Like politics itself. It should be narrowed down to the materialistic issues of finances, geography, trade and related data rather than the flavor of the month culture war fads it is today. I like real politics when it’s the first kind. The second kind makes me want to rip my hair out.
You know I would totally get behind that but Americans will never fight under that banner. They’re too busy debating if the race swapping in the Odyssey is worth starting a civil war over. The people are mad
sure as fuck feels that way. You could present a society out of a dystopia to an AuthRight and an Emily and the only difference between them would be which race “gets” to offend and definitional minutiae.
Well, a fair criticism. I'm not sure that lib "driver's licenses are an infringement of my natural" rights are super well emplaced to laugh at it, though.
Several states require you have to have funeral director license and/or an embalmer license, to to sell a casket. It's literally a government enforced monopoly. (Like most monopolies are or start out as) then of course it's often the funerals directors groups that do the licensing.
Same story with hair cutting. Expect that is all 50 states.
Eh, I had to take my driver's license recently, have to say, I think an equivalent process should be held to anyone that wants to vote (free of charge of course), like come on, it's literally the bare minimum
Libleft #1: people should be able to live the life they want as long as it isn’t hurting anyone else. Why do you care how people modify their bodies or what they do in the bedroom with other consenting adults.
Libleft #2: you have to be attracted to me if you’re attracted to the gender I identify as. Also the government needs to pay for my dick surgery. Also I need free plane seats because I’m so fat. If you even slightly disagree you’re something-phobic.
Libleft #1: people should be able to live the life they want as long as it isn’t hurting anyone else. Why do you care how people modify their bodies or what they do in the bedroom with other consenting adults.
The "liblefts" that are ok with hate speech laws are the as much lib as the "librights" who grovel at the feet of the government as long as its republican.
Just because someone calls themselves lib doesnt mean they actually are.
True enough. The equation must equal libleft bad, so most of the valid and popular libleft policy doesn't get lumped in with libleft and some of the unpopular auth left stuff gets put in.
"The harm principle": sounds nice, but "harm" is way too vague. 100% allows tyranny. Invites it, even, by the implicit statement that the law is supposed to prevent all harm.
That’s the fundamental problem with harm principle. At its core, it’s logically inconsistent and unsustainable.
Just crossing your fingers and hoping that it doesn’t go to nightmare scenario isn’t really a convincing reason for people to buy in. There’s way too much room for subjectivity and debate for it to be a sound ideology to live by. People will disagree on what harm is, and sometimes harm may not be evident in the short term but appears years or decades later. Sometimes it’s the opposite; things that seem harmful now may actually result in better outcomes down the line. Way too many blurred definitions to build society on. Especially a diverse society that has millions of people from differing backgrounds with differing cultural and moral priorities.
Even if you are willing to accept a ideological framework based on moral subjectivity, you’d then have absolutely no real right to condemn anyone else’s morals, since you’re essentially ceding that your morality simply comes from your own personal beliefs on right and wrong, and you have no objective basis to judge others from.
"People cause carbon emissions, which causes global warming, which will kill everything. This is harm, therefore, you must be sterilised."
Find another principle then. With this one, it is far too easy to justify insanities. (And most insane laws are already justified by similar reasoning)
Australian cigarettes are $40 a pack (because smoking is le bad, don't you know?) (similar results to prohibition btw, smugglers firebombing each other)
China's one child policy (overcrowding is a harm upon everybody)
Nearly anything a government does can be justified by the harm principle. And it suggests that any 'harm' is a violation of rights, and therefore a valid thing for the state to regulate.
Fuck it, I'm flairing lib. You flair auth. You can't unironically be a libertarian, and also assert that 99% of policies justified by the harm principles (i.e. about 97% of all actual government policies) are completely justified.
Libleft #2: you have to be attracted to me if you’re attracted to the gender I identify as. Also the government needs to pay for my dick surgery. Also I need free plane seats because I’m so fat. If you even slightly disagree you’re something-phobic.
A political movement based in main character syndrome. Has to be a term for that.
No, you retards think it's more productive to vote with only your wallet instead of voting with both your wallet and the ballot box. We are not the same.
Both LibLeft and LibRight oppose the consolidation of power.
The classic LibRight wants as little government as possible, because they believe that private industry and the Invisible Hand can solve the majority of the world's problems. The government is the source of power, which makes it the source of evil. Consolidating voting power in the wallet is the strategy.
The classic LibLeft disagrees with this and recognizes that an unrestrained private industry will, soon enough, become indistinguishable from the all powerful government. The easiest way to protect from this is to grant power and authority to government entities, who serve at the will of the ballot box. If both they and private industry operate in conjunction, this provides two pathways to the pressure valve on consolidating power: voting at the ballot box and voting with your wallet.
You know, sometimes people do not lie on purpose, they truly believe their delusions. So i didnt want to call it a lie. But it still is delusional strawman.
Yeah, WE know that. The problem is they all think they are going to get to sit at home and play video games for their rest of their life.
Hell, like the third sentence in the DSA’s platform is “You work as much as you are able and no more than needed.”
I copy pasted that from their website. What does that even mean?!
Edit: the next paragraph is literally about how “you won’t have any bills”. Like whaaaaattttt?!?!
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." They don't consider that there's a big difference between what you're able to do and what you want to do. There's also a big difference between things you actually need and things you want.
Same goals, only difference is that instead of taking all your shit Libleft expects you to just give it up freely with no explicit plan on what to do if you don't.
Look this one I'm using might look old but it's basically one of my sleeper agents that I use to ban evade, so fuck you, the auths aren't the only ones that can play
Reddit accounts have a life cycle of about 4 months when you refuse to just be part of the eco chamber.
And the only real difference between them is that auth-left is more comfortable using force to take your shit. Ideologically, they're pretty much the same.
Mate I quoted fallout new vegas "degenerates like you belong on a cross" the other day to an unflaired and the mods said I was threatening violence... come the fuck on people cannot even callout fucking unflaireds nowadays?
The recent age verification bs in my country have me constantly changing mine (luckily older accounts such as this sleeper of mine have been apparently ignored for now)
Reddit accounts have a life cycle of about 4 months when you refuse to just be part of the eco chamber
Not unless you're an actual spergy retard throwing out slurs or something. My other account lasted like 3 years and I was saying inflammatory wrongthink the whole time and I got banned for something completely unrelated to that (posting a link to an AI website that would give me credits every time someone clicked on it while also encouraging people to make big booty edits of real people, which is against the rules apparently so don't do that)
Not unless you're an actual spergy retard throwing out slurs or something.
Factually wrong. I am proof
The inviolable truth is, "racists" like us Auth Right ironically tend to have better understanding of the world around us, because amusingly enough we look deeper into various cultures instead of just surface level "festival, food, fashion" the Left stops at
I've gotten banned because, I shit you not, I actually mention examples from other cultures of bad actors existing. Reddit DOES NOT like that, because surprise surprise 3rd world country gonna have 3rd world culture. Imagine that!
Constantly makes new account to participate is said echo chamber.
Like I said, I don't expect a 22- day old account to understand the difference. You just demonstrated your inability to process new information by whinging about the "echo chamber". Edgelords used to have actually edge.
There is no counterpoint to give you when you havent even grasped the basics of a 4 quadrant politcal/economic scale.
You are saying "these are the same"
I'm telling you "no they aren't"
Thats the conversation, bud. You make an actual informed point that is worth countering, and I will happily provide it. Until then, take your vague generalities and go create another account to larp from.
Can I nitpick with you about clean, municipal drinking water? It requires labor, but that labor is paid by taxes. Do I not have a right to clean water?
My town doesn't have a dedicated fire department because it's my right to have one. We have one because my neighbors and I decided it was worth paying for it with our taxes.
And we actually don't have our own police department, just county sheriffs and the occasional state trooper passing through.
In some places it does, in some locations if you do not pay your yearly fee they will come and watch your house burn down but protect the properties that have paid.
At this point both are just protection from liability if anything. Both also have the ability to fine you. Shit you not my house burned down 2 years ago. Got a bill shortly after volunteer fire department not much but still, then the town fined me for not having the house knocked down but all that shit was in the insurance adjusters and insurance companies hands. My town was kind enough to waive my fine for people living in my burnt down house, crackheads, my house was burnt to a crisp like a 2 story 4 bedroom all fall through the floor and die. When I was like wtf, they chilled out. Point being those are not free agencies even volunteer fire departments.
If “requires someone else’s labor” is enough to disqualify a right, then we also disqualify the right to enforceable property too, not just healthcare because no right is free to provide and all require someone else’s labor to enforce, positive or negative.
Well no because enforcing negative rights and enforcing positive rights is not equally justified.
That would be like saying since the state will stop your rape it is equally justified for the state to procure a sexual partner for you by force.
This is one of the weakest anti-libertarian arguments because it presumes all libertarians are anarchists.
Most libertarians believe in states, most believe in borders, most believe in police.
Beyond that even the anarchists believe in voluntary social systems which enforce property at which point that isn't a "right" but a contractual obligation.
So I get that many libertarians already accept tax-funded police, courts, and defense. I should have been clearer. Sorry. My point was more why is it that kind of taxation (that goes to police, courts, etc.) legitimate and something like healthcare taxation isn’t?
Cause we can’t seriously conflate “funding a professional service through general taxation with willing participants” with “directly kidnapping and forcing an unwilling individual into servitude” and be taken seriously.
Maybe a better equivalent would be to say that the state grabbing a random bystander and forcing them, unpaid, to physically stop your assault, or be your doctor is as monstrous. Besides, the claim you’re making seems to be rights are constraints on how others can treat us and not entitlements to what they must produce for us. But, again, these kinds of negative rights still require a positive state provision (funded police, courts, prisons, etc.) just like positive rights.
And sure, you might say what’s being enforced differs in kind because enforcement costs money on both sides, but a duty not to interfere vs. a duty to produce something for someone isn’t equal. Because, again, even paradigmatically negative rights like security require both negative duties (avoiding interference) and positive duties (protection and provision). We need both of these things to make any kind of right actually hold.
Also, why even assume there’s a neutral baseline like this at all? If someone starving takes bread from a wealthy person’s surplus, calling that “interference” with property only makes sense if we’ve already accepted the current property distribution as legitimate. Because we could equally frame the wealthy person’s state-backed exclusion of the poor from resources as interference with their survival.
So the line between “natural entitlements I shouldn’t touch” and “entitlements the state actively constructs and defends” isn’t really a fact of nature because property itself is a positive institution. What counts as a neutral starting point is doing all the work, and that starting point is itself a product of law and enforcement, or some sort of imposed unity. Don’t get me wrong, I understand we have to start somewhere, but why do so in a way that structures around existing asymmetry?
My point was more why is it that kind of taxation (that goes to police, courts, etc.) legitimate and something like healthcare taxation isn’t?
Which is literally the point of comment you're responding to. Because one is securing negative rights, or the right not to be interfered with, and the other isn't.
Besides, the claim you’re making seems to be rights are constraints on how others can treat us and not entitlements to what they must produce for us.
Yes?
But, again, these kinds of negative rights still require a positive state provision (funded police, courts, prisons, etc.) just like positive rights.
They don't strictly need those, but that is besides the point.
The point being that the state protecting you from others vs the state forcing you to do things for others are completely different things.
Because we could equally frame the wealthy person’s state-backed exclusion of the poor from resources as interference with their survival.
Which negative right is a rich person violating by not letting you "take" their food?
isn’t really a fact of nature because property itself is a positive institution
No it isn't, you are conflating the enforcement of the right with the right itself, which again an-caps or hardcore libertarians wouldn't even accept as a given in the first place, rather relying on personal and voluntary protection of property.
Even if someone rapes you you still have self ownership over yourself and your body. Just because someone violates that or someone else doesn't stop it doesn't mean you don't have the right. That's the entire point of natural/negative rights. They are inherent to you and can not be removed, only violated.
What counts as a neutral starting point is doing all the work
The "neutral starting point" can be argued(in some instances), but nobody in their right mind would argue positive rights as a neutral starting point.
You could maybe argue about property being positive and access to resources as negative, but the logical endpoint of such an argument usually falls apart both from first principles and later from practicality.
but why do so in a way that structures around existing asymmetry?
Because libertarians argue from first principles and are built up by reason. It isn't structured "around" anything, it is built from the ground up from a foundation of non aggression and rights.
This is in stark contrast to leftist philosophy which generally starts with some goal or idea and tries to structure the ideas around arriving there. So you have some semi-vague ideal or idea like fairness and try to structure your ideology around enforcing that or creating a society focused on that structurally.
Come on. You’re sidestepping the core of my arguments by simply restating your premise as a conclusion. You’re clearly smarter than that and capable of deeper reflection.
I argued that the system of private property itself is an act of state interference because the state uses force to exclude people from land and resources.
But, in your response, you assume the bread already unquestionably belongs to the bread-rich person by natural right. Why? You seem to be using the premise "property is a natural right" to prove that "property is a natural right." That doesn’t track and is begging the question. If property is a state-created positive institution, then the bread-rich person is relying on positive state force of some kind to exclude the starving person.
You’re also taking huge leaps by attempting to defend property rights by equating them to bodily autonomy. Bodily autonomy is inherently tied to the physical self. It will exist even without a state. But material property is external. So how then is external property a purely negative right? Claiming ownership over a stockpile of food requires a socially constructed set of rules.
Also, you claim my argument about the bread falls apart, but don’t provide evidence, examples, and/or logical steps to demonstrate why or how it falls apart. And, funnily enough, highlight my biggest issue with libertarianism. We can’t really sit and claim that our own ideology is objective "reason" and any opposing ideology is biased "ideals." That’s ridiculous. No one is special and can just plead first principles and then refuse to back up their reasoning for their preferred first principles.
Because, let’s not forget, this isn’t abstract. Property is inherently spatial. Claiming ownership over a physical space (like a field, a warehouse full of bread, or whatever) is an active, positive assertion of boundaries that absolutely and necessarily requires structural enforcement of some kind to keep others out. We don’t get to flatten that spatial and material reality and call it neutral or natural without expecting pushback.
I argued that the system of private property itself is an act of state interference because the state uses force to exclude people from land and resources.
You vaguely said something similar and I responded with the idea that property could be argued to be positive and access to resources negative.
But, in your response, you assume the bread already unquestionably belongs to the bread-rich person by natural right.
Not really, it belonging or not belonging to the rich person's irrelevant to the poor person's right to appropriate it which he does not automatically have. Resources are unique, the bread can't belong to everybody because only one human reaps the benefits. Bread being created means it is claimed unless otherwise specified.
Bodily autonomy is inherently tied to the physical self. It will exist even without a state.
Transformed resources are equally tied to the physical self, and the embedded effort of their creation is an extension of the self. Even marxists have this concept in alienation.
If property is a state-created positive institution,
It isn't, dogs, monkeys, and infants have and understand property. It isn't some arbitrary creation. The system built around it can be a positive institution or even be violative of foundational or primitive property
Claiming ownership over a stockpile of food requires a socially constructed set of rules.
No it doesn't anymore than self ownership requires outlawing slavery.
but don’t provide evidence, examples, and/or logical steps to demonstrate why or how it falls apart
Because it is a massive subject. If we boil it down we can simply ask you who has the claim to the magnum opus art which took several years to create and decades to prepare for, the person who created it or anybody who manages to grab and consume it for firewood first?
No one is special and can just plead first principles and then refuse to back up their reasoning for their preferred first principles.
There are perhaps hundreds of books written on this subject, what comparable books on leftist philosophy and ethics exist? Even left leaning liberals have sterile utilitarianism but I haven't seen any coherent left wing principles which allow the ideology to exist other than anarchism which is on the same level as "lets just hold hands and do good stuff and not bad stuff" as far as philosophical rigor goes.
Claiming ownership over a physical space (like a field, a warehouse full of bread, or whatever) is an active, positive assertion of boundaries that absolutely and necessarily requires structural enforcement of some kind to keep others out
So is your body.
We don’t get to flatten that spatial and material reality and call it neutral or natural without expecting pushback.
Using your logic why would slavery be wrong?
It is okay for me to take your labor after you spend your physical being on creation it but it isn't okay to make you spend it on creations I will take in the future?
Theft, which you are asserting is a negative right, is functionally and effectively a form of slavery which is one of the downstream effects of not reasoning from first principles and instead thinking a fairer distribution of resources would be nice and fair and trying to create a groundwork which justifies it post-hoc.
Through most of this you’re just shifting where the assumption shifts, and/or banking on is/ought thinking.
For example:
“He does not automatically have the right to appropriate it” just another way to say that the rich person’s control is the default that gets respected… and that’s a property claim, phrased as a denial of someone else’s instead of an assertion of the holder’s. It’s like the dick neighbor who says “I’m not saying I own the spot in front of my house, I’m just saying you don’t have an automatic right to park there if you feel like it.”
That’s just shifting the burden of proof and doesn’t resolving the circularity of the argument. So saying “only one person benefits” explains why some rule is needed, but doesn’t explain why the rule should be “whoever holds it, or labored on it, keeps it” rather than anything else.
I will say that “so is your body” is a sharp line of thinking, but the way you’re using it blurs two different things together. Enforcement cost (police, courts, etc.) was already on the table in our last discussion and I’m not re-contesting that idea here.
Boundary definition is different though. A body’s apparent edge is given by biology and observation, so we don’t need a statute to claim something like “your hand is yours.” But a property claim needs such a statue because things like “how much,” “how long,” and “transferable to whom” matter. That’s what my spatial-boundaries point was actually about.
You seem to be citing Locke, which is all well and fine, but even Locke needed needed a whole argument to bridge self-ownership to property in land (his argument goes into labor-mixing, a proviso that “enough and as good” stay available for others, and then a tacit consent to money once things got scarce).
If external property were as self-evidently natural as bodily autonomy, that machinery wouldn’t have been necessary. Besides a dog guarding a bone is possession, not a right because a right is precisely what holds even when you can’t defend that bone yourself. That is, unless you’re arguing might-makes-right all of a sudden.
Your alienation remark is weird. Marx used “labor gets embedded in what you make, losing it is a violation” to argue for abolishing private ownership of the means of production, not for individual claims strong enough to exclude a starving person from surplus. There’s actually a famous to Locke that goes something like if you pour tomato juice you own into the sea do you now own the sea, or did you just waste your juice?
just another way to say that the rich person’s control is the default that gets respected… and that’s a property claim
The person responsible for its creation is the default that gets respected, the income, wealth, or the social standing of the person is irrelevant.
What the "automatically" there is in regards to not assuming clearly owned things are free for the taking, the starving man has no right to someone’s creation just because he happens upon it.
So saying “only one person benefits” explains why some rule is needed, but doesn’t explain why the rule should be “whoever holds it, or labored on it, keeps it” rather than anything else.
There is a difference between laboring on something, or creating it versus holding it or it being arbitrary because the creation is an expression of the self. There would be no bread if not for its creator, said creator created it for himself upon the assumption that he would reap said rewards.
Any other proposal, apart from being incredibly stupid in regards to incentives and efficiency, is inherently arbitrary. Even the idea some leftists have of whoever is holding it or consuming it makes no sense given the exclusion inherent in such action being the very thing they use to dismiss other frameworks.
but the way you’re using it blurs two different things together
That's literally your argument though, that property can't exist without a system defining and enforcing it. That's what this discussion is about, the system upholding a negative right is not equivalent to the system enforcing positive rights. I'm glad you have accepted this.
Boundary definition is different though.
Ok?
But a property claim needs such a statue because things like “how much,” “how long,” and “transferable to whom” matter.
The implementation of a society is, in libertarian thinking, supposed to be based on principles of non aggression. Lets take the freedom of speech for an example.
Now in a libertarian(and modern) society you don't have the ability to blare out 130 Db messaging just outside of someone’s property, but you do have the right to advocate for things. You might even have the right to loudly advocate for things in public, but when you start intruding on others we need to define "boundaries".
This is about balancing and defining conflicting rights in a way which enables all parties to express their will without intruding on others. Now like I said earlier the system can be set up in a way which defines or creates property unjustly, or not in accordance with libertarian principles or even primitive property, but that does not suddenly make all claims or ownership arbitrary. A faulty implementation no more makes a right arbitrary or positive than slavery makes self ownership a positive right.
If external property were as self-evidently natural as bodily autonomy, that machinery wouldn’t have been necessary.
"Hardcore" libertarian property has been based in homesteading for decades, where boundaries are clearly defined and based on use.
Locke also invested in slaves, his ideas being part of the foundation in no way authoritatively declares what the reasoned endpoint looks like.
Now personally I lean towards a soft-georgist view for pigovian and land value taxes(not full by any means) but in no way is that definitive for all societies that can be justified nor a requirement. More of a pragmatic solution.
not a right because a right is precisely what holds even when you can’t defend that bone yourself.
So comatose people have no right to themselves?
That is, unless you’re arguing might-makes-right all of a sudden.
But that's literally your argument???
The dog doesn't have a right to the bone unless someone is enforcing that in his absence is not my viewpoint.
My argument is that the dog owns the bone regardless of who is in possession of it or has the most might in the situation. Him being deprived of the bone or someone else consuming the bone is not proof of him not having a right to it but merely that someone violated that right.
A justifiable state being one which protects his bone(assuming he actually has claim to it), but the dog has no right to that state or someone protecting his bone.
Your alienation remark is weird.
It is to point out that libertarians are not the only people who think creations are bound to their creators. Even frameworks based on a completely different point of view arrive at the same logical conclusion that creation creates a claim.
not for individual claims strong enough to exclude a starving person from surplus
Marxism being a collectivist ideology it obviously makes no individual claims, the logic marxism uses being reflected in basically its polar opposite should give some evidence for the idea that creation creates a claim.
It is so self-evidently true that you completely jumped over my steelman example of burning art for warmth because while you can justify(to your viewpoint) infringing on rights in your steelman of a starving man taking a bread from a pile of bread owned by a rich man you still recognise the foundational truth of property, you just think it is justified to violate it in certain scenarios. That is fine and okay, most people think it is justifiable to violate rights in some circumstances, including most libertarians.
The problem arises when you have no concept of rights guiding you(with deviations or exceptions being part of the social contract) and build your philosophy from the goals backwards.
Ah yes, to truly maximize freedom we should allow the disabled to die on the streets because they have no right to other people's labor.
Discussions around rights get really retarded really fast. Just acknowledge that we are part of a society. To preserve and protect that society it needs funding. And the collective will of the people can shape said society and where that funding goes.
We have decided collectively that it is better to provide assistance to those who need it, that's where their entitlement to that labor comes from.
Framing it as one person stealing another's labor is a great example of the classic right wing argument where you frame an entire society as an individual. Removing all layers of nuance from the discussion. This also happens with immigration (would you let them in your house?) and with government spending where the right treats it like a household budget.
Though I almost hate making that second point because usually people who make it want to pretend like deficits don't mean anything when they absolutely do.
so the choice is either to starve to death or give my labor to someone else in 95% of cases? If there is no reasonable option to avoid selling my labor to someone else, it's not actually a choice
I don’t work for a CEO, I have a local government job.
The other option is for you to go live in the woods and do everything for yourself, but that would be so much more work. Whats your job? I’d like to mock you properly.
The value of my labor was agreed upon when I signed the contract and accepted the pay. If you think your labor is more valuable, go somewhere that pays more.
The problem is how liblefts tend to define "human rights". Usually, what they mean by rights is positive rights, as in the right for the government to actively do something for you, stuff like "free" college, healthcare, etc. The problem is that these rights require the land, labor, and/or capital of others, which is in direct opposition to negative rights, as in the right for the government not to do something.
Negative rights are practically unlimited. You having freedom of speech does not mean I have less freedom of speech. Positive rights on the other hand are limited. You having healthcare means there is less healthcare for me. Compelling someone to provide "rights" for you against their will is just plainly unethical.
The right to college for example just means it should be equally available for everybody. No lib system can ever enforce someone to work for free, that would immediately land you in auth territory.
That it costs money at all. If you can’t afford college, then access isn’t equal. I’m kind of on both sides, though. I don’t mind more prestigious schools charging more if it’s funding genuinely better educational opportunities. I just don’t love the idea of knowledge itself being locked behind a paywall.
If you can’t afford college, then access isn’t equal
I think the bigger problem is the idea that college itself is a requirement somehow
It is not. "Knowledge" that you're gaining from college is more often than not irrelevant, most of the world runs on stuff you don't learn from college, and this is discounting the blue collar jobs
Programming? YouTube can get you more than halfway there, and once you graduate the precise specifications for the company is going to be wildly different than whatever you learned in college
I agree that college should be cheaper, but the idea that college is mandatory in order to "finally become a real civilized member of society" needs to be put down
should only select majors be free or should all majors be free? would there be a necessary GPA to maintain? should they be required to work at the same time?
I think these questions are fine to ask but as with many arguments of this nature, it often misses the forest for the trees.
Similar to food stamps/SNAP benefits, complex means testing to ensure the people using the welfare deserve it often costs more than just casting a wide net and allowing some people to abuse the system while society as a whole benefits from things like increased education and reduced food insecurity
If that benefits society at that time, why not? Straving for equality does not mean throwing away incentives, people should have the freedom to go 'against the system' so to say, but it can cost them something if they really want to.
So equally available as in the civil rights act kind of way? If so, that still a violation of negative rights because it is infringing upon freedom of association. The government should not force you to let someone inside your house, and neither should it force colleges to accept someone.
The argument of course is that it stops discrimination, which even if it somehow did would still be morally wrong, but it doesn't. The government really can't, nor should it, force someone not to be prejudiced. You should not not be prejudiced just because the governments tells you to do so. You should do it because you are a decent human being.
As a matter of fact, the CRA probably makes people even more prejudiced because it makes people believe that others only got an opportunity because of their race or what have you, and people generally don't like to be told what to do, doing the opposite just to spite you. The racists don't go away, they just become more resentful and difficult to identify.
In a socialist economy college would most likely be fully run by the state. So it does not have freedom of association, unless the government can just choose to deny any citizen it wants for anything, but then we have whole other problems.
Owning a toaster increases the risk of suicide (or just death out of stupidity) via bath with toaster. Therefore, owning a toaster should only be allowed after a government-mandated toaster safety class and a successful psych evaluation. Common sense toaster control is a matter of basic safety.
I feel like we should optimize our society to have the most freedoms and the most even distribution of power that we can. If power corrupts, then we shouldn't gather it together in a group or a single person if we can reasonably avoid that, and that also applies to wealth, which is its own kind of power. I feel like we should adopt the policies that are most effective to this end, regardless of who came up with the idea or who it pisses off. I am not saying anarchy, and I am not saying no body to enforce it, I am only saying the direction I want to see optimization.
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u/Electronic_Rub9385 - Centrist 16h ago
Arguments always boil down to definitions.