This is a copy paste from DDO. But who cares?
Well this is a copy paste from DDO. But who cares?
Ok so I've said enough around here against different social structures that some people (e.x. MysticEgg) are wondering what the hec I do believe in.
Well I do believe in something, a government which means I am not an anarchist (you know according to the actual dictionary definition of anarchy).
I guess what I would call it would be "ethocracy." It is in essence a constitution which provides a complete list of negative rights and a guide to an unlimited interpretation and application of these rights.
I will contrast this with something like the U.S. constitution which does not claim to list all rights indeed specifically says it shall not be construed to deny any other rights. It has no absolute rights, liberty is only safe so long the government can't be bothered to follow due process and perhaps make a law for that purpose.
The constitution of this ethocracy would have a complete absolute definition of natural human rights. It would specifically say there are no rights that cannot be derived from those specified.
This reflects my belief in objective morals. I do not fear that morality can become obsolete.
The fundamental right is the right to liberty.
The first tier of derivative rights is:
Right to freedom from avoidable harm
Right to freedom from fraud
Right to pursue value [consistent with all other rights]
The second tier of derivative rights is:
Right to property. [not land]
Right to free movement.
Right to free speech.
Right to free association.
(there will be more specific tiers, it could get quite long)
Alright only got 6000 characters (and I don't really want to do more without specific questions)
There are two separate functions of this government.
1. To pass laws.
2. To facilitate social action.
These two functions are different in so many ways that I can't imagine how it was ever thought to be a good idea to conflate them. First off some context, to make the system practical in the way I describe it a computer system is necessary. This system is essentially just a means for the citizen to participate in government.
Let's start with law. Law (or a modification thereof) is suggested by anyone. It gains support by being found and 'voted for' by any citizen. Every law must be accompanied with a justification section. This justification section must demonstrate how the law protects some right. It must also analyze the law and show that no contradiction with any right can be easily found.
There are two 'trials' before the proposal becomes law.
First is the popular support trial. This will effect a key characteristic of laws in this government namely that they will expire unless reaffirmed. There are two pertinent measurements to look at. The %support is the number that voted for the proposition of those who voted at all, and the %voters is the percentage of the population that voted on the proposition.
A) Weak law, 25% voters, 50.001% support. Expires every year.
B) Standard law, 50% voters, 75% support. Expires in ten years.
C) Fundamental law, 75% voters, 90% support. Expires in a century (unless the thresholds in B abolish it)
Modifications (but not nullification) to these laws may be passed separately such that you might have a fundamental law against murder where you have the punishments as standard or weak law.
Second is the judicial (or legal) trial. Two panels of judges evaluate the justification section of the law for logical validity. They only have the power to stop the law. If they consider the justification insufficient a precedent is set but only for the justification. The same law may be passed with different justification. This is the panel's only chance to stop the law. The judges are elected but offset by five years (they elect them five years before they start to operate).
Since every law must attempt to protect a right all laws will necessarily be the identification of a violation of rights which is rendered punishable. Things like "marriage law" simply can't exist. The question of marriage is not of violation of rights, there are no punishments. In this ethocracy such things are not law, they are social actions.
Laws are universal throughout the government. Rights are equal, laws should thus be equal as well. There is nothing localized about morality. You can see by implication many more things which don't belong in law.
The other function is social action. What is social action? This is not related to morality, this is not "someone has done wrong, and the eyes of the ranger are upon him." These are things people do best together, on a large scale, and separate from profit motive.
An excellent example would be building a bridge. However even hiring a police force is an example. Notice that enforcing the law is not the same as passing the law. The law describes what is illegal and what may be legally done to prevent it. The police are a social action to enforce the laws.
So how do these work? It starts much the same way as law, somebody suggests it; it gains support. However that's where the similarity ends.
Social actions can be (and almost always should be) localized. There can be a social action for just London, or just New York or just California or just a town of 100. There can be no localized law.
The second critical fact about social actions is that the 'votes' are in fact pledges of support. It does not need to be money but probably would be in most cases. The writers of the social action (probably with the help of government agencies meant to help people write these things correctly) define what minimum support is required. When that support is pledged the social action 'passes' it doesn't matter who supported it or how many people did so. BECAUSE social actions are not law and they cannot contradict law, they cannot violate rights.
If a billionaire wanted to he could suggest and fund his own social action to build a orphanage. However the point is more when 30,000 citizens want a fire department and the easiest most corruption free way of getting one is passing a social action where the pledge enough support to make that fire department exist.
This system allows for whatever structures people may so desire no matter how complex, general or localized. All without interfering with the morality encoded in the law, all without being given the power to violate rights.
Let's take homosexual marriage because it is a perfect example of the superiority of this system. What would marriage be under ethocracy? Well it wouldn't be law. Not getting married doesn't violate rights. What now counts as 'marriage' would be a social action. Probably a large network of people who promise to abide by certain standards of treatment and privilege towards couples. Well when homosexuals come along it's pretty simple. Look at the definition of marriage in the original social action. If it excludes homosexuals you make another social action that does the same thing. If it doesn't and people freak out you split it up next time around. This allows people to support what they want (which is of course the only moral way to support).
There are no representatives (people can represent themselves). There are executives and judges. All public funding is handled through the finite and continuously reaffirmed consent of the social action system. There is no taxation.
So what would law and society look like?
Can't stop immigration, as immigration doesn't violate any rights.
Stuff like speed limits and wearing clothes are 'private' regulations. i.e. people create a 'standard decency' set of regulations or something and require that for roads and business. Not absolute, but good enough that I doubt people would be streaking (although they could very easily make a streaking town with enough support). This also takes care of that old (and very silly) free speech shouting fire in a crowded theater problem.
So pretty much anything that is currently law that you couldn't make happen as a law under ethocracy, think about how to make it a standard regulation (deriving authority from property rights). If you can't, oppression needs to die.
Land? I did not cover claiming land, but essentially land claims would be merely social convention, something you sign up for in a social contract. By social contract I literally mean social contract. Nothing imaginary, and certainly nothing that changes the universality or absolutism of the law. This would be the contract you sign so you get to use that computer system and have people respect your land claims. True you don't have to respect theirs until you do sign; but you still need to respect their property.
The ability to appeal to courts in civil matters could also (morally) be contingent on signing the contract.
If you really wanted you could make it so anyone signing the contract had to shun people who didn't, but I think that's a really bad idea and pointless too. The greatest advantage of this system is allowing people to subscribe to whatever social elements they find most important. Attempting to bundle things up again is going in the wrong direction, forcing a fracturing of society instead of allowing it to remain unified yet diverse.
Environment? If long term destruction of natural resources could be proven it would be punishable under the right to pursue value. If poisons could be proven to be at harmful levels due to some activity, releasing more than X of the poison based on the locality can be banned.
National parks? As an absolute, kinda out the window. You can claim land but you can't stop the real outsiders from building on it. Most people will have to respect the claims though.
Economics? I suspect it would be rather similar to how it is now, just without the loads of economic regulations and crap that have been ruining the ideal for a century now. However no taxes. No enforced currency. Anarchist like Wocambs can try to make whatever work, the social action system would no doubt be invaluable if they have a chance. But private property is in the system to stay, and no community can (legally) reject the law or its enforcement.
Sex? Well let's get this one out of the way. You can have sex with animals because the justification requirement would prevent laws against victimless crimes. True the rights I enumerated above are human rights, but there would be animal rights in the final version. No opportunity for arbitrary condemnation in any case. Under free association you should be able to have sex with just about anyone and anything that consents where there is no inherent significant risk of harm or that risk is understood and accepted by the other party.
Incest, polygamy, cars... whatever.
Religion? Religious people can be religious... within the law.
Race? Unmentioned and unimportant in the Constitution or law. Social actions may discriminate. Laws against discrimination cannot be justified. People have the right to be complete a$$holes I'm afraid.
Ask if you think I forgot something.
Ok, so how does this tie into objectivism (my self-proclaimed philosophy)? First off two disclaimers. This is how I understand the philosophy, I may well present these ideas in a different format or vocabulary than other objectivist. I don't believe there are any true contradictions but you may find some who don't care for the way I put it. Second, this philosophy was first fully identified by Ms. Ayn Rand in relatively recent history, but it's components have been floating around for thousands of years and formed an implicit basis for pretty much every other philosophy that ever 'worked.' Some of you may think this is about Rand but it's not really, she would be the first one to tell you not to trust authority without reason.
Ms. Rand put a great deal of work condensing the philosophy into an efficient short piece of Rhetoric which is related in Atlas Shrugged near the end. It is Galt's radio address. Admittedly this speech is NOT a purely rational or philosophical speech. It is emotionally charged and uses many rhetorical devices. But it still contains the intellectual essence of objectivism as well as a good feel for its 'spirit.' I am linking to a youtube playlist where this entire speech is read out loud with pertinent contemporary insertions, nice music, and visuals.
For those who have want to 'get it' 'fast' watch this all the way through (it doesn't really take that long in the whole scheme of things).
Some notes I have in case any of you are wondering how in the world I cram my sexual orientation into my world view:
In Ep. 4 "The Standard of Morality" 3:00 some assumptions are made about non-human animals that are premature to say the least. It would be best if you think about insets or jellyfish as opposed to higher vertebrates which have been proven to do quite a bit of learning about what is good and evil for them. Whether or not man is the only being with these qualities doesn't really matter to the rest.
Ep. 7 "Emotions" 9:50 says 'the trader does not give the values of his spirit, his love, his friendship, his esteem except in payment and in trade for human virtues.' The name "human virtues" is accurate in that they are most certainly virtues proper to humans, however they are not only human virtues. If we should see them in non-humans they ought to be no less valuable and no less deserving of our love, friendship, and esteem.
Ep. 15 "The Mystics of Muscle" 7:05 implies that your philosophical values create your sexual desires. Sorry I'm afraid Ms. Rand was just wrong about that. A reasonable induction since you are bound to be more attracted to people you love than otherwise, but I have direct evidence that philosophy doesn't directly correlate with sexual desires.
So now for my own words. Objectivism is reason in epistemology and liberty in ethics. Its only social imperative is interaction by consent and private property. And hey look the 'ethocracy' government agrees.
ADreamOfLiberty:
What happens if I transgress a social action?
For example if I am living in an area where a social action is crafted forbidding gay marriage, and I am gay and married, or gay and want to be married - what happens to me?
Also, of build a fence around my house, and people are constitutionally prevented from damaging my property, I can effectively carve up a piece of land for myself right?
Finally, and I may have missed it, but is privacy a social action, law or constitutional right?
nzlockie:
"What happens if I transgress a social action?"
They are not 'transgressable' they are not laws. If you and your neighbors decided to plant a row of trees nearby; what would constitute a transgression of that action? Someone ruining your trees? That is not truly against the social action so much against your property.
In existing legal terms every social action creates a corporation with a finite chartered purpose. Its shareholders are everyone who promised support but they may not alter the charter by vote unless that is specifically allowed for. You should imagine this charter (which is in fact the language of the social action as it is presented to people by the computer system) as a mini-constitution. You can put anything you want in there, but the purpose is to facilitate cooperative effort.
It is not an exercise of power in the classical sense of military force. To the law it is no different than any other free association. There is no reason it *must* be part of the government it simply makes sense since so a good deal of effort would already be exerted to maintain this computer system.
"For example if I am living in an area where a social action is crafted forbidding gay marriage"
No such social action can be created as it would violate rights. If the social action supports only heterosexual marriage and thereby excludes homosexual marriage, that is the closest it can legally come to 'forbidding' anything.
As I said in the OP 'social actions are not law and they cannot contradict law, they cannot violate rights.'
"Also, of build a fence around my house, and people are constitutionally prevented from damaging my property, I can effectively carve up a piece of land for myself right?"
Yes, but only within the somewhat arbitrary rules of free movement. Essentially you can't build any structure designed to prevent people from moving around the planet.
I have been searching for some objective standards to use, and that's still up for grabs. But basically, you build a fence around your garden, your house, your driveway and that's not going to violate free movement. You build it around fifty acres that's not going to fly; even if that fifty acres is filled with your property you need to let people through.
I understand this is a pretty radical change to traditional western views of property, but I simply can't justify land as true moral property and it is not for lack of trying.
"Finally, and I may have missed it, but is privacy a social action, law or constitutional right?"
There could be no effective social action concerning privacy since a social action can only impose on signers.
The appropriate place for privacy protection would be in the social contract (the same thing that prevents public lewdness and allows for land claims). This is not an absolute protection since people who do not sign the social contract are not bound by it. However I believe the benefits it offers will compel the vast majority of sane people to do so.
Spies and busy bodies rarely appreciate being spied on themselves.
ADreamOfLiberty:
Gotcha - that clears things up re:social actions.
except one last thing - tell me if I'm interpreting this right:
Let's say I sign a social contract requesting my right to privacy be respected by those who are also in the contract. This contract could also contain the agreement that I respect others privacy, or that could be a second contract I also sign... whatever. Lars signs the same contract/s I do in this regard.
Then I break the contract by spying on Lars and reading his diary.
My punishment would be whatever was defined in the social contract right?
Presumably that could be a pre-specified sentence or it could be submission to some sort of judgement panel - whatever.
nzlockie:
"Unless I'm reading it too closely and the thresholds for in favour actually vary from those given based on how many people vote?"
The people need not choose which category they go for. It is automatically selected based on what the actual vote was.
If 50% voted and 70% were in favour that does meet the thresholds for weak law and it would be passed for one year. The purpose of the temporary laws and these thresholds is to replace the simplistic approach of using layers of politicians to slow down the process.
The names I gave were arbitrary, weak law is not enforced any less than fundamental law. It simply must be renewed.
They are meant to measure just how how close to universal the justification is perceived to be. Things like murder would be fundamental laws, almost anything that is considered a political issue would probably never make it past weak law; meaning proponents would have to keep fighting constantly until the population settles in one direction for a while.
This is to avoid the (what I see as) inappropriate tendency in modern democratic republics to push hard to pass a law, knowing that repealing it is usually twice as hard.
If 50% of 25% vote for a law, and it gets past the judiciary. It will be enforced.
Tophatdoc:
" I also wonder how will the laws be enforced considering they have various degrees of importance."
They are all enforced equally. However when a law is controversial (as measured by only being weak law) it needs to be continually reaffirmed.
"what prevents someone from moving their RV on someone else's lawn?"
Land claims would have to allow openings for vehicles, that is where public roads may be placed. If a fence must be knocked down or a garden trampled the RVer can be charged with destruction of property.
"Right to freedom from fraud;" I did not understand at all."
Dishonesty along with force are the two fundamental means of coercing behavior. (i.e. trying to subvert a persons best judgement as to how they should act in lieu of their values).
A freedom from fraud in practice means any demonstrable lies or unreasonable omissions in communication that can be shown to affect the decision to interact (such as but not limited to trad) are punishable.
