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Being able to choose between horrible options is exactly the definition of freedom. Believe it or not many people would choose free destitution over pampered sl
by thegrimmest 5y ago
Being able to choose between horrible options is exactly the definition of freedom. Believe it or not many people would choose free destitution over pampered slavery. It is exactly the ability to make this choice, at the most extreme level, that should be respected. To take an maximal example: you should be able to sell your kidneys to fuel your heroin habit, for no other reason than because no one can claim more ownership over them than you.
To protect people, against their will, from the consequences of their own misfortune or inadequacy is fundamentally paternalistic. The goal isn't efficiency, but the primacy of agency and consent.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhat is wrong with paternalism?
- thegrimmest 5y agoThe authoritarian and condescending nature of it.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhy is paternalism within the family not authoritarian or condescending?
- thegrimmest 5y agoIt absolutely is! In the context of raising a child, it may be appropriate. When interacting with an equal it is not.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhat determines equality?
- thegrimmest 5y agoIt is a moral axiom: > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...
- Apocryphon 5y agoAnd how are children, as men, not also created equal, yet still subject to paternalism?
- thegrimmest 5y agoI think children are excluded from the definition of "men".
- Apocryphon 5y agoSurely not by the above moral axiom.
- thegrimmest 5y agoSurely by it. I would struggle to find a precedent where children are considered equal to adults, and not subject to their authority. In fact my whole point is we shouldn't treat adults the same way we do children.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhy is it authoritarian and condescending for a government to provide service and address societal problems, but no less authoritarian or condescending for a government to be in the business of protecting the rights that any self-respecting freeholder should be ready and willing to do so?
- thegrimmest 5y agoBecause that self same freeholder should be ready and willing to negotiate with others to provide whatever goods and services he needs. He shouldn't need a third party to intervene on his behalf, and, knowing that depriving anyone of freedom deprives him as well, should be loathe to apply force to compel the other free party he is negotiating with to meet his terms.
- andersonvom 5y agoIf the two horrible options were free from context, sure. But that's hardly (if ever) the case. It is very convenient to start from a place where A has power over B, then say "B is free to choose whatever crappy options A offers, because... freedom".
- thegrimmest 5y agoWe have to start from some place don't we? Even if we perfectly redistributed wealth tomorrow, we'd see billionaires in a generation or two.
- andersonvom 5y agoThis only goes to show that the current system is inherently broken, but this is a completely different conversation.