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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32554 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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The first step to saving our civilization, at least in the sense that I care for it as a civilization, is not for tens of thousands of people to go kill the local subway-screaming bums. Lock them up? Maybe. Kill them? No.

Locking them up is an option for a political entity with a jail and a staff; it's not something an individual can do. Those political entities (the city and state of New York) have chosen to do otherwise. That means the locals either must put up with the subway-screaming bums no matter what they do, or they must use less-measured force. It's a bad situation, but it's certainly not clear that making everyone put up with the aggressive drug-addled mentally-ill violent people is better for civilization than allowing direct action be taken against them.

Life doesn't work like that. You can't just have some kind of society-wide spree of murdering undesirables and find that somehow, all of the things that you actually like about liberal modernity have survived.

Are you sure? And even if not, maybe most people would prefer the aggressive drug-addled mentally-ill violent people dead over whatever they lose by that happening... perfection, after all, is rarely an option.

Those political entities (the city and state of New York) have chosen to do otherwise. That means the locals either must put up with the subway-screaming bums no matter what they do, or they must use less-measured force.

Or, alternatively, they can empower the city and the state to use such necessary force to lock them up. The fact that they haven't suggests that the people would prefer to deal with the occasional nuisance of subway bums than subject them to what they feel are the deleterious effects of "the system". To suggest that individuals should have the power to unilaterally decide to take matters into their own hands makes a mockery of any pretense to having a rule of law. What if a similar mob thought that certain posts on The Motte were inherently racist and not appropriate for civilized society and therefore, since the state and national legislatures have chosen to do nothing, track down the authors of those posts and beat them within an inch of their lives? Would you find this behavior opprobrious? Once you come to the conclusion that individuals and mobs should trump the laws of political entities you disagree with, you empower all such people to act as they will, not just the ones you happen to agree with.

Do you actually believe people have an obligation to respect iniquitous laws? Do you feel like a revolutionary when you jaywalk? The law is just a crude model and reminder of morality, of course it yields to it when they conflict. If I get to decide how everyone should act, I ask that they behave morally, not legally.

According to you, this is the reasoning of an antifa: ‘Man, it would obviously be the right thing to do to beat up those fash motte guys, that would really help the oppressed. I don’t care about the danger, or going to prison. What really stops me is the unspoken contract not to do anything illegal. My hands are tied because my enemies respect all the contracts between us. I could never knowingly break the rules of this in no way corrupt system I admire. Etc etc. ‘

Is your argument here that homicide laws are iniquitous?

Was your argument not that people should obey the law regardless of other considerations, lest it mean the end of the rule of the law, and possibly your own death?

Okay, you asked first. Yes, they are iniquitous.

Iniquitous in what way? How would you rewrite the homicide statutes to correct whatever iniquity you find there?

Those guys should be institutionalized for their repeated violations, but since they are released as soon as caught, it requires the creation of a new legal category to accommodate their deplorable presence in the public sphere: Let’s call them Prisoners on Parole.

“When robbed or assaulted by pops, citizens and cops may use all the force they deem necessary. “

So how do you define a PoP?

Someone incapable of obeying the law who nonetheless has not been incarcerated long-term.

Law-Abiding Citizens don't need to know someone is a PoP when interacting with them, but if they get in a fight with someone who turns out to be a PoP, nudge the presumption of innocence considerably in the LAC's favor.

How's that sound?

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