Individual Rights & Liberty (1 Viewer)

Kiraken

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You're talking about positive rights. Positive rights aren't natural rights and require you placing obligation upon someone else. I don't have a right to education, but I have the ability to go out and acquire it in exchange for money(or another good or service. Money is just a medium to have a common value and speed up the barter system.) Natural rights are the ones that we are born with and don't require placing obligations upon other people, such as free speech, right to your own body, right to your property and the right to pursue happiness and liberty without infringing on someone else's rights.
How is education infringing upon the rights of others? So the only rights that matter are the ones where you don't have to do anything? It's rather selfish to claim that taking responsibility for upholding the basic standards of living in society is an infringement of your rights, or any less worthy of upholding just because you have an obligation to it
 
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Lolsmith

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Re: The p00n thread

How is education infringing upon the rights of others? So the only rights that matter are the ones where you don't have to do anything? It's rather selfish to claim that taking responsibility for upholding the basic standards of living in society is an infringement of your rights, or any less worthy of upholding just because you have an obligation to it
This is a complete misrepresentation of the position. Education does not infringe anyone's rights. Taking someone else's property in order to provide for it does. The rights that do not rely on the infringment of others' liberty, life or property are intrinsically morally and ethically superior. It is not selfish at all to say that you think that perhaps your property should not be taken because someone believed they are owed it. It is not selfish to say that you don't believe that someone imposing social obligations on you and your family because they have an opinion is right. It isn't selfish to say that you do not deserve to have others' burdens forced upon you.
 

Lolsmith

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Re: Animal Rights

Are you even a taxpayer Kiraken? If not, when you become one (assuming you won't be a public servant), will you pay extra tax on top of what the state takes? After all the government is this magical wonderful organisation that only cares about the poor children and the sick and they need more of your property to provide for them! Please think of the children!!!!!!
 

isildurrrr1

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Re: The p00n thread

This is a complete misrepresentation of the position. Education does not infringe anyone's rights. Taking someone else's property in order to provide for it does. The rights that do not rely on the infringment of others' liberty, life or property are intrinsically morally and ethically superior. It is not selfish at all to say that you think that perhaps your property should not be taken because someone believed they are owed it. It is not selfish to say that you don't believe that someone imposing social obligations on you and your family because they have an opinion is right. It isn't selfish to say that you do not deserve to have others' burdens forced upon you.
Somebody read too much ayn rand and milton freedman.

You know what, to really prove your point why don't you go full Henry Thoreau. Quit paying taxes. Go on do it. Since taxes are essentially theft right? Go on argue in court why not paying taxes is ok. Tell us how you enjoy the roads everybody uses, police service, firemen, education and what not but you hate taxes. Would you even be at UNSW if you paid 30k a year for education? I highly doubt it.

You know why we have public education? Even if you don't have kids it BENEFITS YOU. You know how? By having a better educated population. You want someone to design a new microchip? Boom public education. You want someone to become a doctor? boom public education. Maybe we should go back to the 1850s when half the population can't even fucking read. How well will that do for society? Let's only have the people who can afford education be educated. That'll really create a well balanced society.
 

Kiraken

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Re: The p00n thread

This is a complete misrepresentation of the position. Education does not infringe anyone's rights. Taking someone else's property in order to provide for it does. The rights that do not rely on the infringment of others' liberty, life or property are intrinsically morally and ethically superior. It is not selfish at all to say that you think that perhaps your property should not be taken because someone believed they are owed it. It is not selfish to say that you don't believe that someone imposing social obligations on you and your family because they have an opinion is right. It isn't selfish to say that you do not deserve to have others' burdens forced upon you.
if by property you mean money and if by someone believing they are owed it you mean education, then why not? Isn't that the entire point of taxation? I mean if there are reasonable tax laws and you only pay enough tax such that your remaining income allows you to live easily within your means, and this tax is used to provide universal education and expand opportunities for Australians that could in the long term result in greater progress and benefits, I don't see why this is an issue.

Liberty is perhaps the most fundamental human right, but if this liberty expands to not giving back to society and doing whatever you want, it's not necessarily a good thing. Whilst violating human rights via murder etc. is obviously way more abhorrent, it's still bad to completely neglect the rights of others because you're hellbent on keeping every single bit of your own shit even if you don't need all of it.

I don't think obligation to society is an inherently bad thing, particularly as society is the very reason you have what you have in the first place.

Education is also a bit different because it involves kids who obviously cannot necessarily pay for their own education. Should they be excluded from an education system just because their parents can't afford it? That's pretty much not letting them have an education due to the inability of their parents to pay, rather than any sort of selection based on whether the kid themself is capable. The concept of property doesn't really apply because those kids can't really trade anything for their education. It's not so much an obligation as investing in the future.
 
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Lolsmith

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Re: The p00n thread

Somebody read too much ayn rand and milton freedman.

You know what, to really prove your point why don't you go full Henry Thoreau. Quit paying taxes. Go on do it. Since taxes are essentially theft right? Go on argue in court why not paying taxes is ok. Tell us how you enjoy the roads everybody uses, police service, firemen, education and what not but you hate taxes. Would you even be at UNSW if you paid 30k a year for education? I highly doubt it.

You know why we have public education? Even if you don't have kids it BENEFITS YOU. You know how? By having a better educated population. You want someone to design a new microchip? Boom public education. You want someone to become a doctor? boom public education. Maybe we should go back to the 1850s when half the population can't even fucking read. How well will that do for society? Let's only have the people who can afford education be educated. That'll really create a well balanced society.
I can't quit paying income taxes first of all you moron because if I do a bunch of cops will break down my door and throw me in a rape cage. Secondly, anything I buy is subject to either tariffs, goods and services taxes and/or excise taxes, how do you suggest I stop paying those? I don't even know how to address the other nonsense you've written after that about courts.

You're also falsely conflating all of those services with the state, which is even dumber. I mean it's not like there were ever roads before income taxes existed, right? I would love if I didn't have cops constantly writing off my civil liberties because they want an even easier job of catching criminals, let alone paying them for the privilege. That would be great, where do I sign up? I would be more than happy to pay a private business that operates as a fire brigade service to insure and fire damage to my property is mitigated, where do I sign up? Where did you get this figure of "30k" from? Thin air?

All of the points you're making are absurd in the extreme. Public education doesn't magic up doctors or exist as the sole provider of education, regardless of how much you want it to. Asserting that the only way to go about advancement of a society is through spending obscene amounts of other peoples' money is asinine.

Do you honestly believe that the market cannot provide private policing, fire brigade services, medicine services or education? Do you really believe that the world is the same as it was in the 1850's?

if by property you mean money and if by someone believing they are owed it you mean education, then why not? Isn't that the entire point of taxation? I mean if there are reasonable tax laws and you only pay enough tax such that your remaining income allows you to live easily within your means, and this tax is used to provide universal education and expand opportunities for Australians that could in the long term result in greater progress and benefits, I don't see why this is an issue.
Yes it is the point of taxation, but its end doesn't automatically justify the means by which it is obtained. There is also an extremely subjective idea in what is deemed "reasonable" and "easily within" and "means". If a political party decided that "reasonable" was taking 80% of the income of people who earn over a certain amount because thereafter they could still live "easily within" their "means" by that party's standards, then you'd be all right with this? It's not a logically sound position to hold. Taxation isn't only used for the purposes of education, either but that's not really the point we're discussing.

Liberty is perhaps the most fundamental human right, but if this liberty expands to not giving back to society and doing whatever you want, it's not necessarily a good thing. Whilst violating human rights via murder etc. is obviously way more abhorrent, it's still bad to completely neglect the rights of others because you're hellbent on keeping every single bit of your own shit even if you don't need all of it.
But this is the point, you aren't neglecting the rights of others by refusing to give up your life, liberty or property to them. Even if I don't "need" 100% of my income (pro-tip: I do) by your standards, why are you owed it? What right do you have to my property? Because you want it and you think I don't need it? How is this any different to robbing me in the street? Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?

I don't think obligation to society is an inherently bad thing, particularly as society is the very reason you have what you have in the first place.
This is true in a very loose way and not in the way that you intended it. You're conflating the state with society, which is a grave and all too common mistake people make in this day and age. You aren't giving to society by paying tax. You aren't taking from society by receiving tax either. The government is not and should most certainly not be the arbiter of what is good and best for society, nor should it be treated as 'society' in itself.

Education is also a bit different because it involves kids who obviously cannot necessarily pay for their own education. Should they be excluded from an education system just because their parents can't afford it? That's pretty much not letting them have an education due to the inability of their parents to pay, rather than any sort of selection based on whether the kid themself is capable. The concept of property doesn't really apply because those kids can't really trade anything for their education. It's not so much an obligation as investing in the future.
You've confused yourself here. The concept of property most certainly does exist because you're taking someone's property to give to others in order to provide cheap services. This is ethically and morally bankrupt, regardless of the warm and fuzzies you get from it.




Both of these conversations are pointless. Mob rule will sustain and the rights of the individual will be continually and further subjugated for the safety of the majority. I was pointing out the moral and ethical implications of the current system in which we live. I wasn't advocating for the overthrow of it, just a shift in ideas about how individuals should interact with the state and vice versa. I would *like* to see taxation reduced far beyond its current scope, but that isn't going to occur overnight.

Do I dislike the current system? Yeah, it's not perfect. Do I want to remove all and every public service that exists? Of course not. I want individuals to have opportunities to create better lives for themselves, their children and the lives of the men and women around them. I want people to be educated so they can be informed voters. I want men and women to be educated so they can be aware of what the implications are when politicians make policy and especially how it will affect them and their communities. The state doesn't do a great job of this and I concede it is indeed better than none, but I would also like to see how the market would deal with this sort of situation.

With this in mind, it's interesting to note that public education was originally (and continually) instituted as a means of social control (why do you think commies and socialists love it so much?). The idea was that young boys and girls could be brainwashed into loving the State and the people educating them. It was done so kids would adopt the ideas and values that the educators wanted them to. It's the same thing parents do to their kids with religion.
 

Trebla

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Re: Animal Rights

lol way to go off a tangent
 

isildurrrr1

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Re: Animal Rights

lets split this thread.

lolsmith: Guess you never heard of civil disobidience. Thoreu stopped paying taxes because of beliefs. You're just a bitch with a megaphone, saying how taxation is theft and hurr durr private market will always prevail when you're pretty much a product of public education. You know where that 30k figure came from? that's what international students have to pay since their tuition is not subsidized from the government. Ever heard of payed domestic placements? Yeah they're expensive as fuck.

Yeah lets go back to the old days when fire brigades were there to collect the valuables of your burning house and ransom you for it, guess somebody didn't know how NYC firemen worked in the 1850s, same with Crassus' firedepartment aye. Or lets go back to the beginning of the 1900 where firemen will watch your house burn down because "oh you missed a payment." Yeah lets make the poor suffer even more hardship when we take away public policing you dolt. Roads before taxes? Yeah like the ones the ROMANS built with public funds? Yeah not taxed at all. The greatest road system ever built in the world was funded by taxes. Have fun putting private tolls everywhere because "er mah gerd its my road." Have fun going to a private hospital just like the US where the fees are ASTRONOMICAL. Having a kid will put you around 20k in the red. Need surgery? Yeah that's 50k buddy enjoy that.

I know the private sector can provide tertiary education, works out so great in the US right? Great way to boost your economy by strapping 21 year olds with 100k+ worth of debt, real smart there buddy. If you believed in the private market so much why didn't you attend a private university? why be a subsidized student? Put your money where your mouth is. Since you hate paying taxes so much why don't you just break the social contract and move elsewhere? nobody is stopping you.

Seems like somebody read too much ayn rand mumbo jumbo about freedumbs and omg taxation is slavery durrr free markets will always prevail. WHO IS JOHN GALT.
 

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I think the problem with education as a right, or healthcare/roads/rhodes/sanitation etc... Positive rights in general,

Is that it's always inequitable, and a right that can't be delivered universally. Even within Australia, the standard of education (or any other public good) isn't equitable nationwide. In a wider context, the prosperity of Australians is to some extent derived from the existence of individuals living in poverty in other countries, the same level of positive rights can't be guaranteed to millions of people we depend upon for the privilege of our positive rights.

If you can't guarantee a right, and there's no penalty for not providing it, it seems more like an aspiration (though a worthy one) than a right.

By contrast, negative rights, like freedom from unprovoked violence or something, seem like something you could at least try to enforce penalties on and legislate for internationally.
 

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Re: The p00n thread

if by property you mean money and if by someone believing they are owed it you mean education, then why not? Isn't that the entire point of taxation? I mean if

Liberty is perhaps the most fundamental human right, but if this liberty expands to not giving back to society and doing whatever you want, it's not necessarily a good thing. Whilst violating human rights via murder etc. is obviously way more abhorrent, it's still bad to completely neglect the rights of others because you're hellbent on keeping every single bit of your own shit even if you don't need all of it.
You're not being consistent at all. If 'giving back to society' is instilled through a system that is fundamentally coercive (I.e. pay taxes or there's a gun to your head) then freedom, 'the most fundamental human right', is effectively violated.

You can't believe in absolute liberty and at the same time propose a forceful welfare state designed to take from one to give to another.

And besides, you can talk about helping the poor and creating fairness all you want (I.e. through public education), but is government coercion really the way to do this?

Evidence is actually to the contrary - affirmative action/ other forms of statism do more harm than good - IN FACT, the 'welfare state' itself was first established to CREATE DEPENDENCY and IMO, this is the opposite of freedom or any sort of human empowerment. For instance, prior to affirmative action in the US, black literacy rates were actually on par with whites. Government created the ghettos to begin with. This idea that government can promote social goodness is a falsehood.

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish, he eats forever. IMO the principles of liberty and individual responsibility are ultimately based on real and viable principles, principles of human motivation, not irrationality and socialism.
 

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Re: The p00n thread

Do I dislike the current system? Yeah, it's not perfect. Do I want to remove all and every public service that exists? Of course not. I want individuals to have opportunities to create better lives for themselves, their children and the lives of the men and women around them. I want people to be educated so they can be informed voters. I want men and women to be educated so they can be aware of what the implications are when politicians make policy and especially how it will affect them and their communities. The state doesn't do a great job of this and I concede it is indeed better than none, but I would also like to see how the market would deal with this sort of situation.
I agree 100% (this is coming from somebody who goes to a public school :p)

In terms of what the market would do, in both Australia and the US prior to the establishment of the welfare state a lot of these services were actually provided voluntarily. Individuals, better off economically and socially, would freely come together and form societies to establish health services, education etc.

As well as this, people were a lot more charitable than they are nowadays, and who would blame them now anyway? The govt takes damn near 50% of your income if you're wealthy enough...
 

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I think a little bit of Friedrich Hayek is necessary for this thread:

'A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.'

'If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.'

'Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order.'

'We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.'
 
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isildurrrr1

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lol public education = welfare state. oh. my. lord. yeah those people in finland must really hate their education system, you know being almost fully public. you know why public education is important? because you don't want a society full of uneducated illiterate people.
 

bhsrepresent

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lol public education = welfare state. oh. my. lord. yeah those people in finland must really hate their education system, you know being almost fully public. you know why public education is important? because you don't want a society full of uneducated illiterate people.
I'm not sure you actually know the meaning of welfare... If the state provides something for social welfare (in this case, education), this is categorical to a welfare state. thanks for your misinformed input bro.
 

bhsrepresent

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lol public education = welfare state. oh. my. lord. yeah those people in finland must really hate their education system, you know being almost fully public. you know why public education is important? because you don't want a society full of uneducated illiterate people.
And do you attend a public school? We're talking about the BEST outcome here - the ideal - and quite frankly, the private system is BETTER than public schooling. In an ideal, free society, individuals would be wealthier off from the free market as a whole and thus be able to afford private education to begin with. The fact that people we've pretty much gotten rid of illiteracy since the 1800s does not mean public is > private, it simply means the industrial revolution and economic development has driven the improvement of social outcomes. Can it get better? Offcourse.
 
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Graney

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The Australian public education system allows guaranteed access to a quality education by many more children than would have access to education without a free education system. In an entirely private system, these children would be at best at the mercy of unpredictable private charity.

The libertarian ethos emphasises personal responsibility, however those children are entirely innocent of any responsibility for the level of education they receive. The public education system strives for equality of opportunity, however we must consider the terrible toll this takes on the nations billionaires, who may be forced to choose bentley rather than rolls royce.
 

bhsrepresent

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The Australian public education system allows guaranteed access to a quality education by many more children than would have access to education without a free education system. In an entirely private system, these children would be at best at the mercy of unpredictable private charity.

The libertarian ethos emphasises personal responsibility, however those children are entirely innocent of any responsibility for the level of education they receive. The public education system strives for equality of opportunity, however we must consider the terrible toll this takes on the nations billionaires, who may be forced to choose bentley rather than rolls royce.
The idea is that if you free the market, everyone is better off - wealth increases, the price of education falls as competition rises - GOOD, QUALITY education becomes more accessible, even to those who are relatively poor (But now better off as a whole, just relatively poorer)

And quality education? Not sure if attends public school or just misinformed leftist :p

And what do you mean the toll on the nations billionaires? What about the toll on kids who mindlessly attend shit schools and end up worse off than if they'd been home schooled? Public education is honestly a joke - generally, the system is just incompetence and laziness disguised by a fallacy of 'equality'.

If you want equality of opportunity, you need to an economic and social foundation based on competition and quality.
 

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You're exaggerating in regard to public schools. Australia's top universities are all full of public school students... and private students as well of course, but the inequality is not remarkably pronounced.

The point is, regardless of aspersions about quality, it's guaranteed, and it's free. Whereas in a totally private market, some children born into poverty who are currently enrolled in the Australian public education system would likely not attend school at all.
 

bhsrepresent

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You're exaggerating in regard to public schools. Australia's top universities are all full of public school students... and private students as well of course, but the inequality is not remarkably pronounced.

The point is, regardless of aspersions about quality, it's guaranteed, and it's free. Whereas in a totally private market, some children born into poverty who are currently enrolled in the Australian public education system would likely not attend school at all.
This is flat out wrong. Private school attendees are over represented at Australia's top universities.

I don't think you understand the philosophy behind the free market: The idea is that liberalism will ultimately eradicate poverty, and these children will no longer be living in poverty or so poor that they can't access schooling. Obviously it isn't this simple; some people will inevitably be poor, and this is primarily where voluntary societies would have a duty of care (as they have in the past prior to the welfare state).

If individuals aren't having 50% of their income taken forcefully, they're a lot more likely to help the minority have access to essential services (which remember, is now a small minority because of overall economic progress due to a liberal economy)
 

bhsrepresent

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You're exaggerating in regard to public schools. Australia's top universities are all full of public school students... and private students as well of course, but the inequality is not remarkably pronounced.

The point is, regardless of aspersions about quality, it's guaranteed, and it's free. Whereas in a totally private market, some children born into poverty who are currently enrolled in the Australian public education system would likely not attend school at all.
So what your saying is that even if it sucks, it's better than nothing simply because its free. The access to essential services if they have no inherent value is essentially rendered useless. Instead, why not have something cheap and of high quality at the same time?
 

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