Timeline for Why should the state not provide for basic necessities?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
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| Jul 22, 2017 at 2:38 | comment | added | Wildcard | @SteveJessop, actually, you wind up with much clearer rules if you interpret that amendment as explicitly applying to individuals. If each individual congressman who voted in favor of a law abridging freedom of speech were personally liable for breach of the Constitution, you would have a very different scene. I'm not advocating or proposing that, merely pointing out that as it stands the responsibility is not individually fixed, and yet it is still only individuals who can act. (If you think that Congress behaves in a highly responsible manner then we shall simply have to disagree.) | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 20:12 | comment | added | Wildcard | @industry7, no edits at all. :) As I noted in a previous comment, the question is based on a misconception. It's moot to discuss "should or shouldn't" when you haven't established "can or cannot." (Should sharp rocks refuse to be used as tools, since they can also be used as weapons? Answer: the question is nonsensical; rocks can't refuse anything.) | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 18:56 | comment | added | industry7 | Did this answer get edited a whole bunch? Rereading the argument presented... I realized there is no argument. It basically just says that a group is composed of individuals, but says nothing about whether or not those individuals that make up "the state" should provide for basic necessities. | |
| Apr 16, 2017 at 1:45 | comment | added | agc | Re ""The State" cannot do anything.": states are emergent phenomena, that may in their own way be alive, and can both do things people can't, and often do things that no individual citizen wants. Some liken a state to a ship at sea, or a leviathan, or a body; I'd suggest a colossal mule, a host to fleas and ticks, and prone to infections... | |
| Apr 12, 2017 at 3:47 | comment | added | Tom Anderson | I believe that Wildcard is attempting a reductio ad absurdum argument, but I'm not personally convinced. It's not absurd to me that a system of government causes things to occur, since my conception of the state includes its employees, its federal land and property, and even its reputation. The state can do nothing except through its parts. The federal leaders and employees are parts like people have arms. Although it is true that if every leader and employee of the state stopped following the current leaders, the state would essentially dissolve, until that time, the state may provide. | |
| Apr 10, 2017 at 10:46 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | Of course the First Amendment could be re-worded, since most of the Bill of Rights is phrased in the passive voice: "X shall not be done" rather than "Congress, or the government, or the state, shall not do X". This would work around the objection as to whether it's linguistically legitimate for "Congress" to be the subject of an active verb in the first place. But apparently US politics and law are capable of proceeding without that re-wording, so I feel we probably should respond to the English language as it is actually used in politics, at least in the USA ;-) | |
| Apr 10, 2017 at 10:37 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | By the same argument, since Congress is a group/idea, not an individual, then then it literally cannot "make a law respecting an establishment of religion". So what's the intent and effect of the First Amendment, if it fails to prohibit the individuals who constitute Congress from working collectively to pass just such a law? Clearly there is some meaning attached to a description of a group or institution "doing something", other than the meaning you dismiss in this answer as formally impossible. In whatever sense "Congress makes laws", the "state" can "redistribute resources". | |
| Apr 9, 2017 at 5:06 | comment | added | Wildcard | @TomAnderson, "the state" is an idea. It's not really "composed of" anything. Ideas come from people. People perform actions. People sometimes perform actions using their bodies. Bodies do not have people. People have bodies. Bodies do not perform actions. The materialistic idea that nothing exists except for matter does not produce any betterment of people or of life. Placing the ultimate importance on The State, or on bones and muscles, are both of them ways to negate the importance of people. People are important. | |
| Apr 9, 2017 at 4:52 | comment | added | Tom Anderson | I feel like this argument is reduces the state to nothing because it's parts are people. Therefore only people can do things. However, this argument can equally be applied to people (and let's totally ignore the state's ownership of things, because that's not people). People can do nothing because it's really their muscles and bones that perform actions. Try to restate your objection only in terms of muscles and bones without using the words "individuals" or "people" or any similar word, and see what conclusions you reach. | |
| Apr 8, 2017 at 1:44 | comment | added | Andy | @Wildcard Ah, I see what you're getting at then. | |
| Apr 8, 2017 at 1:32 | comment | added | Wildcard | @Andy, I'm not arguing with you, I'm just reiterating the point of my answer: the original question is based on the misconception that a group is capable of action. Discussing people's need for food is a digression from this point. Of course people need food. Individual responsibility, individual production, and exchange between individuals is the ONLY way that need will ever be filled, in any political or economic system including socialism. This is as inescapable as the need to apply heat in order to fry an egg. | |
| Apr 8, 2017 at 1:22 | comment | added | Andy | Generosity doesn't come into play; if the choice between feeding yourself and feeding another, I suspect most would choose feeding themselves first. | |
| Apr 8, 2017 at 1:16 | comment | added | Wildcard | @Andy, the truth is that generosity is a high virtue, but it's an individual virtue. A group of any sort is incapable of being generous, just as it is incapable of doing anything. (A group, however, can be composed of generous individuals.) | |
| Apr 8, 2017 at 0:53 | comment | added | Andy | @industry7 It is specific to the question though; basically, why should you work not to feed yourself, but instead to feed someone else? | |
| Apr 7, 2017 at 18:00 | comment | added | industry7 | This is a good argument for why "the state" should not provide anything. I like it quite a bit, except that it's not specific at all to the original question about basic necessities. | |
| Apr 7, 2017 at 6:26 | history | answered | Wildcard | CC BY-SA 3.0 |