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An ‘arrogance’ of experts? They are at it again. Medical experts are advising the state that they should mass medicate the population of Britain against a non-infectious disorder.
Perhaps a ‘totalitarianism’ of experts might be more accurate as Food Standards Agency seem to think it is the super-owner of the bodies of everyone in the country.
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Goddam Preverts !
The problem here is that spina bifida actually occurs in the foetus – who either is/isn’t a separate legal human entity, which brings in its own complications.
If you were legally to define the foetus as a child from conception, you could prosecute mothers who failed to maintain the health of the foetus and thus you wouldn’t need to fortify bread as they’d all take their relevant medication – but that would pretty much preclude abortions for any reasons, because there’s no precdent in law for killing a child to save a mother.
Given the above you can’t prosecute mothers who give birth to babies with spina bifida, so what do you do? Monitor the mother and if they’re not behaving properly during pregnancy, lock them up and force vitamins into them? Let them have the fucked up kid and then force them to look after it – which they will promptly put up for adoption?
Also folic acid isn’t medication. It’s a vitamin which occurs naturally in stuff healthy people eat.
In general I agree with you, Perry, but there’s an abstraction here which has to be looked at because this is basically a blanket way to prevent child abuse with no side effects – it’s not like you’re adding a poisonous chemical (chlorine, fluorine) to naturally clean water.
Lascaille, either way, as it is not an infectious problem, it is not a collective problem and that means no one can reasonably medicate me against my will. What if I have an excess of folic acid? Some people do and it is not the state’s business deciding that such a person cannot eat most bread to favour a few dozen children.
Didn’t you spot the exception? Wholewheat flour is excluded. Which means anyone who want to avoid being medicated is encouraged to eat wholewheat which is one of the things near the top of the health-nazis list!
Given that they want/expect people to eat wholewheat, why would they leave it unmedicated? If people followed their advice, that would make the new measure entirely ineffective. They would be forced to recommend pregnant women to eat white bread instead of wholewheat, which is surely heresy! Their pointy heads would just explode!
Regular movements in health advice are routine. It is like a game of musical stools where they keep taking away your luxuries one at a time, but only ever leaving one person at a time with nowhere to go when the music stops. Nobody stops to think that eventually it will be themselves all alone, squirming and hopping from foot to foot, suffering from the excess of bran and lentils and wholemeal. Nobody thinks of all ganging up on the person who keeps taking away their stools and telling them where to put their medical advice.
Ever obedient to the voice of authority we run in ever decreasing circles, in a race that we never precisely agreed to run but nevertheless find ourselves desperate to win.
Given that they want/expect people to eat wholewheat, why would they leave it unmedicated?
Um, because whole wheat bread is considerably richer in folic acid than white bread? Because they want to add folic acid to make up for the fact thast, by stripping out everything but the endosperm, they’re stripping out most of the folic acid?
Honest, guys, 30 seconds of googling would save you so much unnecessary drama.
That’s true. 🙂
Thirty seconds Googling later…
http://www.rebeccablood.net/domestic/wheat.html
Folate levels:
Whole wheat 53
White unfortified 33
White fortified bleached 242
Couldn’t comment on the accuracy of that, but you get the picture. If you have some more reliable figures I’d be interested.
Hi Perry,
1. It’s not a medication – if it were a medication there’d be an entry for it in the BNF and, like all other vitamins, there isn’t. It’s a dietary supplement with no clinical effects.
2. Like vitamin C, it’s not possible to overdose on it – the body excretes what it cannot use and even at 15x the daily ‘recommended’ consumption (800 ug) there are no side effects that have been revealed through study.
3. Defective babies are a collective problem unless you pass a law permitting them to be destroyed, because they mostly remove individuals (their parents) from the set of productive individuals.
There’s no actual problem here. Save it for the truly insidious stuff.
Also, re my first point, are pregnant women responsible for the health of their foetus and should they be held accountable if the baby comes out with neural tube disorders due to a fucked diet? If not them, then who?
‘non-infectious disorder’????? So what?
Public Health law has never been limited to Infectious (transmitted?) disease. It often addresses problems where the disease cause is environmental or systemic – and this is one, albeit a rare one.
All babies are treated at birth so as to prevent a certain blindness. That is law. The blindness is not infectious.
Malaria is an individual disease. But I prefer those mosquitos be suppressed by community action rather than my individual defenses – slapping, drugs, nets, etc.
Sometimes experts know things. Notice in this story the critics don’t say it is bad, they say more would be better.
And sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. From the Washington Post:
Those at the most risk are people who eat high doses of folate-fortified food (ALL pasta and bread products, plus enriched flour) and also take a multivitamin with folate. You might want to check the label on your multivitamin – especially if you’re taking folate-heavy pre-natal supplements – to make sure you’re not putting yourself in danger.
More to the point, this sort of meddling only makes sense if you value imagined (not guaranteed) safety for the few over freedom for all.
I know. I am saying it should be. If it is not a collective threat, it should not be the business of the state.
No, you completely misunderstand. A malarial swamp in your backyard threatens me, and so you do not have the right to have a malarial swamp because the mosquitoes will not stay on your property. It posses a collective threat. Birth defects are not a collective threat. If a mother does not take folic acid, that will not prose a threat to anyone else’s child.
Oh! So now it isn’t an infectious but a collective threat. Thats when it gets important – a threat to you.
Exactly why aren’t you supposed to deal with the mosquitos yourself? It can certainly be done. If you choose to risk malaria that is your cost of freedom.
As for finding a high level of this material aggravates anemia. Hey let those who don’t want the anemia stop eating what may promote it. We don’t stop people from eating sugar when they are at risk of diabetes.
When I first saw the headline, I thought it was about the new Human Papilloma Virus vaccine that the US FDA just approved not long ago. Gardasil, I think the brand name is.
Several state legislatures took on bills to REQUIRE girls entering middle school to have the vaccine. Their logic was that HPV is a potential cause of cervical cancer, and teenage girls can get HPV through sex, and therefore it’s perfectly reasonable to require all of them to have a $500 vaccine series in order to access the public education that their parents already paid for anyway.
Most other vaccines that schools want to see are for diseases which can be spread or at least contracted in the school environment. I have huge problems with the notion that schools anticipate girls catching sexually-transmitted virii in the school environment. If that sort of thing is going on, then a few teachers need to be fired or jailed.
Needless to say, I wrote my state rep about it, as her house was considering such a bill. Screaming leftie that she is, I put it in terms of how an eeeeevil drug company is using teenage girls as lab rats for unproven experimental drugs for the sake of profits.
And if folate is such great stuff, then why is it illegal in the US to add it to anything other than cereals and bread? Last year, vegemite was banned from import here because it contains, you guessed it, folate.
It didn’t affect me much: I consider vegemite only slightly more desirable than warm American lager. However, if that’s what the FDA considers a good use of its time, then perhaps they don’t need the whole two billion dollars that they’re getting this budget cycle.
Let the medicos and public health advocates publish their advice and considered opinions. The masses can decide for themselves whether they should partake of protection against spina bifida, dental caries and HPV. As medical care should be paid for by private citizens anyway, they can then weigh up the individual cost benefits for themselves. Those who choose no protection and can’t afford medical care can throw themselves at the mercy of the state.
Can we have a ‘sack’ of food safety experts, please? I think it sounds so much better.
Yes. Just as I am all for your right to own guns, that does not give you the right to fire those guns in such a way that the bullets leave your property and pose a real risk to me. As mosquitoes from your hypothetical swamp can attack me, and the swamp is on your property, the state can legitimately force you to clear or spray the swamp (or to allow others to do so) because it poses a collective threat outside your property, just as it can arrest you if you fire off guns and accidentally shoot someone on my property.
Folic acid however treats a condition that does not pose a collective threat.
If it has no effect, why are they taking about it? Moreover so what? The effect is not the issue. Also the difference between a medication and dietary supplement is semantic hair splitting and very much a matter of opinion.
Not what I have heard, but again, so what?
By that logic all individual problems are a collective problem. I reject that utterly. Someone becoming non-productive is their problem, not mine, unless I choose to be involved, and it does not justify adding stuff to my food.
What did you think about compulsory vaccination against small pox Perry?
JR
Actually it isn’t my hypothetical swamp at all. I never mentioned a swamp. But you thought of one and asserted it was on my land. Not public land but my land. Then you assert your right to clear it despite the fact that you can avoid malaria by your own personal acts not involving my land.
You wrote ” Someone becoming non-productive is their problem, not mine, unless I choose to be involved, and it does not justify adding stuff to my food.”
I would answer that your becoming unproductive from malaria is your problem, not mine.
Your escape hatch is “unless I choose to become involved”. But that option allows you to advocate any action. Well, others can advocate actions too. I guess that involves enriching flour.
Here the government proposes to enrich flour based upon the best studies and advice they can get. It will benefit the someone but maybe not you. So that isn’t OK.
It may benefit someone. It WILL harm others.
The government doesn’t make flour. The government doesn’t eat flour. Therefore, I still fail to see why the government claims the right to mandate the contents of said flour. People who are contemplating children can buy enriched flour if they want enriched flour. People who are concerned about diseases of old age should be left alone to eat unenriched flour if they deem that best for them.
Either way, on what planet is it your business?
Why, Perry, I see you are all alone against the void on this thread.
The fact is this; I want my bread white.
I don’t need Folic Acid, I don’t mind if the millers add it, but I am not going to stop using white because once a week on a Saturday I go into ‘B’s Bar for a bacon and egg butty and wholemeal kills the flavour.
‘B’s has pictures on the wall of working men on a girder in New York.
They cover the wall.
They would be ordered to wear hard-hats and safety harnesses today, but in those days they would have told the socialists(socialists claim government-by-experts as their defining quality) to fuck off back to Russia and let them build the skyscrapers.
Of course, an enterprising miller should be marketing enriched bread to mothers; mothers who are so stupid that they need to be compulsion-fodder for the bastards of rule, will probably be so incompetent anyway that their children will suffer physically in any case.
Compulsion kills judgement.
Compulsion is designed to kill judgement.
Illusory justifications for compulsion are supposed to act retro-actively; ie after our criticality has been erased from us, we will be filled by the din of orchestrated apology.
Rather like most of the comments here.
So many individuals, so few organisations for them to belong to.
Small Pox is a collective threat, so sure, I am all for vaccination. Spina Bif is not a collective threat.
K, you have some serious logical and common sense flaws in your arguments.
No, I cannot truly protect myself from malaria, no one can, at best I can reduce the risk and the best way to do that is avoid malarial areas… which is a problem if my property is next to your swamp. If I am exposed to the malarial mosquitoes, I am at risk and so is everyone else around. It is like saying you can shoot off your guns on your property (which I have no problem with) and if the bullet travels into my property, it is my responsibility not yours because I can wear body armour to minimise the risk from your stray bullets. Sorry but that is what is referred in sane libertarian circles as The Propertarian Absurdity.
Again your logic fails. It is like saying if you shoot me on my property with an accidental hit whilst at target practice on your property, that is my problem, not yours. Not true, it is very much your problem.
The government doesn’t make flour. The government doesn’t eat flour. Therefore, I still fail to see why the government claims the right to mandate the contents of said flour.
On this side of the pond they have their consistantly abused Interstate Commerce clause. Flour is sold in interstate commerce. The Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce (which made some sense when the states were otherwise sovereign) therefore the government could claim the right to mandate the contents of said flour.
Triticale:
The whole “commerce clause” argument in favor of allowing Uncle Sam to poke his nose into everything under the sun is depressingly like the Constitution establishing our More Perfect Union for the sake of promoting the general welfare, which seems to be confused with providing the general welfare.
I’m not sure how Congress has a role in wheat that’s grown in Colorado, milled in Colorado, and eaten in Colorado. However, the Nine Worthies managed to find a way to justify that back when they were failing to point out the blatant unconstitutionality of every last thing that King Franklin the First did.
And before we worry about de-Communistification of Poland, how about de-Communist-izing the US Dep’t of Agriculture?
An overconfidence of experts
A confusion of experts
A controversy of experts.
A bafflement of experts.
A storm of experts.
A bewilderment of experts.
An incompetence of experts.
An ineptitude of experts.
A misunderstanding of experts.
A mystification of experts.
A disagreement of experts.
So if I’ve got this right, after years of compulsory, usually state run, education, girls and young women have not been taught basic nutrition. Instead of addressing their own failures in the education system the government wants to add a supplement/medication to a basic foodstuff. This stuff will have a cost, which will be paid by everyone consuming that basic food.
As a 47 year old male, who’s partner has been spayed, I do not expect to get pregnant in the near future. If I do the resulting child will have greater problems than the risk of Spina Bifida. I do however hope to grow old at some point, and am worried about suffering medical conditions that may not be detected because I have taken a substance that offers me no benefit.
I now assume the next stage will be to give five a day officers more coercive powers; encouragement has not worked so we must need to be forced to eat our five portions of fruit and veg each day, or will they just require the addition of the appropriate supplements to other foods?
So, the young mothers-to-be haven’t heeded nutritional advice and given that fact the best way of preventing some spina bifida cases would be to add folic acid to bread.
We, as a public, collectively, agree that’s probably for the best. You, Perry, can make you own bread.
Everyone sorted now? Good.
Who’s “we” you thug? I didn’t agree to eat the stuff or to pay for the legislative bullshit that will enforce this.
– a tad febrile, Jan Kroez. You haven’t agreed to it but then, you don’t have a vote in my country, do you?
And you don’t have to eat it. You cook your own bread and save your precious bodily fluids and we’ll make sure some kids don’t get born with nasty conditions like SPina Bifida. That wouldn’t be too much to ask from you would it?
Well Perry I don’t see much logic to learn from you.
You assert you can’t completely protect yourself from malaria and immediately follow up by deciding the your best chance is to avoid malarial areas.
Fine! Avoid them by moving! Avoid that Fascist path of state compulsion and collectivism that will force your neighbors to alter their property.
You insist it is my swamp and I am shooting in the direction of you. That is simply an attempt to sway by creating the illusion that I am bad but you are innocently minding your own and societies interests.
I was and am, somewhat, but not entirely, having fun with this line of argument.
It is an almost universal trait of those who imagine so many, many personal rights to endorse collective action when it suits them – mosquitos, smallpox, etc. – without noticing that others will simply advocate collective actions that suit them. And their definition of terms may well be disagreeable.
That is what is happening here with the flour situation. Others think it a good thing to do. You don’t. And they will almost certainly prevail. Too bad.
The absurdity of all these discussions is the idea that people have rights when they have governments. If there is any meaning to ‘government’ at all it means authority – it decides and others abide.
That is why politicans, government workers, and the well connected of any nation make every attempt to excuse themselves from the laws. It is because they know every government exists first to rule and control.
A person can feel free under an oppressive rule. Or he can believe himself threatened or mistreated by conditions that don’t bother others at all.
But it is a rare mind that, while he supports government mandates agreeable to him, others will – or least should – forego supporting mandates agreeable to them.
K, so let me get this right… you are arguing that if a collective externality is imposed on everyone around you by something on your property, putting their lives at risk in fact, your solution is for them to “move”?
You really cannot see the difference between a collective threat and a several threat it seems, and what is more, you have a strange notion of property rights in that yours appear to trump everyone else’s (clearly you really do subscribe to the Propertarian Absurdity).
Yes I do. I’ve lived in London for 10 years and as an EU national I can vote here. But like most statists you just assume you have the right to impose your will on others if you get enough people to agree. You vote yourself other people money and that makes you a thug just as if you’d taken my money at knife point yourself rather than deputising someone else to do your dirty work. You are an arrogant thug.
Well at least you didn’t insist it was my swamp this time. Otherwise, you apparently can’t grasp that I support your positions, mostly, a little, somewhat.
I was clearly ridiculing them thar stout-hearted-bearpawed-mountain men who howl about their absolute rights until someone brings up a topic that actually is a threat such as malaria or smallpox.
Ask them about those and you will promptly hear the ‘collective’ and ‘community’ words.
My view is that inherent rights do not exist. Only the ability to get what you want sometimes. An atheist may well be loved and considered honorable. Similarly, not believing in immutable rights still allows one to hope for one of the more agreeable governments.
I assert no right to buy the flour formulation I prefer. To have rights like that assumes an obligation upon others to supply same. I merely regard the bread additive as good or bad on balance.
Yes, it may kill someone. People get killed from good intentions often*. That is not a reason to abandon what seems best.
*various agencies are still innoculating against polio here and there. The shots are reputed to kill a few each year and I don’t doubt it.
Then there is very little point in discussing anything with you as utilitarian arguments just come down to how has the most force.
Nor do I. What I do assert is that others do not have the right to rig the market by law the way they want (i.e. with folic acid).
But the point is that Spina Bifida is not, unlike smallpox or malaria, a collective threat.
K:
I can’t tell whether you’re replying to me or Perry: hint, he’s probably older, better looking, and more-gainfully employed.
I’m not asserting the right to buy a given flour formulation. I’m asserting the right for Kroger or Safeway to offer for sale whatever flour formulation they want, even without folate if they so choose.
David Jones:
And so you’re willing to sacrifice the elderly to do it, too. See the above quote from the research done by that bastion of free-market libertarianism, the US Food and Drug Administration. Why do you hate the elderly so much, David? Why do you condemn them to dementia and a slow death from anemia for the sake of controlling what goes into other people’s breakfasts?
How many people have to die to feed your control urges, David, before enough is enough?
Perry wrote: “Then there is very little point in discussing anything with you as utilitarian arguments just come down to how has the most force.”
Utilitarians are partly correct. It does come down to who has the most force. From there many infer ‘might makes right’. That is the mistake. The most force does not make right. It makes reality.
Consider your situation. It sure looks like that stuff is going to be put into flour. All your belief in right won’t stop it. Force could but you don’t have enough.
You asserted SB was not infectious, and QED the government has no right. That is not argument, it is just what you want.
I pointed out malaria is an individual disease too. Your answer: well, that’s different, it is a collective disease. Odd word choice but clear meaning.
I said the Health Services haven’t historically been limited to one type of disease but not another. Your reply: they should be.
You don’t hesitate to say others in health problems should help themselves. I suggested you deal with a probability of malaria by the same device. And old folks be advised to not eat much flour. Such advise is totally consistent with medical practice for many diseases.
You dismiss the prevailing medical advice about the additive in favor of a paper that supports your view. That is OK but it is hardly an argument from rights. It is simply evidence that the government may weigh.
What right does the government to do this? None at all, only the power.
Sunfish: actually I was replying to Perry. What I would say about Kroger’s right to sell flour of any kind is what I recently wrote to him. To restate:
I don’t believe in inherent or inalienable rights. They are fine words. Ultimately force makes reality. In human affairs words and ideas greatly influence how one person or another will use force or abstain from such. But when the chips are down force aka. power prevails.
Every government says it is the only legitimate user of force. Others may use it only as deemed fit, somewhat like a ‘well regulated militia’.
I don’t like the government’s attitude. So what? They aren’t going to care.
My whole thrust is this: your desires can’t be defended by citing some magical rights of man declarations. And anything proposal can be stopped if we accept the objection that something bad may happen.
Thus we must go ass backwards into the future. That is the correct stance too, it allows us to use our experiences, lore, and sciences. They, not our Rights, are the better guide.
All utterly irrelevant, K. To state the person or faction with the most force can impose their will is like stating up is not down. So what? It is not worth discussing because it tells us nothing about what is the right course of action. But if we are trying to discover what is moral and thus an appropriate action, then who has the most force does not matter.
I keep talking about collective threats because only collective threats justify collective coercion in such a matter. That is an argument quite different than the one you seem to ascribe to me. You do not have to agree with me but you really should try to figure out what I am saying if you are going to reply.
I am saying that the moral theory for which I have a critical preference is that a collective threat, be it from flying bullets or flying bugs, justifies a collective response. Thus fighting a disease or enemy army that can attack a whole community is a legitimate function of government because only a collective response is possible.
Therefore people falling out of windows or eating too much or not bothering about their health when pregnant is not the legitimate role of state because that is something individuals can elect to do something about if they deem it appropriate… or not. Malarial mosquitoes or Al Qaeda suicide bombers cannot be effectively dealt with individually and thus are materially different, not just matters of my personal priority preferences.
This is quite an interesting thread.
Let us suppose I have a neighbour. Rather than a malarial swamp, he has a labrador dog. I’m worried that this animal poses a threat to my health. It looks to me that it could easily get into my garden one day and kill me child. Should the state have the power to force him to dispose of it? Or should I have to wait until it actually does get into my garden, and then the state can intervene because the man failed to control his dog? What if it’s a doberman rather than a labrador? What if it’s a poodle? But it’s a poodle that I think may be rabid?
The malarial swamp poses a risk to me. But all things pose a risk to me. My neighbours badly tuned petrol lawn mower poses a risk to my health because of its emissions. Does that mean the government should restrict use of lawnmowers on public health grounds?
A man opens up a bar on my street. The bar soon attracts violent customers, who brawl outside, causing a threat to bystanders. Should the government be able to shut down the bar, or only to arrest the individuals?
A man digs a pond in his garden. The pond soon attracts malaria bearing mosquitos. Should the government be able to fill in the pond, or only spray the mosquitos?
(note, I’m not saying these examples are analogous)
Once you go down the ‘collective threat’ line, it’s a very slippery slope.
J, it is a fair question but I would reply that both extremes are idiotarian. Moonbat collectivists reduce to the absurd to make everything collective, moonbat libertarians pretend nothing is collective and argue of personal nuclear weapons to deter the North Koreans. Both positions are preposterous.
If the neighbour has a bad dog, put up a fence and urge him to do likewise. If his dog escapes, shoot it. You cannot realistically do that vs. a mosquito or a smallpox carrier or a suicide bomber, assuming you ever leave your house. Genuine collective threats of a magnitude worth imposing collective remedies are actually very rare.
Jan, Jan.
This guy is not an arrogant thug.
He’s an arrogant, nationalist-socialist thug.
I think I win by Godwin’s law, just about. Thanks for that Pietr and hey, no problem with you doing damage to English and history.
Moving on: Sunfish, it seems you’ve accepted the principle and you’re arguing the toss now by referring to folic acid possibly masking symptoms of anaemia. So if I could show that on balance there’s more benefit to others by adding the folic acid than not, would you suddenly be ok with that?
In the US, according to the BMJ, ‘the fortification level is designed to keep daily intake of folic acid below 1 mg because amounts above that level may mask symptoms of pernicious anaemia, especially in older people‘.
So there you are. Solution. Now you don’t have that practical objection are you for adding folic acid now?
But it is not a practical argument, it is a moral one. If expelling all black people from Britain could be shown to reduce crime in the UK with sound statistics and if the statistics and modelling were done in good faith (and it probably could be done), I presume you would be ok with that, would you David? After all, if all you are concerned with is examining issues on a practical level, what possible objection could you have?
I would indeed have a problem with that but then I do not base my positions of the practical advice of experts (even if I do allow them to inform my views).
in fact, Sunfish, to whom I specifically addressed my last remark, made a practical objection when he suggested i wanted to kill old people, or some such nonsense. I accept you, Perry, aren’t making such a utilitarian calculation.
Oh dear. Well, it depends how you dice the figures. It depends what you think are the salient facts beforehand. Youth? Single parent households? Culture? Or skin colour. You think skin colour. Well, I’ll leave you to that unpleasant fantasy. You also seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that compusorily expelling all black people wouldn’t in itself be a crime.
It depends on your prior position, doesn’t it, eh?
Anyhow, I wasn’t arguing from some absolutist utilitarian position. It seemed to me that Sunfish was.
I assume you are being intentionally obtuse. My whole point is that is does not depend on how you slice the figures, it is inappropriate a priori.
I think nothing of the sort. However it is very easy to use all manner of statistics to ‘prove’ that black people are this, that or the other. If you support the very Blairite notion of ‘evidence based legislation’ (and the whole folic acid thing is a classic example of this), then the notion something is wrong morally is really not going to get in the way, methinks.
On the contrary, I think nothing of the sort, but then given your approach if “we” decide that Britain is better off with out them, presumably you would think that was ok (in that the system that allows “us” to expel black people is ok even if you personally do not vote for such a law). My argument is that it is not ok just because a plurality supports such a notion. As you have no problem forcing chemicals into food of other people on the grounds they might not do themselves the same several good on their own, it is not such a leap to see you forcing all manner of things on people based on ‘evidence’, for their own good of course.
No, my point was largely moral. The utilitarian point was merely me deciding to kick you while you were already down. The moral point was that it’s not your place to make other people’s health and nutritional decisions for them, and it still stands.
David, in your first comment you seem to imply that just because the majority wants something done, it should be done. If that is correct, I would refer you to certain events not so long ago, not so far away. I’ll stop here, to avoid invoking Godwin’s law yet again.
Sunfish
Absolutist assertions – again: and remember, the point is about foetuses developing spina bifida, not adults making informed choices. Abseil down off your horse for a second; it’s no skin ff your nose, it’ll cause you no harm, it’ll do some children some good.
Perry
I doubt it. Why don’t you have a go at actually proving something of this sort? Bet you it won’t stand up.
Perry
Yup, it’s what the reality-based community would prefer. What’s the alternative, exactly?
Alisa
Well, if I did, I implied more thanI intended. I wouldn’t wish to insist on a general principle. In this case, though, it seems peverse not to go along with it.
Perry replied:
“All utterly irrelevant, K. To state the person or faction with the most force can impose their will is like stating up is not down. So what? It is not worth discussing because it tells us nothing about what is the right course of action. But if we are trying to discover what is moral and thus an appropriate action, then who has the most force does not matter”
All utterly irrelevant, Perry:
To state we are trying to discover what is the right course of action is like saying you are trying to get what you want. There is no discovery to be made. The government officials and the medical experts you dismiss could and probably would say they are trying to discovery what is moral and thus an appropriate action. And I have no doubt they would believe that.
Probably this stuff will be added to flour. And when that is ordered it will be done. It will be done not because some moral light has revealed a truth. It will be done because power lies with government and not with millers.
Tell me again ‘ that who has the most force does not matter.’
I assume again you are being obtuse for rhetorical effect so I will at least answer. Oh I agree it probably will not hold up but it is actually very easy to make the case if you want to believe it (for example look at the disproportionate number of racial minorities in jail). But like you said, it depends how you slice the figures (i.e. what interpretation you put on it). But then that is your problem, not mine, as my position is not based on statistics, yours is.
Simple. NO legislation based on things which are not morally the preview of the state.
So let me put it this way, if you or anyone else does not inform their actions (discover what is the right course of action) with a moral theory, then I assume such a person would be a rapist, murderer and thief and act on their every impulse if only you could figure out how to avoid getting caught by people with access to more force than them. Would that be a fair description of your views? Is that how you live and make social decisions yourself? If not, explain why not?
Yes, it is called a moral theory and one forms a critical preference for the ones which best explain things. And my position is that their theories are wrong for the reasons I have already stated.
Indeed it does not for the reasons I have also previously stated and cannot be bothered to repeat again. I suggest you go back and re-read the explanation of why who has the most force is not relevant to a moral argument.
Perry: your mistakes continue to disappoint me.
You blunder with the tired argument that w/o your morality or someone else’s a person would be a rapist, murderer, etc. But I am not surprised, you continue to introduce attacks based upon character.
Still I will answer.
I haven’t said people do not have beliefs and follow them. Your flaw is to conclude those beliefs and actions that result would be, or must be, bad unless absolute rights exist and/or there is some quantifiable moral code.
Baloney!
Rights and morality are not some sort of dark matter in the universe that is hard to pin down but will be understood someday. They will never be understood because they are beliefs. They are concepts we like. And because we like them we think others will like them. So we use them when persuading. That includes persuading ourselves.
Where do Rights and moral codes stem from? Well, someone thought of them, liked them, and gained followers who passed them through generations. As individuals we adopt them or reject them but not one can be proved.
As for your explanation as to why superior force is not relevent to a moral argument. (That too is just another a moral argument.) Still, I don’t regard this topic as a moral argument so it means nothing.
I regard this as about whether something will be added to flour. And somewhat about the scope of the public health services. My experience indicates they will do what they decide best (and possible) for overall public health.
Anyone can say their rights are being trampled. Those who do it the most keep discovering rights never before noticed. And quite regularly.
It is not an attack on anyone’s character, I just asked you to explain why, if moral judgements is not what a person bases their actions upon, should they not just do whatever they have the power to do? That is not an ad hominim attack because I am not saying you are a murderer etc., I am just asking you to explain why not (and I think the answer should be obvious).
Then you say…
Which is simply a category error. No one, not me and not any commenter, said the state does not have the power to force people to eat folic acid in bread. You appear to not understand why discussing power (i.e. the ability to impose your will) is materially different than discussing what is moral (i.e. what should be done). They are simply not the same thing, and that is why who has superior force is completely irrelevant. That is not my opinion, it is just a logical (i.e. a categorical) fact.
To be honest you are making very little sense and your reply suggest you have either not read or not understood my previous comments.
I said:
To which you replied, as if I had not said the previous…
Which is an inexact description of… a moral theory.
So I see little point in continuing to answer.
Perry: whether you read it or not I will explain my reference to character.
Right from the beginning you wrote everything as my swamp, my mosquitos, my shooting or maybe shooting at your property.
I asked you politely to use neutral wording and you repeated the same phrasing.
Finally you start talking about raping, murdering, etc. and suggesting I explain if those were my views. I think that snide and deserving of other words I won’t use.
It may be that you always use personal phrasing. Sobeit.
And just as you think my arguments mistaken I see no merit in yours.
All I can say to this thread is, holy crap, I thought I was supposed to be the resident jackbooted fascist thug around here!
David Jones:
It’s rare that I meet people who are so afraid to live without being told what to eat and what not to smoke. How do you even get out of bed in the morning with such fear governing your life?
(On my statement that other people’s menus are none of DJ’s damn business)
So, then, should pregnant women be taken into protective custody, fed a fixed diet, forced to exercise and take whatever medicines? After all, it’s For The Children(TM)! Won’t Someone Please Think of the Children?(TM)
K:
I read your posts as essentially saying that power trumps morality, and whoever has the biggest gang with the most guns wins. If I misconstrue, I apologize. If I’m correct, then I work with people like you (not often, but they exist) and I’m a little surprised that the psychological testing used by my employer hasn’t weeded them out