News A Sense Of Entitlement

[Anarchy]

The party that bears the responsibility to ensure those rights are actually enjoyed is largely on the State, not the individual.

the state has no existence separate from individuals
Certainly people impute the action of the state to the hangman - but it is still the hangman who pulls the lever.

For things like health, education and a right to vote, that's straight up State responsibility stuff. Either the country is providing those, or it isn't and needs to improve its game.

The teachers need to eat, and somewhere to live
Those consumption goods don't come from nature in any easy sense, they require individuals to work and to coordinate together in a division of labour, in order to produce them.

for a free exchange to take place, both parties to the exchange expect that they will subjectively gain more than they give up - if they didn't, then the exchange wouldn't take place.
In acting, people seek to achieve their subjective most highly desired ends first

all that legislators/central planners can do is to divert the products of that coordination from where they were most preferred by freely consenting and exchanging individuals, and towards the planners preferences instead.

There are no intrinsic values - they are all subjective. so all that the legislators or planners are doing is forcing their subjective values onto people, in place of their own subjective values and choices.

There isn't a single good that can only be provided coercively

If it requires coercive production, then that shows that it is not a "good", it is instead a "bad" people did not subjectively value it highly enough to exchange for it
If the exchange must be forced, that demonstrates that they did not expect to gain by the exchange, they expected to loose by it. they expected to subjectively give up more than they expected to subjectively gain.

Why do the planners feel entitled to force their subjective values onto others?

Education can be (and in many places is) provided at low cost by the private sector. James Tooley, Prof of Education at Newcastle Uni explains

Also check out his colleague at Newcastle, Sugata Mitra's Ted talks
http://www.ted.com/speakers/sugata_mitra

 

[Anarchy]

It is the nation, rather than individuals, that are responsible for reporting back to the UN on the nation's compliance with the various Charters.

Rather than answer to the individuals who they feel entitled to boss around? :unsure:

 

[Anarchy]

I'll put my faith in a court of law before I put my faith in "why can't we be friends".

I touched on that back on Anthony's domestic abuse advert thread

I realise that to someone who has been immersed in the mainstream (that's most people), it might look like I am advocating either a Mad Max type world, or a unicorns and rainbows utopia where all people are magically nice.

Far from it
Most of the positive laws on the statute books are very recent, most are within the period since 1900, and well over half of them are younger than I am.

Without getting too nerdy, there are well developed and proven legal systems which provide mutual reciprocal incentives to follow them. They're also easy to understand.

They're not very useful to kings who are looking for money, or to robbing politicians or to greedy cronies or police unions, and they do not allow for some people to force their prejudices onto other people.

but they do provide very strong effective, swift and cheap protections for all individuals against force, theft, fraud and other torts. They can also evolve extremely rapidly as conditions and technology change.

In terms of feminism, The customary pre colonial Irish "Brehon" legal system, had developed a consensual system of women's rights that was more advanced and liberal than any in the English speaking world, probably up to the 1970s...

... and that that violence is not necessary (on either logical or historical grounds) to achieve an extensive and just system for protecting rights, including women's rights.

In terms of further reading on polycentric customary systems of law

You'll get a free and easy to read intro here
Link Removed

Frank van Dun (lecturer in the philosophy of law at Ghent), has some good pieces in English up on his website, there are even more if you read Dutch/Flemmish.

One of Frank van Dun's disciples, Michael van Notten, moved to Somalia after the fall of the Barre regime, and Married into the Darrod Clan. His work "The Law of the Somalis" (published by red sea press) provides an in depth insight into the philosophy and jurisprudence of a currently operating polycentric customary legal system. I know that Somalia gets a bad press, but do not confuse the remnants of the Soviet client Barre regime who are still trying to live parasitically in the Mogadishu area, with the traditional (and absolutely amazing) legal system.

George Ayittey's "indiginous African Institutions" is a very good academic tome, but it is very expensive and over 400 pages long, so best to read other stuff before thinking about ordering it on inter library loan.

And lastly, a reference in a book that most of us have a copy of, the book of "judges" in the bible, gives an account of the use of a polycentric customary legal system.

 

[Anarchy]

Regarding private provision of defence,
Check out Dale Brown. The gentleman operates in Detroit, and provides free patrols and classes for poor areas, funded via his profits from high value contracts protecting against armed heists that the fat blue line couldn't protect against.
He's not assuming that people are nice, and he's using brains rather than muscle to achieve peaceful outcomes.
Jeff Berwick, who is interviewing Brown, isn't my favourite person in the world, but I think Brown comes over really well.

 

[EveHarrington]

Understood. I guess I thought it was more of a direct relation.

 

[joeylittle]

What are we entitled to? and why?

Nothing. We are entitled to nothing.

Ostensibly, we choose to live together in societies (we being the human species) because we find it to be somehow better than living entirely isolated from each other. In societies, we can procreate across genetic lines. Let's just say that's the core biological reason (I'm sure I'm wrong, but for the sake of the hypothetical, we can make it a possibility).

In order to make societies work, we need some measure of both self-service (think Maslow's hierarchy) and co-operation. Without co-operation, certain aspects of the basest needs (food, shelter, safety, etc) would likely be compromised.

Therefore, we choose to tacitly acknowledge that there are basic human needs - and since we are living in overlapping circles of proximity, which requires co-operation - we label those 'needs' as 'rights'; because that still allows us to maintain that human instinct for independence, despite our requirements for society and co-operation.

When societies are very, very small, they can generally function as a collective, and the concept of entitlement - my share, your share, my turn, your turn - goes out the window. I recall reading of a south american community, very isolated, that had yet to incorporate words for specific amounts. They had the word for 'one of something', and then it was just, 'multiple somethings' - because of how resource was pooled.

But, any society of significant size - certainly, modern society - is not capable of that.

So, I believe we are entitled to nothing. We choose to be functional within a society. Some are more inclined towards self-service, others towards co-operation. The more sub-groups your society has (religion, region, environmental resource), the more likely that there will be conflict. And, of course, human beings are products of nature and nurture - which adds to the complexity.

Them's my politics of entitlement.

 

[Sideways]

The "hangman" is cooperating with part of a larger institution though. Humans work collectively. Always have done. Hermits tend to have a very short life expectancy or are in some way (eg getting petrol for the car) still operating as part of a larger collective.

The larger collective may be the state, or private enterprise. But either way, we're still functioning on a cooperative basis, either through voting or through the exchange of money.

Rights, to me, are a way for the collective to recognise a minimum standard when it comes to the liberty of humans and human dignity. Left up to individuals (or even small cultural clans for that matter), there is no assurance that individuals will be afforded those minimum standards. So, the UN telling the Somalians, piracy ain't cool and you need to quit female gential mutilation pronto - I'm good with that. If you leave that stuff to tiny, segregated, non-cooperating groups, the outcome is that there's no one pushing for the end to female genital mutilation. Local custom says it's fine.

So I like Rights. I like knowing there's a minimum standard that all humans are entitled to, a minimum standard that we're all trying to achieve. And if that means that certain people have a responsibility to not take a knife to a 10 year old girl, then I'm actually okay with that.

Without some sort of accountable institution that we collectively cooperate with (like the state, or the corporation) in place to ensure those rights are respected...well, we know where that leads.

 

[Anarchy]

Hi Ragdoll
seeing rulers for what they are is a very similar and at least equally bitter red pill to working out the true nature of any other abuser who has felt entitled to use us.
It's enough to say at this stage that I see the world very differently to the world that I thought I saw when I still believed that good rulers were a possibility. It's a very bitter red pill.

I do want to set a few things straight though

Hermits tend to have a very short life expectancy or are in some way (eg getting petrol for the car) still operating as part of a larger collective.

assuming that without a state we would be reduced to scattered and isolated individual self sufficeincy is an assumption that is easily dispelled:

No state told Anthony to start this forum, and no state told you or I to join it, so how could we possibly be here? but here we are.

Without some sort of accountable institution that we collectively cooperate with (like the state, or the corporation) in place to ensure those rights are respected...well, we know where that leads.

but coordination does not imply coercion. One of the best trolling comments that I've seen is "In a free society, how would people ever manage to tie their own shoe laces?"

Left up to individuals (or even small cultural clans for that matter), there is no assurance that individuals will be afforded those minimum standards.

rulers are individuals, they form a small caste - they are not omniscient beings, they are at least as flawed, and at least as ignorant as the rest of us, and given that power and politics tends to attract psychopaths and narcissists, they're probably more flawed and more ignorant.

So, the UN telling the Somalians, piracy ain't cool and you need to quit female gential mutilation pronto - I'm good with that. If you leave that stuff to tiny, segregated, non-cooperating groups, the outcome is that there's no one pushing for the end to female genital mutilation. Local custom says it's fine.

I might come back to Somali piracy, it's a far more complex story than the mainstream portrays, and includes Somali fishermen trying to deter the dumping of radioactive waste in their fishing grounds. http://ecolocalizer.com/2011/03/27/more-illegally-dumped-radioactive-waste-found-on-somalias-coast/

On female genital mutilation, I think there are 24 Sub Saharan African countries, I'm not aware of a single one where female genital mutilation is not practised although not every cultural group practices it - only one Sub Saharan African country is currently stateless, so FGM is no indication of the presence or absence of a state.

On the wider subject of genital mutilation, It was widely practiced on males and to a very limited extent on females (typically clitorodectomy - to treat masturbation!) by state registered doctors in all of the English speaking countries, well into my lifetime. Many of those were funded by the state. I strongly suspect that my own experience is one of the factors that contributed to me ending up here. about half a century later it still causes me problems that require medical attention.

As regards the UN, it's targets, and human rights, the program in the following quote was at least part funded by the UN, and the UN also provided propaganda cover for it.

A May 11, 2006, article by Reuters reported:
“Lopokoy Kolimuk, an elder in the dusty and dry village of Kanyarkwat in the West Pokot district, said the soldiers who carried out that mission were “wild, beyond humanity.” He said many shot Pokots on sight, or forced men to lie on the ground in a line as they ran across their backs. Other men had their testicles tied together and were then made to run away from each other, he said. Women were raped in front of their husbands, sometimes with empty beer bottles.” [12]
The atrocities in 1950, 1961, and 1984 were not committed as part of a United Nations program. Surely the contemporary gun confiscation program, being conducted at the wishes of the United Nations, would show respect for human rights?

To the contrary, in April 2006, Security Minister John Michuki told Parliament, “The Government has decided to disarm the Pokot by force. If they want an experience of 1984 when the Government used force to disarm them, then this is precisely what is going to happen.” [13]

Stephen Ikua, a government representative, said that threats were necessary in order to get civilians to peacefully surrender their firearms. He said: “As a government, you should talk from a position of strength. You cannot come in saying you are going to respect human rights.” [14]

On May 4, 2006, the BBC described the latest military operation in Kenya, code-named “Okota” [Collect], utilizing tanks, trucks, helicopters, and a local school building as barracks for the army. In the village of about 2,000 people, 8 weapons were recovered by the intimidation. [15] Fearing a repeat of the 1984 human rights violations that accompanied disarmament, 15,000 panicked people fled to Uganda with their cattle and guns, leaving behind the aged, infirm, and the children. [16]

The Standard reported on May 18:

“Starvation and anguish are now stalking West Pokot residents, since the Government launched a forcible disarmament exercise a month ago….The residents now say they have resigned themselves to fate and have become refugees in their own country ... . A recent visit by The Standard revealed the sense of hopelessness and vulnerability that the disarmament has brought, forcing majority residents to relocate to Uganda. Schools have also become ghost institutions, with very few pupils….Although the Government says the operation has not disrupted the villagers’ normal life, a spot-check reveals otherwise.” [17]

In West Pokot alone, 120,000 people need food aid, but only half are getting rations. Schooling is disrupted, and farmsteads are being neglected. [18]

Five weeks after the forced disarmament program began, seventy illegally possessed firearms had been recovered. [19] Apparently, a few dozen firearms are reason enough for the Kenyan government to go to war against its own citizenry.

http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/kenya-uganda.htm

That was 2006. I'll look out and post a photo of me working in West Pokot the following year.
Atrocities not mentioned in that account include the burning of villages, in the hope of finding hidden guns in the ashes and the disembowling of pregnant women by the Kenyan army, in the hope of convincing other villagers to surrender their posessions.

 

[Sideways]

@Anarchy - I was gonna start pulling out quotes and explain how you've misinterpreted pretty much every last word of my post. Then I got to the part where you comment about politics and power attracting psychopaths and narcissists and I thought, you know what, you and I I just not gonna see this the same way.

That's okay with me;)