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The burden should not be on the people to justify every one of their liberties. Should a gay couple need justify to the state the merit, moral dignity, or in an

The burden should not be on the people to justify every one of their liberties. Should a gay couple need justify to the state the merit, moral dignity, or in any way their choice to live as gay people to the state? No. It should never be that way. But to legitimize illegitimite authority you just need to win over the hearts and minds of the people that what you are doing is good, by first doing things that are, in isolation, good. Though its an awful path to go down.

stordoff 9y ago
Of course the burden is on the state to justify the intrusion of liberty, but providing they can do so (i.e. the proposed action in isolation is a good thing), I'm not seeing the issue - preventing the government from making good interventions because of hypothetical future bad laws seems like an even worse path to take. Ultimately, how can you govern if good actions are just treated as a means to legitimise unspecified abuses?
- wallace_f 9y ago
  You're misunderstanding this. The issue is with regard to what constitutes legitimate authority. It's because the government has a monopoly on violence. The time to leash that is when it oversteps its legitimate authority. Not wait until something awful happens when they're locking up communists, reading your email, or killing minorities.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    I'll go back to my first question: in this case, what legitimate authority is being overstepped? It seems widely accepted that governments have the ability to make laws for the protection of animal welfare, and we seem in agreement that the ends reached here are a good thing. To me, this seems like a legitimate and proportional use of governmental power.
    - wallace_f 9y ago
      I can't seem to find a way to communicate this. I do agree those laws achieve good ends. I suppose most people don't like being called ugly and stupid, should government ban that? All I'm advocating is the ideals proposed during the Enlightenment and founding of America be taken more seriously. Most of the evil in the world is done by governments. Once you set them up with the size, authority to do that, it will be done.

stordoff 9y ago

Of course the burden is on the state to justify the intrusion of liberty, but providing they can do so (i.e. the proposed action in isolation is a good thing), I'm not seeing the issue - preventing the government from making good interventions because of hypothetical future bad laws seems like an even worse path to take. Ultimately, how can you govern if good actions are just treated as a means to legitimise unspecified abuses?

wallace_f 9y ago
You're misunderstanding this. The issue is with regard to what constitutes legitimate authority. It's because the government has a monopoly on violence. The time to leash that is when it oversteps its legitimate authority. Not wait until something awful happens when they're locking up communists, reading your email, or killing minorities.
- stordoff 9y ago
  I'll go back to my first question: in this case, what legitimate authority is being overstepped? It seems widely accepted that governments have the ability to make laws for the protection of animal welfare, and we seem in agreement that the ends reached here are a good thing. To me, this seems like a legitimate and proportional use of governmental power.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    I can't seem to find a way to communicate this. I do agree those laws achieve good ends. I suppose most people don't like being called ugly and stupid, should government ban that? All I'm advocating is the ideals proposed during the Enlightenment and founding of America be taken more seriously. Most of the evil in the world is done by governments. Once you set them up with the size, authority to do that, it will be done.