2 ms·
What the hell? > "Perfect enforcement" sounds only as horrible as the culture behind it is Historically, the "culture behind it" has looked pretty damn awful
by jjoonathan 11y ago
What the hell?
> "Perfect enforcement" sounds only as horrible as the culture behind it is
Historically, the "culture behind it" has looked pretty damn awful once time or distance give us some perspective.
> Turning away from that is to embrace and make a home for the devil we know---corruption, physical and sexual domination of the weak by the powerful, environmental devastation, rampant species genocide, etc etc etc.
Culture frequently and reliably endorses these things and worse. Corruption, cheating, and coercion are fetishized in today's business environment -- just look at the arguments over Ben Affleck's boiler room speech on youtube -- and historically it has been worse. It's not uncommon for entire countries to get behind genocide or slavery.
If you assume, in direct contrast to extensive historical and contemporary evidence, that culture is easy to get right, to fix, or to keep fixed, then your conclusion about perfect enforcement might follow. But that assumption is so utterly absurd that I don't think even the dullest lawyer Satan could get his hands on would make it the core of their argument.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoClassical slavery was an answer to "what do we do with the people left over after conquest?"Of course, the transition to kings from judges in the Old Testament ( which I use because it's one of the few written artifacts left from then ) led to various prophets decrying the hubris of conquest. This hubris led to things like the Temple falling American Peculiar Institution slavery was a widening of the scope of Iron Triangle trade in the Carribean by rapacious Mercantilists. And to your last point, there's the line from "A Man For All Seasons" - "It'd give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."