Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to Except for their wallets

"Farnham's Freehold" is fiction, Tom
Fox — (archived)

It's fitting that the two social philosophers you admire most were published and marketed as science fiction... goes right along with your undying faith in Technology to ride to our rescue in the nick of time.

Since this is the Flame Board, I'll indulge: Screw you, Tom, for putting words in my mouth.

Buster asked for principle - I posted mine. As usual, you tried to spin it so you could, once again, repeat your tiresome whine about involuntary taxation. As usual, the one has no bearing on the other. As usual, I shall clarify - knowing full well that you'll deliberately miss my point if, by getting it, you might be caused to think outside your self-constructed box.

The sanctity of the individual is not defined by what that individual owns, but by what he or she thinks and feels, and by his or her physical and mental health and safety. Though the circumstances will not be divulged, I have accepted dispossession in order to retain individual sanctity - more than once - so I know whereof I speak.

The principles you espouse, if such they be, are not possible in human society. They can only exist in isolation, a condition unnatural to the species. Whenever there is more than one human in a situation, they must agree on some method of cooperation. Even if the agreement is to ignore each other in all circumstances, it is still an agreement reached mutually: a "social contract". However, as the basic impulse of all but a very few humans is to interact, converse, entertain, assist and (depending on gender availablility) interbreed, an agreement to ignore is rarely seen. That's called "society"; its more elaborate form is "civilization".

The oldest recorded comprehensive social contract in Western Civ' is contained in what some of us call Torah. Not just the Ten Commandments; there are 613 mitzvot (commandments), all with the same binding power as the Big Ten. Granted, many of them regulate the now-extinct ritual of sacrifice and those authorized to perform it... Nevertheless, the remainder form the basis in tradition for modern Euro-American civilization. It is possible to examine their content without reference to the mythology of origin or the punishment for transgression, and I invite you to take a sample:

Taxation to support the community -- Exodus 30:11-16
Humane treatment of animals -- Exodus 34:26
Food safety -- Leviticus 11 (entire)
Disease control -- Leviticus 13 through 15 (entire)
Sexual morality -- Leviticus 18:6-23
Provision for the poor -- Leviticus 19:9-10
Fair labor practices -- Leviticus 19:13
Handicapped accessibility -- Leviticus 19:14
Immigration policy -- Leviticus 19:33-34
Fair trade practice -- Leviticus 19:35-36

Got the idea yet? If not, understand this (unless you are a Biblical Literalist, in which case all bets are off): the concept of the common good, and of the individual's duty to contribute thereto, existed in oral traditon for generations before they were codified in writing. They result from centuries, if not millennia, of social evolution extending, perhaps, as far back as the Neolithic. They were arrived at, and preserved by, common consent of their adherents. They do not contradict the sanctity of the individual - they enhance it, through mutual assistance.

They are as much a part of human nature in the aggregate as are the base, anti-social, uncivilized impulses they legislate against.

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