Common decency

[KL-666]

We all think that we know what common decency is, where in fact we all have our own version of common decency in mind. To make a clear example: In some cultures it can be decent to eat other people. In other cultures it may not be. But also within one culture there are things that some people find decent, and others find the same thing very indecent. Often that leads to heated discussions about: "My common decency is better than yours".

To avoid such disputes we have concretized our common decency in laws. So the very first act of decency is to abide by those laws. I think it is best to not lay claim on having more decency than that, because if you do, you enter a hornets nest of personal opinions.

Kind regards, Vincent

[Lydiot]

That really doesn't make much sense.

At "best" we use representative democracy. So we elect people that represent our views. But they try to get voters and so they end up having these heated discussions among each other just like us non-politicians do. Then they make the laws. But just because they make laws doesn't mean we agree with them. And having heated discussions about made laws is really no different from having them about yet-to-be-made laws. In many cases, we have heated discussions about laws about decency because the laws make no sense to us, and then we change the laws.

Without discussion there should be no laws, at least not if we want democracy of some sort. As to whether or not it should be heated I don't know. We're emotional creatures. It happens.

But at any rate, personal opinions are at the root of what ends up being law. So it's already a 'hornets nest'.

Or did I miss your point?

[KL-666]

Somehow you wish the dispute common grounds we got to. That is surely an option, but i'd rather stick with agreements we already made.

Kind regards, Vincent

[jwocky]

I think two things got lost here. The one thing is, I don't subscribe to the example that it is "decent" in some cultures to eat people. Even in cannibal cultures, it was actually never and nowhere decent to eat the won people. There are some things that are considered globally as "indecent". Homicide was usually one of them unless oyu talk abotu cult-like structures who considered themselves in their time and cultures and locations as "above the law" or "outside the law".

The second thing is the connection between "decent" and "law-making". Laws are made by politicians and to be a successful politician, you have to be indecent to begin with. Being a good liar, full of yourself and being sbsolute unscrupulous helps the career too. So, if we leave law-making to a career line that demands indecency as prerequisite, how do we even come to the idea, laws have something to do with "decency"?
The truth is, laws are rulebooks to rule the living together of really big numbers of people and enable structures to keep those rules in power. Thus, the simple mechanism, at least in democracies works quite transparent:
If the voters are awake, politicians can sell and do only a limited number of things that would be felt as indecent by the population. Because if they drive it too bad, they are not elected anymore, the competition would use that weakness.
If the voters are asleep, low information or blindsided, the politicians have a lot more freedom and will start to make the government a self-service station for themselves.
But nothing of it has naything to do with "decency", it is pure mechanic and pragmatism. We commited of course a second mistake when we let fall the political system in the hands of lawyers ... because additionally to the necessary selfishness of politicians they brought also the recognition with them, that, the more and the more complex laws they wirte, the better will lawyers live. And so they produce thousands of laws worded as complex as possible to make their own profession indispensable. And that has also nothing to do with "decency".

[KL-666]

I may have been too optimistic that laws are made by decent people. But your complete opposite of that seems a bit extreme to me too. And btw you forgot about the Liberals. Where do they come in to molest this story?

Kind regards, Vincent

[jwocky]

Well, not really, I mean, there are liberals who are a lot too optimistic about some things and sometimes, aside of all political differences are just to nice people to fentd in a crisis for themselves because well, they lack the necessary bastard qualification you need sometimes, when things get nasty. But then, I know conservatives who have the same problem.
So what, you believed, optimistic as you are, in the "official" playbook telling you, that we elect our best and brightest as leaders in a democracy. But we can only vote for those who run, right?

[KL-666]

You know, the thing i am really getting at is: Why do you not respect liberals, and i respect conservatives. Let's just do it and we can get along fine together, each in our own opinion.

Kind regards, Vincent

[Lydiot]

Somehow you wish the dispute common grounds we got to. That is surely an option, but i'd rather stick with agreements we already made.

Kind regards, Vincent

Ok, but seriously, not for the sake of argument, the masses don't necessarily come to the best conclusion. There can be any of a number of reasons for why that's the case. Now, you wrote:

"To avoid such disputes we have concretized our common decency in laws."

Well, 'no', we didn't create laws to avoid disputes it was done more for practical and sometimes moral reasons. So we can argue all we want about whether or not it's right to kill innocent children, but the baseline is that if it's illegal to do so then regardless of what people think about that law there are consequences if they break it. But that's the main goal, not to avoid the disputes.

The reason I point that out is this:

"So the very first act of decency is to abide by those laws."

Yeah, you say that, but that's surely under the assumption that the laws you think we should abide by are just. If they're not, then it's a completely different matter. If a starving homeless orphan child steals my wallet and goes and buys food I can't feel too bad about that child breaking the law. I can feel bad about losing money, and about the child's situation, but not about it breaking the law. Our primary instinct is survival, so it's only natural for the child to break the law if it's needed for survival. And speaking of survival; it wasn't that long ago - at all - that we had laws in some countries that were absolutely horrible by today's standards. In the pretty short perspective we had segregation between blacks and whites in the US, we had the laws prior to the Holocaust in Germany, and going back further we had slavery in the US. Those were all laws, some of them invoking a "decency" if you will. It was indecent for a white woman to marry a black man. It was indecent for a Jewish person to have the same rights as a German. And so on.

So, what changed? In the case of Germany a bloody war. In the case of the US bloody civil unrest and civil rights movements, during which there certainly were plenty of "heated disputes".

In other words, "heated disputes" is not a bad thing unless you prove them to be in individual cases.

Do you see my point?

[KL-666]

I see i may have spoken not very clearly, so that it can look as if i think the law is static. That is certainly not so in my mind. Laws surely evolve, and there is (and should be) the said discussion around working on them. But what i do not find very productive is to have such discussions on every street corner, without any intention to work it out into law. Everybody can of course discuss as they like, but i am not in for discussions that by the very nature of the material can not lead anywhere at that point in time.

Kind regards, Vincent

[jwocky]

@Vincent: Why don't I respect liberals while you (allegedly) respect conservatives?
I think, this question is obsolete after you pulled in the last 48 hours three conservatives watch FOX, started a week ago a threat in which you more or less said liberals are for education, conservatives are against it and otherwise pulled really every baseless cliché. You don't respect conservatives ... you demonstrated in your posts the typical "liberal" attitude of believing "liberals" are all smart and all-knowing while all conservatives are just some kind of dumb fascist hater babies. Which is the reason, you havde to wriggle so badly in the other thread because well, it shows how faked that image is and it shows how much you don't know.

However, having said that, I must admit, that you, additional to the respect you always had form my side as person and as pilot, earned still some political respect because you didn't run. You wriggle, but you didn't run from the facts. I thought at some point, you were about to take the "liberal emergency exit" ... means calling me a teabagger and run, but you didn't.