talkpolitics | It isn't all about property...

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It isn't all about property...

(Well, actually it is, but we won't go there.)

On a previous thread I was said to be an exemplar of the libertarian obsession with property rights, my property rights in particular. Maybe, maybe not, but let's pretend it's not all about property for a bit. I'd like to quote one of my favorite bloggers, Will Grigg. This particular piece is about John Holdren. "Holdren is Barack Obama’s “Science Czar,” in which capacity he counsels the president regarding the role of science in public policy."

Now whether or not Grigg connects his dots the way he intended is one thing, but in the course of the piece he discusses the idea and proponents of compulsory population control. It is that I want to touch on.

“How can we reduce reproduction?” wrote Garrett Hardin in a 1970 Science magazine article entitled “Parenthood: Right or Privilege?” “Persuasion must be tried first…. Mild coercion may soon be accepted – for example, tax rewards for reproductive non-proliferation. But in the long run, a purely voluntary system selects for its own failure: noncooperators out-breed cooperators. So what restraints shall we employ? A policeman under every bed? Jail sentences? Compulsory abortion? Infanticide?... Memories of Nazi Germany rise and obscure our vision.”

I like Grigg's comment: "Oh, those dreadful Nazis: If only they hadn’t given totalitarian eugenics such a bad name..."

Hardin was one of many anti-natalist luminaries – the list included Kingsley Davis, Margaret Mead, Paul Ehrlich, and sundry Planned Parenthood leaders – who endorsed the 1971 manifesto The Case for Compulsory Birth Control by Edgar R. Chasteen. That book offered one-stop shopping for policy-makers seeking draconian population management methods.

So let me ask about the morality of this... I hesitate to call it philosophy... this idea that someone, somewhere can make a determination as to who is or isn't fit to reproduce. On no other grounds than a kind of visceral horror that people could not just conceive the idea, but promote it as good public policy, I would think anyone who wasn't completely dead inside would be thinking torches and pitchforks.

Nevertheless, it is not only promoted, but by academics who depend to a large extent on grants and subsidies from many and sundry levels of government.

Though I do not claim to speak for all libertarians or voluntarists I have to ask why progressives wouldn't be as appalled at this as they are about Tibet or, dare I say Iran or Darfur? Why does it take a "right-wing" Christian "extremist" like Grigg to to even ask the question?

The deeper question is, why would you want any entity to have the power to be able to implement such a policy whether or not it is on the agenda today or not?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If it ever became a valid threat to the greater good to breed excessively, it should be regulated because the act in question is then an infringement on the rights of others - the rights of all versus the right of the individual to procreate as s/he sees fit.

And what of those who have proven themselves to be unfit parents?

Do as you like, so long as you harm no other.

In the absence of such factors though, yes, such a thing would be an infringement of the individuals right to self ownership at the very least.

Oh no! you used the term "the greater good".

We all know how libertarians feel about that concept.

I think it's extremely problematic to say that the mere existence of another person/people is in itself an infringement upon the rights of others.

That's one of the dumbest strawmen I've seen since they banned me from Conservatism: I didn't say 'the mere existence'. Read it again. Look for the part that's bolded.

If you want to put it that way, it is for the greater good that everyone's property rights, including self-ownership, must be respected above all else.

In my reply.
Yep. There.

But if a situation occurred where further breeding became a direct threat to others (limited resources, etc) , the group would be entirely within their rights to defend themselves by pre-empting that individual right for the duration of the crisis.

Or, more plausible, if someone had proven themselves unfit (molestation, neglect, abuse, etc), proven themselves to be someone that will harm any child produced and left in their care, it is up to the group to remove existing child from the individuals custody, and ensure that the individual does not create any more innocents to harm. Happens all the time.

So I now have two un-assailable situations in which the right to reproduce can and should be removed and that removal enforced according to your own rules.

Now what?

But if a situation occurred where further breeding became a direct threat to others (limited resources, etc)

Impossible to happen. It is always an indirect threat. Claiming that it is a direct threat is more of a threat to society.

proven themselves to be someone that will harm any child produced and left in their care, it is up to the group to remove existing child from the individuals custody, and ensure that the individual does not create any more innocents to harm.

It's not within the rights of the group to do that preemptively.

'And what of those who have proven themselves to be unfit parents? '

Like black folks, right?

But you know that's what I mean.
You're just being a douche.

Ohhh...you mean Muslims then. Right? Because I think it'd be awesome to create a power so great and so easy to be abused with such disastrous results.

*yawn*

Get a new argument.

Learn rhetoric.

Translation:
I, Mr. Bogey, as usual, have nothing.

You're advocating the forced sterilization of humans and eugenics and I'm the one that needs to build credibility?

I am advocating no such thing.

I'm saying that there are a few situations when the greater good might require the restriction of the reproductive rights of individuals. One I provided was far fetched, but the other happens daily.

Can't you just have a proper discussion without resorting to sad little tricks? It's embarassing to watch.

Re: ZOMG STRAWMAN

jerseycajun.livejournal.com - 2009-07-20 23:33 (UTC) - Expand

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squidb0i.livejournal.com - 2009-07-21 02:02 (UTC) - Expand

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jerseycajun.livejournal.com - 2009-07-21 04:16 (UTC) - Expand

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squidb0i.livejournal.com - 2009-07-21 04:30 (UTC) - Expand

I don't see any way to "regulate" procreation that doesn't involve putting cameras in bedrooms or forcing sterilization.

Either the idea that individuals have rights or the idea that the whole has a communal right will hold sway. The two cannot co-exist in law, and there is no balancing act to be had. Where one philosophy exists, the other is absent and each obliterates the other where one of such concepts is held. Any attempt to find such a balance is a futile exercise in hair splitting that produces irreconcilable contradictions.

The kind of harm is indirect, but the punishment is direct, individual, and personal. Can you not see that this is an inherently harmful basis for the law to act?

Also, parents proven to be unfit have demonstrated direct harm and direct punishment follows. The two situations are not remotely suitable for comparison.

As with everything else, finding balance is key.

Try again.

"As with everything else, finding balance is key."

Thank you, Obi-Wan, but it will take more than platitudes to save you now.

There are opposing ideas which are by their definition, mutually exclusive. I have outlined as to why I believe this is one of those situations.

Cogent and articulate responses are welcome.

Freedom and the common good are not mutually exclusive.
They co-exist every day in every society.
They require each other to exist.

This is why no one takes you people seriously.
You imagine that everything happens in a vacuum.
It's like talking to Communists, sometimes.
=P

And sometimes we need to destroy liberty to defend it, I get it. It's a little bit "last administration", but I get it. It's just re-purposing an old idea under a different brand.

Explain to me how forcing someone into sterilization for the common good is in any way balancing their individual liberty and not cannibalizing it? Where is the balance there? Where is the balance

The only common good the state can claim with a straight face is to protect is individual liberty. Individual liberty and human rights are real because the individual is not an abstract.

Common good separated from the concept of individual liberty and rights is an abstract creature of our imaginations, which has no single or discernible will save for that which politicians read into the tea leaves, and for which the motivations of such readings are rarely noble.

I'm afraid I'm still not clear on the "balance" concept outside of that understanding, so perhaps a few more examples would be nice? Examples of where you see a harmonious balance between individual liberty and common good where one does not "win out" over the other but where the results favor both equally?

The only people I advocate sterilizing are those that have proven that they should never be allowed near, much less control over, a child. Molesters. Abusers.

In my far fetched hypothetical practiaclly-science-fiction example of drastically reduced resources, I was suggesting birth control, not sterilization. Telling that you go right there. Practically a Godwin.

There is no such thing as a society that has absolute freedom.

As for an example, look around you. Every single day our ability to do stupid things is restricted by the threat of law enforcement and incarceration.

Your freedom to, say, drive the wrong way down the freeway, is curtailed for the common good because you will almost certainly harm another by doing so.

Laws aren't always right or benevolent, as with the travesty that is the Drug War, but the rationale is the same. An example of how the balancing act doesn't always work. Soon we will correct this though. Balance will come.

Yes it can be abused, but so can cars, guns, drugs, or any other tool. Mindlessly getting rid of a useful tool based on flawed criteria and emotion is not best practice.

Good, some actual points.

"In my far fetched hypothetical practiaclly-science-fiction example of drastically reduced resources, I was suggesting birth control, not sterilization. Telling that you go right there. Practically a Godwin."

If coerced, this is an improvement or substantially different - how?

"Your freedom to, say, drive the wrong way down the freeway, is curtailed for the common good because you will almost certainly harm another by doing so.

There is direct cause and effect here between the individual agitant and the people being endangered with the deprivation of life in his path. It will be a much tougher road to hoe to draw such a line between an individual birth and the additional strain that birth may cause on the world, let alone to demonstrate the level of harm caused. What if the person born ends up increasing food productivity 1000 fold?

One is an example of an individual with rights threatening to deprive others of their liberties (rights are directly being violated) and the other is an individual with individual rights who is being charged with aggressing against an abstract.

Glad to see you finally acknowledging some of them.

Now if you'd address the actual example instead of the less substantial one.. Molesters. Abusers.

Read the threads.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It isn't all about property...

Typical Libertarian short sighted worldview.

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As I stated.

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No, dipshit, like people that physically/sexually/mentally abuse children.

Re: No, dipshit, like people that physically/sexually/mentally abuse children.

ZOMG SLIPPERY SLOPE

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ZOMG STRAWMAN

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Re: Typical Libertarian short sighted worldview.

They co-exist every day in every society.

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'Mutually exclusive' is false.

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More strawmen.

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They've been there the whole time.

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Re: Typical Libertarian short sighted worldview.