law enforcement supply industry, etc., etc., ad
infinitum/nauseam).

Why not just let it be OK to speed as long as nobody is hurt or damaged?
Why have a law that prohibits injuring somebody, and *then* a law that
prohibits conditions that *might* lead to somebody's injury?  Why not a
law which prohibits conditions which *might* lead to conditions which
*might* lead to somebody's injury (infinite regress)?

If someone *does* get injured, it's the *injury* that is the problem, and the
*responsibility* of the car driver to make appropriate redress.  If anybody
can enlighten me as to how retroactively applying penalties of a preventative
law to a situation which in no way was prevented or ameliorated by its
presence, helps redresses the injury (or even death), I would be eternally
grateful.  In particular, I would like to know how the presence of such laws
motivates people to be responsible members of society?  Are we really not
just indulging the "righteous revenge", "eye-for-an-eye", "balance-the-cosmic
scales-of-justice" aesthetic fantasies of long-dead philosophers who never
had to be on the receiving end of what they preach?

>We've forfeited the civil liberties which would allow members of society
>not agreeing with these value judgements to ignore them, and created
>governmental agencies to enforce the values on those who would exercise
>the forfeited civil liberties by murdering, raping, pillaging, or driving
>over 55 mph.

Except, of course, if you're executing state policy, in which case all of
the above is OK.  Seriously, all you've done is guarantee the existence of
an infrastructure that takes on a life of its own, that we all have to take
part in maintaining, and that aggravates and reproduces the problems it
presumably was invented to cope with.  You also teach/learn that there are
certain situations where all of the above is OK, but that you are too dumb to
decide that, and so it is reserved to the state.  But now, when you escape
control, as is inevitable with imperfect systems, and if all activity is
*prescribed*, the only things left to do are *proscribed*, and there is now
no way to really hold you responsible.  Such people don't have much going for
them, but they also have nothing to lose, to society's peril.  Look at what's
going on South Africa, as an example.  On the bright side, things seem to be
loosening up a little; people in some way seem to be recognizing the limits
of an authoritarian society.  But look at the road they had to take to get
there!  In the most (or pretty close) authoritarian society of all there are
people of all colors necklacing each other, shooting, rampaging, killing,
raping each other right and left.  In other words, the essence of lawlessness.
Why should it be any surprise that this is happening?  How in such a society,
would these people know or learn any different?  How can it be shown in a
more graphic fashion that these authoritarian methods fashion their own
downfall, at enormous grief to all of us? 

>Are you seriously saying that this whole system is a _bad_thing_?  What
>would you suggest to replace it?

Anarchy, i. e. letting people control their own lives.
"Get the government off the backs of the people." (impossible dream!)

>Oh, BTW, I think this music censorship law is silly and stupid.  However,
>I'm not about to suggest reworking our entire society because of it.

Practically *all* of the laws are silly and stupid.  A pretty good reason
to consider reworking our entire society, IMO.  We aren't talking the Bill
of Rights here -- that's a pretty good idea, if they'd only stop talking
about it and actually *do it*!  We are perhaps talking more Declaration of
Independence.

I'm not proposing a revolutionary discontinuity, here.  If I were worried
about that, the authoritarians of one stripe or another would be the likely
culprits, not "anarchists" or freethinkers.

If you need a law to regulate your conduct, then you are a **part of the
problem**, a problem that would exist in both highly regulated societies and
and anarchic societies.  The difference is that in highly regulated societies,
the problem *persists* instead of merely cropping up from time to time.
Indeed, a highly regulated society *requires* a crop of lawless types, not
only as an object of control, but to use as *tools of control* over everyone
else, lawless or not.

kurt@grogatch.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)