Quote Originally Posted by reaper239 View Post
well, let me start by giving you what i feel is the purpose of law as established by the founding fathers: law exists (or should anyway) for the sole purpose of protecting the liberty of the individual against transgress. here's an example: in the late 20's early 30's, the fed passed a law banning alcohol. for your own good. this resulted in an explosion of gang activities, a sharp and defined increase in the number of fatalities from bath tub hooch, and the eventual repeal of the law. now i ask you, what was the purpose of that law? in order to ban something, it must, by it's very existence, violate the rights of others. the only thing i can think of that's so egregious is a michael moore movie, or anything from al gore. who invented the internet. let's look at a law on the books, the fed currently has legislation on the books that makes a number of drugs illegal, but to what end? when you make something illegal, you instantly make that thing more dangerous by moving transactions of that substance from open air markets, to the black market (not an actual place, i've tried to find it). that's one unintended consequence, but let's move this discussion from the realm of consequence to a more philosophical one, and it's the same question i posed to nick in the gun control thread: what right do you have to tell me what i can put into my body? (ok, so a little different) in order to enforce this violation of liberty, a mammoth organization was created, the DEA, the DEA regularly goes after people with prescriptions from their doctor, their doctor, saying they have to much of a controlled substance, even though the physician who controls it gave it to them. does that make any sense? so rights are being violated in many ways. then, let's look at the health care bill, obamacare. i ask you again, what right do you have to take money from me for something you want? it's theft, it's unconstitutional, and it's unethical. welfare, same thing, i work for a living, but these people don't have to? now before everyone get's bent, i understand a lot of people have been laid off, but that's a result of fucked up regulation anyway, so the fed is fucking us from both ends. but this isn't a discussion on free markets, i'm just trying to make the point, if you pass legislation "for their own good" then anything is on the table. cars are dangerous, let's ban those, and of course people can't manage their own food consumption, just look at them, so all food will be replaced with a nutritionally balanced flavor neutral paste that will be dispensed to you three times a day. people also can't be trusted with their own money, so we'll be taking that too, but it's only because it's for their own good. and of course the internet has to be censored ** ***'* **** ****** ******* ******** ** **** *** *** ** *** ********. well that sucks, maybe we'll hold off on censorship until i'm done posting. but censoring the internet is still a good idea, after all, we can't have people become offended. and no more of this zombie podcast nonsense, there's no way that can be good for you.

the only fair way to establish law is to use liberty as a guide post, making sure that only laws that protect the individual liberty are passed. as you saw above, "the common or public good" could be construed to mean anything you want, and so it could mean anything anyone else wants as well.
The role of the law (and therefore the government) can be defined in a lot of ways.

But my belief and one that is supported in at least some parts by history is that it has three main roles:

The maintenance of the economy (maintaining growth, limiting inflation, correction of slumps etc)

Maintaining the production of merit (eg Education) and public (things that are difficult to make money from without a taxation system eg defence, street lighting)

Protecting the consumer from those negative externalities caused by producers (eg pollution of water supplies, control of substances such as heroin which can cause crime and huge damage to society).

2. Ok lets talk ethics. I have no right to tell you what you put in your body. You want to kill yourself with heroin thats fine.
But if your doing so becomes a problem for other people in society (eg your breaking the law in order to fuel your habit) then you lose the right to heroin.
At some point the use of some drugs was so damaging to society that it was more efficient to ban use altogether and ask the minority of users (not breaking the law due to the drugs) to give up there right in order to preserve those of the many. I wasn't politically active at the time so I can't say whether the motivation for the war on drugs was just a politically motivated move or an informed decision but I can say this, it ISN'T working.

Obama care? We've been here before. Ask yourself this though, if it was optional and you were asked whether you'd give up a small % of your wage so that those less well off than you could have basic healthcare, would you say no, knowing that because of it some of them would be denied life saving treatment?
Ok I assumed you said yes after all you've talked before about how people used to help each other without the government intervening.

It sucks that ordinary people are being billed for it rather than moving the tax burden to the super rich. The fact is that in order to be part of society you have to pay some entrance fee's. Your not having your money taken from you, the fee has gone up. Surely its worth it though to live in America?

This legislation isn't "for there own good" its to give them the choice to live. And as far as anything being on the table, look at Britain. Do we set peoples diet? Or tell people who to vote for? No. We provide people with information and support if they want to get fit, quit smoking, breast feed their children etc but nothing is forced on anyone. Other than tax. And there's an option there too. Just being born in a country doesn't give you any right to any of it. You can leave just as fast as pay the tax. I hear in victorian Britain you didn't have to pay for children's healthcare. Hell in victorian Britain the children worked for you.

Censorship? I completely agree with you about that, their should be absolutely no such thing. But if there isn't going to be censorship we do need to be sure that we can prevent it becoming the home of the black market, pedophiles and a place where people like Amanda Todd can so easily be destroyed.

And back to gun control, we dis agree about it. We know that BUT surely you can see that something needs to be done about the problem. What about the proposal to limit clip sizes? It would slow perpetrators down and prevent mass killings to some degree. The NRA's suggestion of armed guards seems a little big brother-ish for my liking. Shooting don't just take place in schools but in cinema's and even on the street. Next time there's a shooting some place thats not a school will they be suggesting armed guards everywhere? What happens about escalation? What happens when due to armed guards the perpetrator feels the need to buy something bigger and better than he would of before?

Just to re-iterate I didn't in any way mean to imply you would ever use you gun on anything other than a target or assailant, but with such flimsy background checks somebody less balanced might. And have, repeatedly.