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Originally posted by roachboy
==on the notion of the rights of the individual--these are legally defined. they do not exist as some Form out there in the universe. so that is wrong.
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The Founders believed that these rights are inalienable and fundamental - the natural rights of human beings. They are not granted by the state - the state exists to protect them. I agree with this. To suppose that liberty is a gift from the state is antithetical to the concept of liberty. It is not a gift.
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on the link private property/individual liberties: this is not demonstrable. this is a question of faith--it functions as logical within a particular political framework--the linkage is not inevitable because yours is not the only politics on earth. there is no reason to assume that it is true outside your political frame of reference. private property in the sense that we understand it now is relatively recent--and is a function of mutations of law--the particular form of private property you talk about, its legal inscription and the set of assumptions rooted in it--not a bit of it is older than capitalism. in fact, much of the law concerning private property developed along with tax law. think about the napoleonic code, for example......think of it wonderwench--the very definition of private property being a functino of the taxation you oppose--how about that, huh? ironic, the real world, aint it?
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Private property existed long before the Napoleonic Code, it was just held by very few people who enslaved others. See the connection between property and liberty?
Why is private property important to liberty and responsibility? It represents the tangible results of one's efforts - it is an outcome. For those results to belong to another is defacto slavery.
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===that presupposes that the infrastructures already exist. your objection was to the redistribution of wealth in principle. without it no infrastructure. period. as for privatizing infrastructure, pretty much every place that has tried it has found it to be a disaster. but i am sure you do not look at information like that. if you are curious, check out what happened in chile, for example, when they privatized the water supply (the experience of santiago is interesting in particular).
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We can play dueling examples of good vs. bad privatization all day long. I am less concerned about investment in infrastructure, which does serve a productive purpose, than I am with entitlement and dependency programs. I can see a benefit in certain capital intensive projects being publicly supported, although I do doubt that they are managed in a financially prudent manner.
How about that Boston Loop, eh?
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=====you act as though the regulation of behaviour originated with the state---that is wrong--what the state in its modern form **did** do is make these controls (potentially) political rather than leaving them in the hands of organizations like a church, so at least you can bitch about them. privatization is depoliticization--it does not remove anything, it simply makes what was a public issue into a private one. i have a good story to illustrate the point..maybe later...
i assume you are a libertarian of some kind?
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Religion is a voluntary association and in this modern age, churches (at least in America) are not allowed to execute unbelievers. The U.S. was established with the principle of separation of church and state. Matters that are purely personal should not be regulated. Why should it be anyone else's business what I do in the privacy of my home? It harms nobody but myself if there is harm involved.
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the capacities that you claim are wired are empty--the content they are given is social--what is wired are capacities and dispositions. almost nothing that influences cognition is hardwired in any direct sense. want a sustained argument to this effect, read piaget. this is not to mention a shelf of more recent cogsci that demolishes this idea. why hold onto it? because it is politically expedient to be able to make gross generalizations on that basis, because similar ideological generalizations are built into the series of fictions that structure your economic theory.
rebut if you like. i am still awake for some reason, despite it being quite late on the east coast. [/B]
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Although humans are cognitive beings, we are still mammals with a biological imperative. To ignore that we have natural survival instincts is to deny nature.