Authority

Bowser

Bowser

Namaste
Valued Senior Member
Don't really know how to shoot this one... I grew up in a time when buckling your seat belt was an option, paying a traffic fine didn't require a whole paycheck, and a urinalysis was consider an invasion of privacy.

How much personal power are you willing to hand over to authority? Better yet, how much power over others are you willing to hand over to authority? The question of government and its role in our lives, what limits should there be?
 
This is an interesting but tough one. I think there should be cooperation on both sides and when there is then deferring to authority (in most cases) makes for a better society.

When the authorities aren't well trained and result to violence or excessive control as a first resort then deferring to authority isn't as clear cut.

I do think that as a society becomes more crowded it becomes more necessary to cooperate (and defer to well-behaved authority).

IMO it's ill advised to treat every intrusion by authorities as an invasion of your rights. Afterall, I let the dentist put his/her fingers in my mouth because it needs to be done and we struggling does help matters. :)

My point really is that it's the abuse of power by authorities that is the real issue and not the authority itself. I'd rather walk the streets in Norway than in most larger cities in the U.S. They arguable have more rules than we do but they are more cooperative and the authorities are better trained and less abusive.
 
Bowser said:
Better yet, how much power over others are you willing to hand over to authority? The question of government and its role in our lives, what limits should there be?
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The Government should be a true representation of the people for the people.

If this were the case the Government should be extended full control of the society and the people in it, right down to controling what they eat, what they wear and if they are allowed to have children or pets.

This will seem strange but it would not be strange if the Government was indeed a true representation of the people for true representation must translate into an absence of cruel and harse enforcement of rules that would be in place for all the people rather than, as we usually have, rules that arise to suit special interest groups.

Needless to say we will never see a government such as the one that would be needed that could manage full authority fairly and in the best interest of the society.

Also in such a society there could be no minorities so initially not all would be happy or indeed dealt with fairly.

However given such a government can not exist in reality I am forced to take an absolutely opposite position and say the government should have no authority other than to request citizens to think about the consequences of their actions, and any law enforcement should be in the hands of the local war lord who of course would be me.
Alex
 
Xelasnave.1947 said:
and any law enforcement should be in the hands of the local war lord who of course would be me.
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:tongue:

The domain of government seems to increase over time, or, possibly, it evolves where some authority is relinquished and replaced with new restrictions. The new attitude towards marijuana comes to mind.
 
Seattle said:
I do think that as a society becomes more crowded it becomes more necessary to cooperate (and defer to well-behaved authority).
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But at what point does that authority becomes invasive? How much are we willing to defer to authority rather than our own judgement? As in a previous example, 20 years ago a speeding ticket would cost 30 dollars, now it is considerably more. To me that is an abuse of power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely?
 
Bowser said:
But at what point does that authority becomes invasive? How much are we willing to defer to authority rather than our own judgement? As in a previous example, 20 years ago a speeding ticket would cost 30 dollars, now it is considerably more. To me that is an abuse of power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely?
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20 years ago everything was less expensive. That's hardly an "authority" issue. The authority issue is whether you feel it's justified for the government to regulate speed.

The tax rate depends in large part of how much the government is spending and that depends in large part on how much the citizens are demanding.
 
Seattle said:
20 years ago everything was less expensive. That's hardly an "authority" issue. The authority issue is whether you feel it's justified for the government to regulate speed.
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I haven't had a ticket in a long time, but the last I heard it's more than a 500% increase.

The tax rate depends in large part of how much the government is spending and that depends in large part on how much the citizens are demanding.
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It seems more like supporting an inflated government--retirement, wages and such. Locally, there is talk of raising taxes on a pack of cig's by 85 cents.
 
Bowser said:
I haven't had a ticket in a long time, but the last I heard it's more than a 500% increase.


It seems more like supporting an inflated government--retirement, wages and such. Locally, there is talk of raising taxes on a pack of cig's by 85 cents.
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The cost of a ticket depends on where you live. The taxes on cigarettes depends on where you live and is important only depending on whether you smoke or not.

An inflated government is only inflated in those areas that don't affect you. :) The real problem is that the government is spending money it doesn't have. Government services, in the U.S. at least, are hardly inflated. I get very little from the government in return for my taxes.
 
Bowser said:
I grew up in a time when buckling your seat belt was an option, paying a traffic fine didn't require a whole paycheck, and a urinalysis was consider an invasion of privacy.
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When the libertarians of the right and the libertarians of the left make common cause against their common enemy, the politics of the US will shift.

Seat belt buckling will be optional (but affect insurance liabilities, etc). Urinalysis will be justified only upon demonstration of due cause. Traffic fines will not be major sources of income for police departments. This is all possible.

Right now the obstacle is the intransigent bigotry and reactionary ignorance of the libertarian right, inculcated and manipulated by the deep pockets of the corporate wealthy - the authoritarian right.
 
This is how I feel at times, when there appears to be no end to what it is willing to do...

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub"
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Bowser said:
Don't really know how to shoot this one... I grew up in a time when buckling your seat belt was an option, paying a traffic fine didn't require a whole paycheck, and a urinalysis was consider an invasion of privacy.

How much personal power are you willing to hand over to authority? Better yet, how much power over others are you willing to hand over to authority? The question of government and its role in our lives, what limits should there be?
Click to expand...
Well, if you are concerned about authority, why the hell did you vote for Trump? You do realize this is the guy who has advocated torture as a legitimate interrogation tool. This is the guy who wants to crack down on free speech for God's sake. This is the guy who likes fascists, e.g. Putin. So if you like liberty, why the hell would you support Trump?

Where do you think the "limits" are? Buckling your seat is still an option. If you don't don't buckle up, you might get a ticket, because it is the law. But that would be the least of your worries, because you might lose your life. It seems like every week there is a story in our local news about someone losing their life because they weren't using their seat belt.

We live together. That means we need a common set of rules. So who makes the rules? For the most part we do, through our elected representatives. If we don't like what they do, we shouldn't be voting for them. The irony here is that a good number of Americans have voted against their interests.
 
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joepistole said:
Buckling your seat is still an option. If you don't don't buckle up, you might get a ticket, because it is the law. But that would be the least of your worries, because you might lose your life. It seems like every week there is a story in our local news about someone losing their life because they weren't using their seat belt
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So why the law?
 
Seattle said:
Why not the law? We don't live in the jungle.
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Because it's an intrusive, poorly justified, and apparently (as joe shows us in their post) ineffective little oppressive hassle. It's something that reminds a third of the population of the fact that they can't trust their government, every day of their lives. So you've blown a whole lot of political capital, for the pleasure of telling people how to sit in their cars.
 
iceaura said:
Because it's an intrusive, poorly justified, and apparently (as joe shows us in their post) ineffective little oppressive hassle. It's something that reminds a third of the population of the fact that they can't trust their government, every day of their lives. So you've blown a whole lot of political capital, for the pleasure of telling people how to sit in their cars.
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Maybe you are right about this one as not wearing seatbelts usually only pose problems for the non-wearer in an accident, unless they get flung from the car and crash through your windshield etc but that's unlikely.

But if society were to go with this line of thinking, then why not make even hardcore drugs legal since it's also a choice. Why spend so much money fighting drugs? People who want to do are going to anyways, right? But their are other implications to consider such as easy access and drug pushers freely able to solicit your children and not undercover of darkness and then essentially becoming normalized. Then you would even have a worse problem than before with new addicts that may not otherwise have been.

You don't think the government has some obligation to protect it's citizens not only from others but themselves at times? I knew of this guy who was so addicted to drugs and he wanted to get clean and the only way he believed he could was to be locked up in prison to stop from killing himself.

Let's go further. Why have any regulations. rules or laws? Why not put strip clubs around schools and suburbia. Does it matter since it will always be a choice for someone to patron such places? It's not just about that, it's about the collateral damage and effects it has on others in a real ripple effect either as a nuisance, ill influence etc.
 
iceaura said:
Because it's an intrusive, poorly justified, and apparently (as joe shows us in their post) ineffective little oppressive hassle. It's something that reminds a third of the population of the fact that they can't trust their government, every day of their lives. So you've blown a whole lot of political capital, for the pleasure of telling people how to sit in their cars.
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Wearing seat belts is poorly justified? Wearing seat belts reminds people that they can't trust government? How so?
 
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