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Presumably all laws of governments are meant to serve SOME PURPOSE.
Having a purpose implies that one has a moral code to guide one to that purpose.
Ergo every law or policy comes bundled with some (usually unstated) moral implications
Yes, EVEN parking laws, it could be argued, ultimately serve some value of the morality of the society that imposes them.
I don't see how having purpose implies a moral code. I guess you're pointing out that laws represent some shared value, which I'd agree with.
So then you DO understand.
But I think the question is, to what extent must our values be shared?
That where POLITICS comes into play, isn't it?
What is politics but the society's organizational manifestation of some set of values?
Obviously, for a free society to work we must at least share the notion that freedom is worth having, and recognize that in order to protect our own freedom we must be willing to tolerate the freedom of others.
Obviously
I'm not sure if you'd consider that a moral value, or just a pragmatic necessity to achieve a desire goal.
I fail to see any difference between morality and desired goals.
Morality is the motive of those desired goals.
If you call it a moral, it's an oxymoron of sorts that essentially says we shouldn't push our morals on other people.
Sort of my point. Every law is "pushing" society's moral values on its people.
Again, I see laws as practical tools that facilitate civilized society.
Well they certainly are tools that facilitate order. But the laws themselves are the social artifacts of the philosophical (or moral) value system the people are attempting to support.
[quoteThey make it possible for us to get along, despite the fact that we don't all share the same morals.
Presumably all laws of governments are meant to serve SOME PURPOSE.
Having a purpose implies that one has a moral code to guide one to that purpose.
Ergo every law or policy comes bundled with some (usually unstated) moral implications
Yes, EVEN parking laws, it could be argued, ultimately serve some value of the morality of the society that imposes them.
So then you DO understand.
That where POLITICS comes into play, isn't it?
What is politics but the society's organizational manifestation of some set of values?
Obviously
I fail to see any difference between morality and desired goals.
Morality is the motive of those desired goals.
Sort of my point. Every law is "pushing" society's moral values on its people.
Again, I see laws as practical tools that facilitate civilized society.
Well they certainly are tools that facilitate order. But the laws themselves are the social artifacts of the philosophical (or moral) value system the people are attempting to support.
[quoteThey make it possible for us to get along, despite the fact that we don't all share the same morals.
Looks to me like you and I are roughly on the same page.
The problem, if there is one, is our use of the word MORAL.
Moral usually implies that some higher power is the authority from whence that value system originates.
Moral suggests that there is some apodetic truth that exists regardless of circumstances.
Even though I am a believer, I do NOT believe that.
Then why don't they also require women to watch a movie of a birth, and a caesarian, and a medically necessary late term abortion, etc.,
every time a pregnant woman decides she's going to have a baby?
Those things are relevant in a remote sense. The ultra sound is a here and now this is really happening kind of a thing.
I happen to support the legality of Abortion because it is expedient and i don't intend to take care of every unwanted child that comes to term. However, justifying the legality of the procedure in our legal system is an empty exercise in false justifications. There is no appropriate legal base for killing an infant, born or unborn.
There is no moral justification for this either.
Societally, there is no remedy for this problem and so we, as a society, have banded together to rob the unborn of their rights in favor of the imagined rights of irresponsible and probably stupid women who have no clue and we allow them to define a living entity as a tissue mass.
This is an excellent example of something that is legal, immoral and wrong.
I can find morally objectionable in the termination of a pregnancy in the early stages. I can certainly find nothing in it objectionable compared to the immorality of using the long arm of the law to force a woman, under threat of severe penalty, to carry a pregnancy to term when she does not want to.
btw, the 'appropriate legal basis' for allowing abortion is the Constitution, which in its original form provided NO rights for fetuses.
That is medically irrelevant. That is nothing more than using an unnecessary medical procedure for propaganda purposes to advance a partisan political agenda.
If this is medically irrelevant, why is it ever performed? In any other -ectomy type of procedure the doctor is encouraged and almost without exception required to explain what is happening and what is being removed.
Are you saying that in this one case, the doctor must be restrained from explaining what is being removed from the patient's body?
Are there any other removals or procedures that need to be done without the the patient's full understanding of what is happening? Forced sterilization? Frontal lobotomy? Euthanasia?
Medical procedure absent patient fully informed consent is more appropriate to Nazi Germany than 21st Century USA.
It is medically irrelevant to force a woman to look at a movie of a fetus she has chosen to legally abort.
Are you forced by law to look at the xray of a tooth you're having pulled?
Those who campaign against this are campaigning to intentionally withhold information from the person who is going to either abort or not abort a unborn child.
That would only be true if those people were campaigning to have such a procedure unavailable to the person in question. That is not the case. What they are talking about is not FORCING such a procedure.
This IS a case of morality though. These people view what the woman is doing as immoral and, through force of law, they are trying to force a person face their morality. Of course, those on the left will scream about such as they should.
Then out of the other side of their mouth, they demand that birth control be offered for free. Little do they seem to realize that the principals in are the same.
There is no 'information' being withheld. What woman who has decided to get an abortion does not know that she is terminating a developing fetus that were it not aborted would have eventually resulted (in most cases) in the live birth of a child?
Show me the women who don't know that.
Every law or policy is a morality play, kiddies.
Soem are just more obviously involved in issues we understand as being moral issues.
But EVERY LAW is effecting our behaviors and every act we do or don't do is basically playing out as a mind of moral decision.
So do you see any distinction between rights and morals?
I have meant to post this topic for a long time but have failed to do so until I seen Immie recently mention government legislating morality and I could not let another statement like this slide. I have heard time and time again that it is the governments place to legislate morality and that all law is based on this. The worst part is that I hear this mostly from the 'small' government right here on this board. You cannot have a small government at the same time as a government that decides morality. Those two situations are mutually exclusive because a government that is based on determining morality has any and all rights to do whatever it feels is moral at the time.
IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENTS PLACE TO LEGISLATE MORALITY. PERIOD.
It is one of the most egregious things that the government does when it legislates my activities based on what it feels is right and wrong. That was never the place of the government and we should never have given it such an unstoppable power. Now, before you go into making murder or theft illegal and claiming that is legislating morality, it is not. The number one job of the government (and in reality, the only real job of government) should be to protect its citizens rights. It is in that duty that acts like murder, theft and other laws derive their need. It prevents on citizen from infringing on the rights of other citizens.
Personally, if I were to draft a law, the primary question that should be asked is what right does this law protect. If the answer was none then such a law would be meaningless and discarded. If the government can decide what is immoral and moral, how long are you going to wait for the government to decide that YOUR morality is not the correct morality.
Well.... let the scathing criticisms begin
Through all this one thing is unavoidable. That is what is referred to as contemporary community standards.Law, in a democratic society, ought to be able to demonstrate a clear and compelling public need being fulfilled.
Every big idea that tried to legislate individual moral standards, failed.
Prohibition...FAIL
War On Drugs...FAIL
War On Pornography...FAIL
War On Private Sexual Relations...FAIL
The Current War On Women's Reproductive Rights...destined to FAIL
I would also argue against simple 'public need.' Those are vaporous words that can be used to legislate anything at all.
It is a dire public need to outlaw drugs because they cause massive social harm.
No, such a law is asinine because it does not infringe on anyone's rights. The only real break I would make to that argument is basic law to protect consumers from business such as not allowing businesses to make false claims. I guess you could make an argument for infringement of rights for that too though.
Your last quote is a misinterpretation though.
There is no war on women's reproductive rights, at least not in the way you are framing it. If you are talking about BC pills then the right is spot on. If you are talking about abortion then the extremes on both sides are dead wrong and the answer lies in the middle. Strangely enough, that happens to be close to where the line is anyway and the solid truth is that abortion is not going to change anytime soon.The Current War On Women's Reproductive Rights...destined to FAIL
Your conclusions are all wrong. There is no such thing as "the middle ground"....Everyone takes a side.Law, in a democratic society, ought to be able to demonstrate a clear and compelling public need being fulfilled.
Every big idea that tried to legislate individual moral standards, failed.
Prohibition...FAIL
War On Drugs...FAIL
War On Pornography...FAIL
War On Private Sexual Relations...FAIL
The Current War On Women's Reproductive Rights...destined to FAIL
I would also argue against simple 'public need.' Those are vaporous words that can be used to legislate anything at all.
Not quite anything at all, since we have enumerated rights. But the constitution does have that pesky "general welfare" clause, and Hamilton clearly states that it's whatever is considered for the public good.
So does alcohol. However, as we saw in prohibition, all that criminalizing it did was to facilitate the formation of crime syndicates, which I argue caused a greater harm. We see the same thing occurring with the War On Drugs. Looking at countries that decided to legalize it, such as Denmark, demonstrated an actual decrease in hard drugs, and who cares if someone smokes a joint. Contrast that with our laws, and we see increases in the most addictive substances. It's not hard to understand why. The state has no compelling interest in getting people strung out, but drug dealers do.
First off, I think Roberts is off his rocker when he gave personhood to corporations. The founders knew the danger of granting limited liability, and the ability to wield great sums of money to influence the political process. Here's an irony. The real Tea Party was an attempt to stop a large corporation from using its political muscle to control an industry. It's seems exactly 180 degrees from today's Tea Party.
Your last quote is a misinterpretation though.
There is no war on women's reproductive rights, at least not in the way you are framing it. If you are talking about BC pills then the right is spot on. If you are talking about abortion then the extremes on both sides are dead wrong and the answer lies in the middle. Strangely enough, that happens to be close to where the line is anyway and the solid truth is that abortion is not going to change anytime soon.The Current War On Women's Reproductive Rights...destined to FAIL
I'm all for a middle ground. First trimester, the woman has the choice. After that, only for a good medical reason. But the current attempts to legislate forced vaginal inserted sonograms, for no actual health reason, is clearly nothing more than an attempt to legislate morality.
Show me the passage in the Constitution that says a woman can define the humanity of her unborn baby away.
Reconcile the fact that Scott peterson is doing time for two homocides when one of them was unborn.
The imagined right to abortion
That said, though, there is no moral justification for this and there is no compelling human rights issue here to uphold this practice. No matter how you slice it, we as a nation are endorsing the right of one person to revoke the rights of another. We as a nation are denying protection to the weakest of our number.
There is no way to ignore this.
"Griswold" is case law. It does not appear as an amendment or other section in the US Constitution.Show me the passage in the Constitution that says a woman can define the humanity of her unborn baby away.
Here: Griswold v. Connecticut
Reconcile the fact that Scott peterson is doing time for two homocides when one of them was unborn.
Here: Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
Imagined, indeed there is no right to an abortion, no one ever said there was. There is a Constitutional right to privacy, and in the context of that right the state may not interfere in personal, private matters, including a womans right to procreate or not.
That said, though, there is no moral justification for this and there is no compelling human rights issue here to uphold this practice. No matter how you slice it, we as a nation are endorsing the right of one person to revoke the rights of another. We as a nation are denying protection to the weakest of our number.
Nonsense.
In addition to ensuring each citizen is free from unwarranted state interference concerning personal matters, the right to privacy also compels those opposed to abortion to find an actual solution to the problem, not simply ban abortion and walk away.
The right to privacy is actually liberating to abortion opponents, it compels them to think comprehensively about the problem, and devise an actual solution. Banning or otherwise making abortion illegal is no solution, as the practice will simply continue underground as it did before Roe; those opposed to abortion may feel better and fool themselves into thinking theyve ended a horrendous practice. But the killing of unborn children will continue, and those who seek to only ban abortion will be just as culpable as those performing the act itself.
There is no way to ignore this.
And yet conservatives ignore these settled facts of law nonetheless, working to destroy a vital right while at the same time attempting to cure a brain tumor with a Band-Aide.
Why?
Ever hear of Natural Law? Its the fundamental basics for most laws and constitutions across the world. However, liberals dont subscribe to it and prefer Rousseau or Marx and not John Locke. Read John Locks Second Treatise of Government. It's free to the public online. Or, if you have a hard time understanding natural law philosophy...... ...... .....
The highlighted above is bullshit. The liberal concept of government defending our basic rights against tyranny, whether corporate or religious, is a significant part of liberalism. I suggest if Locke were around today, he'd be a liberal. He'd have supported civil rights legislation.
Show me the passage in the Constitution that says a woman can define the humanity of her unborn baby away.
Here: Griswold v. Connecticut
Reconcile the fact that Scott peterson is doing time for two homocides when one of them was unborn.
Here: Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
Imagined, indeed – there is no ‘right’ to an abortion, no one ever said there was. There is a Constitutional right to privacy, and in the context of that right the state may not interfere in personal, private matters, including a woman’s right to procreate or not.
That said, though, there is no moral justification for this and there is no compelling human rights issue here to uphold this practice. No matter how you slice it, we as a nation are endorsing the right of one person to revoke the rights of another. We as a nation are denying protection to the weakest of our number.
Nonsense.
In addition to ensuring each citizen is free from unwarranted state interference concerning personal matters, the right to privacy also compels those opposed to abortion to find an actual solution to the problem, not simply ‘ban’ abortion and walk away.
The right to privacy is actually liberating to abortion opponents, it compels them to think comprehensively about the problem, and devise an actual solution. Banning or otherwise making abortion illegal is no solution, as the practice will simply continue underground as it did before Roe; those opposed to abortion may feel better and fool themselves into thinking they’ve ended a horrendous practice. But the killing of ‘unborn children’ will continue, and those who seek to only ban abortion will be just as culpable as those performing the act itself.
There is no way to ignore this.
And yet conservatives ignore these settled facts of law nonetheless, working to destroy a vital right while at the same time attempting to cure a brain tumor with a Band-Aide.
I have meant to post this topic for a long time but have failed to do so until I seen Immie recently mention government legislating morality and I could not let another statement like this slide. I have heard time and time again that it is the governments place to legislate morality and that all law is based on this. The worst part is that I hear this mostly from the 'small' government right here on this board. You cannot have a small government at the same time as a government that decides morality. Those two situations are mutually exclusive because a government that is based on determining morality has any and all rights to do whatever it feels is moral at the time.
IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENTS PLACE TO LEGISLATE MORALITY. PERIOD.
It is one of the most egregious things that the government does when it legislates my activities based on what it feels is right and wrong. That was never the place of the government and we should never have given it such an unstoppable power. Now, before you go into making murder or theft illegal and claiming that is legislating morality, it is not. The number one job of the government (and in reality, the only real job of government) should be to protect its citizens rights. It is in that duty that acts like murder, theft and other laws derive their need. It prevents on citizen from infringing on the rights of other citizens.
Personally, if I were to draft a law, the primary question that should be asked is what right does this law protect. If the answer was none then such a law would be meaningless and discarded. If the government can decide what is immoral and moral, how long are you going to wait for the government to decide that YOUR morality is not the correct morality.
Well.... let the scathing criticisms begin
Your post supports my OP though. Those laws that cover prostitution are asinine. You can't stop prostitution by making it illegal and, actually, we have done nothing to even slow it down as a quick visit to craigslist will illustrate. Prostitution is just as prevalent here as it is in Germany where it is completely legal. Archaic laws covering sexuality and alcohol are no different either. They simply should not exist as the government has no place telling me these things are wrong just because and then taking my freedom to do them away.It isn't?
Hmm let's see...We have laws regulating the purchase and consumption of alcohol. We have laws regulating the selling of one's body for financial gain( prostitution). We have legislated the taking of the life of another person.
There are archaic laws regarding sexuality, sex acts, etc...
This is the one absolute on which liberals tend to agree. Morality. This scares the crap out of the left because they do not like rules which are restrictive.
Funny how libs believe certain types of speech are immoral and will rush to have that speech legislated. Call it law and order liberalism.
Legislation of morality exists on both sides of the aisle. No sense beating one's head against a wall worrying about it.
I would have to say that I have thought this through quite thoroughly but it seems you have simply passed over the core of what I am speaking about. The bolded statement is incorrect. That behavior is not, by definition, moral behavior. Morality and moral behavior is chiefly concerned with what is 'right or good' and what is 'wrong or bad.' I care not what anyone sees as a good thing or a bad thing when law is concerned because such concepts are completely fluid. There are things that should be perfectly legal that are certainly immoral. It is not the government that should be deciding what is moral and what is not and then basing law off that. I can construct laws that protect rights without ever referring to morality. As an example that has been used within this thread:Scathing? No. But I do have to say you haven't thought this through. "It's not the government's job to legislate morality. It's their job to protect citizens' rights." Yeah, sounds good, but perhaps you'd like to tell me how the government goes about protecting citizens' rights. Don't they do that by legislating and enforcing certain behavior choices that respect the rights of others? And wouldn't that behavior, by definition, be moral behavior?
Government cannot legislate people's thoughts, beliefs, or character to be moral, that's quite true. But it can, does, and should legislate that people's BEHAVIOR be moral.
Your post supports my OP though. Those laws that cover prostitution are asinine. You can't stop prostitution by making it illegal and, actually, we have done nothing to even slow it down as a quick visit to craigslist will illustrate. Prostitution is just as prevalent here as it is in Germany where it is completely legal. Archaic laws covering sexuality and alcohol are no different either. They simply should not exist as the government has no place telling me these things are wrong just because and then taking my freedom to do them away.It isn't?
Hmm let's see...We have laws regulating the purchase and consumption of alcohol. We have laws regulating the selling of one's body for financial gain( prostitution). We have legislated the taking of the life of another person.
There are archaic laws regarding sexuality, sex acts, etc...
This is the one absolute on which liberals tend to agree. Morality. This scares the crap out of the left because they do not like rules which are restrictive.
Funny how libs believe certain types of speech are immoral and will rush to have that speech legislated. Call it law and order liberalism.
Legislation of morality exists on both sides of the aisle. No sense beating one's head against a wall worrying about it.
I would have to say that I have thought this through quite thoroughly but it seems you have simply passed over the core of what I am speaking about. The bolded statement is incorrect. That behavior is not, by definition, moral behavior. Morality and moral behavior is chiefly concerned with what is 'right or good' and what is 'wrong or bad.' I care not what anyone sees as a good thing or a bad thing when law is concerned because such concepts are completely fluid. There are things that should be perfectly legal that are certainly immoral. It is not the government that should be deciding what is moral and what is not and then basing law off that. I can construct laws that protect rights without ever referring to morality. As an example that has been used within this thread:Scathing? No. But I do have to say you haven't thought this through. "It's not the government's job to legislate morality. It's their job to protect citizens' rights." Yeah, sounds good, but perhaps you'd like to tell me how the government goes about protecting citizens' rights. Don't they do that by legislating and enforcing certain behavior choices that respect the rights of others? And wouldn't that behavior, by definition, be moral behavior?
Government cannot legislate people's thoughts, beliefs, or character to be moral, that's quite true. But it can, does, and should legislate that people's BEHAVIOR be moral.
Murder is illegal because to commit murder removes the victim's right of life. There is no moral argument is that statement. The behavior that you are illegalizing may well be considered immoral BUT its morality is not a factor in creating the law, your rights are. By basing the law on the moral aspect, there are a thousand other laws that can (and quite frankly HAVE) come into existence that should never be law. Much of what the right complains about is a direct result of this occurring. Big daddy government exists because it is crossing over from ensuring your freedom to upholding whatever the government thinks is right at the time.
The reason I ask, is that it seems the central question of the OP, is "Should government be imposing morality through laws, or merely protecting our rights?".
I don't really think that the purpose of government is to ensure that we all believe the same thing, or have the same values. At least as far as the tradition of the US goes, the purpose of government is to maintain a society where we can get along and, as much as possible, remain free to follow our own beliefs and values.
In other traditions government is about enforcing conformity of beliefs (particularly in theocracies) and in those it makes sense for government to legislate morality. But I don't want our government to follow their lead.
Every society is based on some common values. The upholding of these values is a legitimate and even necessary aim of government and legislation. For example, in most Western societies we believe that it is not right for a man to marry more than one woman at the same time. This shared value is enshrined in legislation.
And hence you get oppression as 'undesirable' unions are not recognized by law as in the case of gay marriage. Good point, another example of morality in law gone astray....
Presumably all laws of governments are meant to serve SOME PURPOSE.
Having a purpose implies that one has a moral code to guide one to that purpose.
Ergo every law or policy comes bundled with some (usually unstated) moral implications
Yes, EVEN parking laws, it could be argued, ultimately serve some value of the morality of the society that imposes them.
Presumably all laws of governments are meant to serve SOME PURPOSE.
Having a purpose implies that one has a moral code to guide one to that purpose.
Ergo every law or policy comes bundled with some (usually unstated) moral implications
Yes, EVEN parking laws, it could be argued, ultimately serve some value of the morality of the society that imposes them.
I don't see how having purpose implies a moral code. I guess you're pointing out that laws represent some shared value, which I'd agree with. But I think the question is, to what extent must our values be shared? Obviously, for a free society to work we must at least share the notion that freedom is worth having, and recognize that in order to protect our own freedom we must be willing to tolerate the freedom of others. I'm not sure if you'd consider that a moral value, or just a pragmatic necessity to achieve a desire goal. If you call it a moral, it's an oxymoron of sorts that essentially says we shouldn't push our morals on other people.
Again, I see laws as practical tools that facilitate civilized society. They make it possible for us to get along, despite the fact that we don't all share the same morals.
