I agree. None of the mainstream political parties are below the X axis. In fact any individual who strives to "govern" is by definition above the X axis.
^^^ Note: The Devils Dictionary was published around 1911 at a time when people understood satire, something lost to recent generations now that walking around with a giant pickle in your arse is considered normal. Edit: Not that I'm suggesting any here is enjoying pickles in such a way.
Questioning sources is a good principle imo, but regarding the other aspects, this pretty much describes the attitude of a lot of people in this thread.
I don't know those Australian programs in particular and I accept that money can be poorly spent, even in Education. But what was being discussed was the existence of Education, provided or financed by the State (not just an additional program). So, yes, Education is definitely a good (actually, a fundamental) field to invest our resources.
It wasn't just me. From all his posts, you can see he also agrees with that. Positive rights give you more freedom. If that freedom interferes with the freedom of others, that's another issue. But you can deny it. Even considering your definition of freedom (absence of coercion), I am coerced not to kill you. So, of course the lack of positive rights reduces my freedom.
I wouldn't say the "right", because that suggests fairness or legitimation. Freedom is simply the power to choose many and relevant options. The more and more relevant choices you have, the freer you are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercion : If I have the power to choose many and relevant options, I'm less coerced. If I wish to kill another person and the police doesn't let me do it, I'm being coerced not to do it (the police uses of intimidation or threat or other form of pressure or force to prevent me from acting the way I would like to, i.e., it forces me to act in an involuntary manner). Therefore, the "absence of coercion" is equivalent to the "quantity and relevance of choices". If he says freedom is the "quantity and relevance of choices", then "freedom" is not the same as "choice". It's the set of available choices. Instead of saying they're meaningless, explain why they're meaningless. Use arguments, not just attacks.
@smk762 Not sure if your post was a joke, but let me just point out some things: If you use just two points, it's one-dimensional, not a square. But I think you didn't understand the analogy. The square does not represent the spectrum of policies. For that you would need your perpendicular axes. The square/rectangle just represents the amount of freedom, which depends on its length and width (positive and negative freedoms). Which is ...? On that point, you stopped even talking about politics and started talking just about colours. We were not discussing colours, not even the political spectrum. We were just discussing freedom, with respect to positive and negative rights.
That's the view of a libertarian. Each ideology tends to see itself comprehending a larger space of the spectrum.
I like satire and poetry in particular and art in general, but I think they have no space in objective discussion. They appeal to our emotions and not to our reason. That's why an artistic style should not be used to create science (in the past people believed things were composed of "fire, air, water and earth", because that was poetical and beautiful), nor to run companies (which need to look at cold hard numbers) or nations.
My point was that sometimes we oversimplify the complex and then use this low-res logic to define a concept, such as freedom. Though I'll admit to tangential verbosity, some things need more than a sentence to communicate, and just posting the pictures would make no sense to anyone. Wasn't disagreement on definition and politics' effect on freedom part of the topic? I'll concede that a point/line is 1D, and not being sure if any of my posts are ever a joke or not. On re-reading it seems that you are visually quantifying the combination of varying amounts of positive and negative freedoms as a rectangle, with the area indicating total combined freedoms, and the aspect ratio indicating the (in)balance of pos/neg. Confirm or elaborate as necessary.
No, the discussion was just about the definition of freedom and whether libertarianism is maximizing it or not. We don't need to look at the political spectrum (of left and right, authoritarianism, etc.). We just need to focus on libertarianism and the maximization of freedom. The "rectangle" analogy was representing freedom (not the political spectrum). The analogy wasn't mine, but that was my interpretation. Positive and negative freedoms would be the sizes (length and width) and the area the total combined freedom. Personally, I wouldn't say total freedom is the multiplication of positive and negative freedoms. However, by the law of diminishing returns, we can see that a balanced situation (in the analogy, similar length and width) leads to a greater amount of freedom (greater area). In that regard, the analogy is reasonable imo.
Basically, my definition is more comprehensive than yours. You only care about one side. You don't want to see the other side. You don't want to know about it. You just close your eyes to it. It's convenient for you not to see the whole picture. Then you can come, fill your lungs and claim for "freedom", pretending you're a man full of noble ideals. I openly say that your definition of freedom is limited. What do you tell about mine? Isn't freedom the quantity and relevance of choices in life? Tell me it isn't. I want to see you saying it with all the words. Furthermore, you have ignored my question: "Otherwise, if your freedom got destroyed once the State took a piece of bread from you, that would mean your freedom would remain the same if the State took more goods from you. Do you think so?". Is it another inconvenient subject you're running away from? I'm more and more certain that, unless you're a joke account, you're just a man with no ideology other than a huge selfishness (hypocritically criticizing a less selfish system you're in but incapable of leaving it) desguised by a claim for pseudo-freedom. It reminds me of a man that sued McDonalds because he got fat with it. When asked why he ate that food so much he answers "but they make those chips so delicious...!". I guess the State is also guilty for being so indispensable for you. The fact that you don't leave is the State's fault, not yours.
Jeez. Take a couple of days off going to concerts and getting drunk and this thread blows out and the conversation moves. @lgf w.r.t. your responses in post 130 you've pretty much missed what was being discussed and haven't really made effective counters to my previous posts. I never gave consent to the State even if I assent to its demands, democratic or otherwise. Voluntary assent is not voluntary consent. In our personal lives we are indebted only by actions we take to do so. As you keep saying, this is not the case w.r.t. the State where we are indebted by the actions taken by others. By what right does anyone have to indebt others without their consent? I certainly don't and I don't know of a court of law that would accept me doing so. By what right does anyone have to walk into their neighbour's house and take a selection of property that they believe would be better given to others they consider more "deserving"? I certainly don't and I don't know of a court of law that would accept me doing so. If I choose to build a road I cannot suddenly claim that it is a road for all people in the community and therefore all people in the community need to compensate me. Even if I create an entity called "Society Pty Ltd" and claim that we all have shares in this entity and because "Society Pty Ltd" owns the road we all own it, this doesn't give me any right to force other people to pay into the entity. I can make whatever claims I want but all are meaningless unless there is explicit consent by the members of the group. No entity can have greater rights than the individuals comprising it. So if no individual has the right to indebt others or to take their property then neither does the entity called "Society Pty Ltd". Most people are not so morally bankrupt as to threaten imprisonment or death if someone else disagrees with them. However, most people are just morally bankrupt enough to delegate that crime to someone else or if they are acting under "authority". How nonsensical is it for a group of people to say "We want you to be part of our peaceful society so badly that, if you disagree, we will kill or imprison you"? If you are willing to kill or imprison someone to get their cooperation then clearly you aren't interested in getting their cooperation. You are more interested in enslaving them to the ideal of "Society Pty Ltd". Enslaving them to the programs and actions that some group of people in authority deem worthy. In your world individuals are slaves to society (via the State) and are duty bound to support it. Separately (at the end of your post), we are not discussing "Public Education and Health saving many millions of lives". The majority of people would have education and health even if it wasn't public (at the levels average people in society can afford). There is a small percentage of people that fall through the cracks (under either fully public or private systems) and this is indeed a shame. We are discussing whether these people have a legal right to education and health. Such a legal right means that they are deemed to be different to others within the eyes of the law.
When someone misses what is being discussed or doesn't make effective counters, I have all the reasons to quote those counters and clearly show why they weren't effective. But you didn't do it. Maybe because I've shown that being able to sell stocks was completely irrelevant to the analogy. Maybe because I've shown you didn't know what communism, democratic states and social democracy were. Maybe because I've shown you're not meritocrat. Maybe because I've shown invoking Newton or Leibniz was foolish. Maybe because I've shown (independently of having taken advantage of public Education and other resources of the society and never contributed to it) you could still leave with credit (e.g. goods). Maybe because I've shown how ludicrous not providing education to children is (just because they don't want it). Maybe because I've asked you where you would spend resources better than in Education. Maybe because I've shown you accused my maths of not being commutative when yours is the one that isn't. I like to discuss with people who don't go away of others' posts, who don't go in circles just to avoid answering directly to inconvenient questions. You've countered some of my comments, but you ignored the majority. I didn't like you saying my counters missed it or were not effective and not even quoting them and showing why. Still, I'm going to reply to your comments: If you don't leave, you're giving consent. It's like saying you've contracted an health insurance and benefited from it, but you didn't consent them to charge you every month or year. Again, your parents chose to raise you in the society, with the resources of the society. You have to take an action (i.e. leave the society) if you don't want to continue enjoying the benefits it provides. What's so difficult to understand here? I mean, let's be clear and focus specifically on the above sentence. Tell me exactly what you don't understand or disagree with. Here you stopped focusing on the main issue (whether being part of the society is voluntary or not) and started focusing on a side issue (whether we should be indebted by other's decisions - specifically, when others decided to use a Public hospital for our birth to be safe from anomalies, or a Public school to educate us). As I've previously said, even indebted to the society, no one forces you to stay. You are free to leave. The debt question is a good discussion, but not the main discussion. I would like you to fully address the main issue, before dispersing in other issues. Still, I'll reply to that. I think the main issue is that we have to be reasonable. I understand that if the person did not decided, it may not seem right to charge him/her for the Education and Health expenses he/she didn't choose. The issue is that a 0 years old cannot decide. I would say 99.99% of the people, if they could go back to their birth and decide on whether to make it on a hospital or in the wild, they would choose the former. If they went back to their 6 years old, they would choose to be educated. It is reasonable to charge them for that. Don't you think so? Imagine that we find an abandoned baby and there's two options: 1) treat him/her in a hospital and provide education, charging him/her later for that; 2) leave him/her die in garbage. What do you think we should do? What's reasonable for you? If your a democratically elected government, which was elected with a program that included the construction of that road, yes, you have complete legitimacy to do it. If you're a random person who decided to do that on your own, then no. You want to victimize yourself so badly that you're using ludicrous statements. In Australia, if I say I don't agree with the government, I'm imprisoned??? Am I killed for that??? From what I know, Australia is a democratic county where people have free speech. How small? Give me numbers. I would say huge. Even for the middle class, Education and Health expenses can be quite heavy. They will always do trade-offs, because they cannot afford what wealthy people can. I don't think that's equal opportunities. I don't think a child of a wealthy person deserves more opportunities than a child of middle class or lower classes. No, it doesn't. Everyone is seen equally in the eyes of law. Everyone has access to Education and HealthCare. If some use more than others, it's because of necessity. I'm just glad I don't use so much HealthCare as other people. But I know if I need, I'll be able to use it. Because I'm treated just like anyone else.
