4 ms·

Equity is, in effect, code for treating some people different than other people due to immutable facts about reality. That's wrong. Equality is right. Enforcing

Equity is, in effect, code for treating some people different than other people due to immutable facts about reality. That's wrong. Equality is right. Enforcing equity is illegitimate use of the government and is an out right attack on everyone's personal liberties. I don't care if someone is rich, poor, white, brown, gay, straight, etc. The government treating someone differently (in anyway) due to who they are is wrong. End of story.

jakelazaroff 7y ago
A strict view of equality can actually lead to the law treating people differently due to who they are. Consider a flat fine for speeding: pragmatically, that means that someone living paycheck to paycheck has to obey speed limits whilst a millionaire does not. That is wrong.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  You have a strange definition of "differently". A millionaire doesn't get to speed, that's just ridiculous. They'll be stopped, inconvenienced, and have points on their license, and eventually lose the legal right to drive. Treating people differently through some arbitrary definition of difference is wrong. Either we're all equal in front of the law or some animals are more equal than others. And the kind of justice you're peddling is what has set countries across the world on fire recently; the uneven application of the law. [Edit] I don't think I was clear. Everywhere we see special cutouts in the law, all that happens is that the more capable less scrupulous people capture those cutouts. The best we can hope to do is to treat everyone exactly the same in front of the law.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    This is exactly wrong. Someone sufficiently rich will simply pay a team of lawyers to challenge any points on technicalities. And they'll probably have a foreign licence, which makes a ban harder to enforce. "Equal in front of the law" actually means that financial penalties should be progressive in the same way taxes should be. Some countries actually do this, and they're not on fire.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    The point is that by ignoring people’s circumstances, we are creating special cutouts. In the speeding example, the “more capable less scrupulous people” capturing the cutout are those who can afford to not care about the fine.
    - merpnderp 7y ago
      What are circumstances? How do we measure those? What is fair? And most importantly, how do we keep the people who are better at life from capturing those cutouts like they do in 99.9% of the times there are cutouts? You may think you can create a Byzantine set of rules to make life perfectly fair, but you'll just create a framework for someone unburdened by ethics to win, as we see basically everywhere this is tried.
      - jakelazaroff 7y ago
        Why do you keep speaking in generalities when I’ve given a concrete example? With flat fines for driving violations, we’ve created a framework for relatively rich people unburdened by ethics to ignore those laws. In what way is making fines proportional to one’s income less fair or more vulnerable to exploitation?
  - mreome 7y ago
    I think you kind of prove the previous post's point though. As you said, to the millionaire all of that is just an "inconvenience". Even if you assume that they couldn't fight it in court, loosing their license is still just a slightly larger incontinence as they can just hire a chauffeur. Now to someone else, those fines could mean not being able to afford the basics like food and medical needs. Not being able to pay those fines could (and does) lead to further fines/fees and jail time, loosing homes, jobs, etc. How exactly does a punishment qualify as equal treatment under the law, equality punitive, when to one person it is at worst and inconvenience, and to another can destroy their life? How would it not be treating "everyone exactly the same in front of the law" to just say that fines are assessed as a percentage of income and/or net worth? All of that said, personally I wouldn't extend this all the way back to the original argument about theft though, stealing $1000 is the same regardless who you steal it from, at least as far as the law should be concerned. I could see a moral difference, but the law often does not (and can not) make moral distinctions. It could however make reasonable distinctions in the application of the punitive aspects, as it sometimes does in terms of jail sentencing.
- naniwaduni 7y ago
  This depends a lot on what the intended effect of the law is. The cost of risk externalized by one person speeding is about the same, modulo driver skill and location and whatnot; it is not very sensitive to rich the driver is. If the goal of the law is to impose enough additional risk of a fine to compensate for the externalized risk, then it makes perfect sense that millionaires don't need to obey speed limits--as long as they can pay up. If the law is intended as a deterrent, this obviously isn't working.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    Fines are not related to the externalised cost of speeding, because the externalised cost of speeding can include death and life-changing injury as well as property damage, and it's very difficult to assess a fair market price for death.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      > it's very difficult to assess a fair market price for death Bean counters will manage it though, if asked.
  - throwawayjava 7y ago
    Speed limits are originally designed to reduce risk, not "compensate" for it. You can tell this is true because the victims of crashes caused by speeders do not receive proceeds from speeding ticket fines. And this is sensible. How do you compensate a family for a dead body? You can't. So the purpose of the law should be to prevent the need for that compensation in the first place.
- lscotte 7y ago
  What?! No, this is an insane view.
  - Koshkin 7y ago
    Equality is in the “state”, not in the process that leads to that state. (It is the weak who needs help to get somewhere, not the strong.)
EliRivers 7y ago
Mass-murderers should be treated the same as a nice man who helps old ladies cross the street? I suspect you don't believe that, so when you say "the government treating someone differently (in anyway) due to who they are is wrong" what do you mean?
- Koshkin 7y ago
  In reality (if you haven’t noticed) mass murderers send nice men to war to kill each other (and old ladies, as a collateral damage).
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    I look forwards to you expanding this to explain why it's relevant and not just a non sequitur.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Thus you are calling for a system of fines designed and intended to punish the poor and disadvantaged harder. Forget about assessing means and circumstances. The minimum wage guy pays the same fine as a billionaire. You've just made a load of laws optional if you have enough in the bank (OK, justice systems can bring some degree of this, but via unintended consequences) Do you believe that will have the same deterrent effect across society? I sure don't.

jakelazaroff 7y ago

A strict view of equality can actually lead to the law treating people differently due to who they are. Consider a flat fine for speeding: pragmatically, that means that someone living paycheck to paycheck has to obey speed limits whilst a millionaire does not. That is wrong.

merpnderp 7y ago
You have a strange definition of "differently". A millionaire doesn't get to speed, that's just ridiculous. They'll be stopped, inconvenienced, and have points on their license, and eventually lose the legal right to drive. Treating people differently through some arbitrary definition of difference is wrong. Either we're all equal in front of the law or some animals are more equal than others. And the kind of justice you're peddling is what has set countries across the world on fire recently; the uneven application of the law. [Edit] I don't think I was clear. Everywhere we see special cutouts in the law, all that happens is that the more capable less scrupulous people capture those cutouts. The best we can hope to do is to treat everyone exactly the same in front of the law.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  This is exactly wrong. Someone sufficiently rich will simply pay a team of lawyers to challenge any points on technicalities. And they'll probably have a foreign licence, which makes a ban harder to enforce. "Equal in front of the law" actually means that financial penalties should be progressive in the same way taxes should be. Some countries actually do this, and they're not on fire.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  The point is that by ignoring people’s circumstances, we are creating special cutouts. In the speeding example, the “more capable less scrupulous people” capturing the cutout are those who can afford to not care about the fine.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    What are circumstances? How do we measure those? What is fair? And most importantly, how do we keep the people who are better at life from capturing those cutouts like they do in 99.9% of the times there are cutouts? You may think you can create a Byzantine set of rules to make life perfectly fair, but you'll just create a framework for someone unburdened by ethics to win, as we see basically everywhere this is tried.
    - jakelazaroff 7y ago
      Why do you keep speaking in generalities when I’ve given a concrete example? With flat fines for driving violations, we’ve created a framework for relatively rich people unburdened by ethics to ignore those laws. In what way is making fines proportional to one’s income less fair or more vulnerable to exploitation?
- mreome 7y ago
  I think you kind of prove the previous post's point though. As you said, to the millionaire all of that is just an "inconvenience". Even if you assume that they couldn't fight it in court, loosing their license is still just a slightly larger incontinence as they can just hire a chauffeur. Now to someone else, those fines could mean not being able to afford the basics like food and medical needs. Not being able to pay those fines could (and does) lead to further fines/fees and jail time, loosing homes, jobs, etc. How exactly does a punishment qualify as equal treatment under the law, equality punitive, when to one person it is at worst and inconvenience, and to another can destroy their life? How would it not be treating "everyone exactly the same in front of the law" to just say that fines are assessed as a percentage of income and/or net worth? All of that said, personally I wouldn't extend this all the way back to the original argument about theft though, stealing $1000 is the same regardless who you steal it from, at least as far as the law should be concerned. I could see a moral difference, but the law often does not (and can not) make moral distinctions. It could however make reasonable distinctions in the application of the punitive aspects, as it sometimes does in terms of jail sentencing.
naniwaduni 7y ago
This depends a lot on what the intended effect of the law is. The cost of risk externalized by one person speeding is about the same, modulo driver skill and location and whatnot; it is not very sensitive to rich the driver is. If the goal of the law is to impose enough additional risk of a fine to compensate for the externalized risk, then it makes perfect sense that millionaires don't need to obey speed limits--as long as they can pay up. If the law is intended as a deterrent, this obviously isn't working.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Fines are not related to the externalised cost of speeding, because the externalised cost of speeding can include death and life-changing injury as well as property damage, and it's very difficult to assess a fair market price for death.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    > it's very difficult to assess a fair market price for death Bean counters will manage it though, if asked.
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  Speed limits are originally designed to reduce risk, not "compensate" for it. You can tell this is true because the victims of crashes caused by speeders do not receive proceeds from speeding ticket fines. And this is sensible. How do you compensate a family for a dead body? You can't. So the purpose of the law should be to prevent the need for that compensation in the first place.
lscotte 7y ago
What?! No, this is an insane view.
- Koshkin 7y ago
  Equality is in the “state”, not in the process that leads to that state. (It is the weak who needs help to get somewhere, not the strong.)

EliRivers 7y ago

Mass-murderers should be treated the same as a nice man who helps old ladies cross the street? I suspect you don't believe that, so when you say "the government treating someone differently (in anyway) due to who they are is wrong" what do you mean?

Koshkin 7y ago
In reality (if you haven’t noticed) mass murderers send nice men to war to kill each other (and old ladies, as a collateral damage).
- EliRivers 7y ago
  I look forwards to you expanding this to explain why it's relevant and not just a non sequitur.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Thus you are calling for a system of fines designed and intended to punish the poor and disadvantaged harder. Forget about assessing means and circumstances. The minimum wage guy pays the same fine as a billionaire. You've just made a load of laws optional if you have enough in the bank (OK, justice systems can bring some degree of this, but via unintended consequences) Do you believe that will have the same deterrent effect across society? I sure don't.