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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: St Paul's To Close
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
That said, a lot of conservatives say this, but their policy prescriptions are always about reducing big government, rather than curbing the powers of big business.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) [/QB]
Roll your eyes all you want; but in the American scene (which I assume you are talking about) even the paleo-conservatives mostly campaign against welfare for the poor even as they benefit from corporate welfare.
If you are going to tackle the those who have their snouts in the trough of government, it makes logical sense to go after the fatter pigs first.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Paleos support abolition of both most welfare for corporations and individuals. Far more US conservatives are concerned with both big business and big corporations. On the left, Kirkpatrick Sale comes to mind. Other than that...
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
The banks were too weak and not too powerful.
They were insufficiently regulated. To ask whether one regards that as too weak or too powerful is rather clumsy.
The banks had too many friends (or there were too many weak leaders) in high places. Having had to kowtow to the FSA in another sphere, I know how picky they can be about a return being a day late. They seem rather less worried about the figures being cooked up than they did about an MFS1 arriving on the 8th not the 7th.
There has always been a constant lobbying process going on - don't forget that even with the FSA in place it is still effectively self regulation. ALL the inspectors and most FSA staff are from the banks: they have a vested interest esp as their contracts were short term not permanent and many would hope to return to a bank career later. You're not going to mess in your own nest are you?
Given a few wacky ideas, lax regulation and a group of chums (MP's and Royalty included - yes they played their part too in it), you have a recipe for exactly what happened. Deregulate and anything goes, until it goes wrong. Trouble is with finance and big numbers, when it goes wrong it does so with a vengence.
[ 01. November 2011, 07:11: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Even a cursory glance at modern history should make plain that the most common use of state power against personal freedom has been in the service of monied interests, not in the service of political ends.
Yes, of course. Not that the two are separate anyway. In most places and most times the political arrangements tend on the whole to support the rich and the powerful against the poor and the helpless. That's one of the things we mean when we say "rich and powerful".
And Martin is wrong in detail anyway.
For one thing, in the world as it is now its a lot easier to stop being a citizen of the UK or the USA than it is to stop being a customer of IBM or Shell or Unilever or Panasonic or Procter & Gamble or Barclay's Bank (even if only indirectly because they are suppliers of the thing you use that are sold by other companies).
For another, both private companies and rich individuals can and do employ armed men to enforce their way of doing things. In rich countries with functioning governments they tend to be thought of as "protecting property" but it all comes to much the same thing in the end.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Well, the whole St Paul's business settles one issue for me. Next time I visit St Paul's, I'll be quite happy to pay an entrance fee. You expect to pay fees for ancient monuments, stately homes, museums. You don't pay entrance fees for churches. For me, now, St Paul's falls into the first category: it really can't call itself a church any more.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Justinian
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# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
So all the message is is that the indefensible is indefensible. Who do they think is out there that doesn't already think that some bankers and captains of industry are overpaid who will now think it because of this protest?
Not many people. The point is keeping it up there in the public consciousness - rather than having the next round of celebrity gossip distract everyone. And meeting and trying to get further on what can be done.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Given that the current collapse of the world's economy was due to the excesses of big business, your assumption that big business constitutes the lesser of the evils is at best questionable.
I was thinking in terms of personal freedom rather than economic wellbeing.
The difference being?
quote:
Even the most powerful companies can't force me to buy their products
Apparently Microsoft don't exist.
quote:
or work in their offices.
That's not for want of trying - look up Company Towns. Or what Chinese corporations do to their workers.
quote:
Governments have police officers and armies, and the proven willingness to use both to force their citizens to do what they say.
Democratic governments can get voted out. As they do when they overreach. Corporations on the other hand aren't responsible to anyone. And if we didn't kick them down and keep them down, they'd behave the way they did in the 19th century. Setting up monopolies and company towns. Stealing from and short changing everyone. Using force where they thought they could get away with it.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
Link
Wow. And here was I thinking the Channel Islands were a bit grubby. Can anyone not from the Grauniad side of the Ship offer any defence of this?
If the legal action intended brings the City of London Corporation into the spotlight, perhaps the protestors will have actually achieved something worthwhile?
[ETA x-post. I don't think this was the kind of Corporation Justinian had in mind, but if the shoe fits...]
[ 01. November 2011, 14:08: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I was thinking in terms of personal freedom rather than economic wellbeing.
The difference being?
It's the difference between having to obey a law and choosing to work (or not work) for a company.
quote:
quote:
Even the most powerful companies can't force me to buy their products
Apparently Microsoft don't exist.
Apparently Apple, Linux, Unix, etc. (not to mention the choice to not buy a computer at all) don't exist in your world.
Sure, lots of people choose to buy Microsoft products, and I'm sure Microsoft would like to get everybody buying them. But last time I looked nobody could be arrested and sent to jail for choosing not to do so.
quote:
quote:
or work in their offices.
That's not for want of trying - look up Company Towns. Or what Chinese corporations do to their workers.
I'm not aware that people from company towns were prohibited from moving out, or marched into the factories at gunpoint. And isn't most industry in China government-owned?
quote:
Democratic governments can get voted out. As they do when they overreach. Corporations on the other hand aren't responsible to anyone.
And the trade-off for that is the fact that governments can force people to do what they say, but companies can only try to persuade. No matter how powerful a company becomes, it cannot have me imprisoned for refusing to buy its product. The largest and most powerful company in the world right now (whichever one that is) cannot do squat to me if I choose not to engage with it.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
Link
Wow. And here was I thinking the Channel Islands were a bit grubby. Can anyone not from the Grauniad side of the Ship offer any defence of this?
He seems not to realise that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen are ceremonial posts only.
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
Is he wrong, then, about the aldermen being the body which approves or otherwise applications to become freemen? If not, it is much more than merely honorary since it carries the power to shape the electorate.
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PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
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Posted
I have a prediction. The LCC will have these people clkeared from St Paul's before the 2012 Olympics . Otherwise they are a security hazard for visitors.HUH !!! ok I doubt That factoid would be true but I see the fiorst happening in the USA right now . Of course the OCCUPY movement could flee intpo St Paul's and claim sanctuary. Now sorting that out would be a massive headache for the Bishop of London.
Let there be peace\
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
Posts: 873 | From: Victoria B.C. Canada | Registered: May 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
He seems not to realise that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen are ceremonial posts only.
That's what I thought too, but a quick glance through this and this suggest otherwise.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
Is he wrong, then, about the aldermen being the body which approves or otherwise applications to become freemen? If not, it is much more than merely honorary since it carries the power to shape the electorate.
From the City of London Corporation website it looks as though Aldermen are the body which decides who becomes a Freeman
Looking at the roles of Sherrifs and Aldermen I'd say they're more than simply honorary positions.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
Double posting to say that the City of London Corporation has now suspended its plan to take legal action.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Yangtze
Shipmate
# 4965
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
And isn't most industry in China government-owned?
Not any more. I don't have the figures handy but ever since Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in the 1992 China has followed his maxim that it doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.
State owned enterprises have been closed at a rate of knots. Private businesses are booming. The days of the iron rice bowl are long gone.
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Arthur & Henry Ethical Shirts for Men
organic cotton, fair trade cotton, linen
Sometimes I wonder What's for Afters?
Posts: 2022 | From: the smallest town in England | Registered: Sep 2003
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
The freemen of the City are purely honorary. The electorate are the residents and (this is unique to the City of London) the businesses.
Just for information.
I was at St Paul's on Saturday. Some protestors had put up a notice saying "the church people have been brilliant and we continue in dialogue."
Big pity about Graham Knowles - unlike many Deans of St Paul's he was concerned to make it the church of the diocese of London.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
The freemen of the City are purely honorary. The electorate are the residents and (this is unique to the City of London) the businesses.
Source for that first bit? In the Grauniad article it says (emphasis mine)
quote:
There are 25 electoral wards in the Square Mile. In four of them, the 9,000 people who live within its boundaries are permitted to vote. In the remaining 21, the votes are controlled by corporations, mostly banks and other financial companies. The bigger the business, the bigger the vote: a company with 10 workers gets two votes, the biggest employers, 79. It's not the workers who decide how the votes are cast, but the bosses, who "appoint" the voters.
(...)
There are four layers of elected representatives in the Corporation: common councilmen, aldermen, sheriffs and the Lord Mayor. To qualify for any of these offices, you must be a freeman of the City of London
Can anyone disprove the assertion that this is a local government being elected by appointees of companies and that its officers have to be freemen?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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ianjmatt
Shipmate
# 5683
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Posted
My club is in the City, my business partner and two of his housemates are Freemen, and I wil probably be nominated next year. One of these people also serves on the Common Council.
"Freeman of the City' is an entirely honorary thing. It confers no power within the Corporation and is a separate thing to the elected positions within the corporation. However, I suspect it may be correct that someone needs to be appointment Freeman before they can be elected, as it is the expression of their standing within the City - bearing in mind that everyone stands as an individual with no party affiliation.
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You might want to visit my blog:
http://lostintheheartofsomewhere.blogspot.com
But maybe not
Posts: 676 | From: Shropshire | Registered: Mar 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
So if between us we have this correct, the electorate of this "local authority" is dominated by corporate appointees who can be expected to vote in line with company policy, while its candidates for office consist only of those co-opted by existing officers?
"Corporation" is right. Should I seek out my tent, or am I too late to the party?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
So if between us we have this correct, the electorate of this "local authority" is dominated by corporate appointees who can be expected to vote in line with company policy, while its candidates for office consist only of those co-opted by existing officers?
"Corporation" is right. Should I seek out my tent, or am I too late to the party?
The Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers has a booklet to download which explains how you can join.
One qualification you need for any of these livery companies is money. You have to pay an initial 'fine', Ł750 in the case of the specmakers, plus an annual fee.
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ancient Mariner:
Simon was superb on BBC News 24. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Just heard 'im in a 4-minute interview on The World Today, BBC World Service, 05.16am GMT, last item before the Shipping (not of Fools) Forecast on then Radio 4.
Will post a link to Listen Again soon.
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Our own Simon is on BBC News Channel talking about it right now
What programme was that, and is there a link to iPlayer, please?
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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ianjmatt
Shipmate
# 5683
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
So if between us we have this correct, the electorate of this "local authority" is dominated by corporate appointees who can be expected to vote in line with company policy, while its candidates for office consist only of those co-opted by existing officers?
"Corporation" is right. Should I seek out my tent, or am I too late to the party?
I don't see what the problem is - I don't hear ay complaints from the 9,000 residents of the City on how their bins are emptied, planning regs or any of the other mundane activity that the Corporation carries out. The businesses are regulated through the appropriate body (FSA, Bank of England etc), not through the Corporation that is only concerned with municipal affairs - and seems to do a pretty good job.
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You might want to visit my blog:
http://lostintheheartofsomewhere.blogspot.com
But maybe not
Posts: 676 | From: Shropshire | Registered: Mar 2004
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Wesley J:
quote:
Originally posted by Ancient Mariner:
Simon was superb on BBC News 24.
Just heard 'im in a 4-minute interview on The World Today, BBC World Service, 05.16am GMT, last item before the Shipping (not of Fools) Forecast on then Radio 4. [...]
World Service link posted in Styx.
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ianjmatt:
I don't see what the problem is - I don't hear ay complaints from the 9,000 residents of the City on how their bins are emptied, planning regs or any of the other mundane activity that the Corporation carries out. The businesses are regulated through the appropriate body (FSA, Bank of England etc), not through the Corporation that is only concerned with municipal affairs - and seems to do a pretty good job.
So you'd be perfectly happy for every council in the land to adopt similar practices and disenfranchise their electorates, allowing only company bosses with the special handshake to have any say in the running of that council - just as long as the bins were emptied on time...
Uh-huh. Remind me again why we have democracy?
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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ianjmatt
Shipmate
# 5683
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by ianjmatt:
I don't see what the problem is - I don't hear ay complaints from the 9,000 residents of the City on how their bins are emptied, planning regs or any of the other mundane activity that the Corporation carries out. The businesses are regulated through the appropriate body (FSA, Bank of England etc), not through the Corporation that is only concerned with municipal affairs - and seems to do a pretty good job.
So you'd be perfectly happy for every council in the land to adopt similar practices and disenfranchise their electorates, allowing only company bosses with the special handshake to have any say in the running of that council - just as long as the bins were emptied on time...
Uh-huh. Remind me again why we have democracy?
No. The City is different. It is unique in its demographic and make-up. There is no evidence or campaign by the residents of the City of London to change it, and commercial organisations pay the most taxes and make up the majority of the population of the place. It is a district dedicated to commercial activity and is unique in this. The system isn't broke, I don't know of anyone who lives there who finds it undemocratic - do you have evidence to the contrary?
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You might want to visit my blog:
http://lostintheheartofsomewhere.blogspot.com
But maybe not
Posts: 676 | From: Shropshire | Registered: Mar 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
I wonder why they backed down from evicting the campers?
Could it be because they don't want the spotlight to fall on them, as it did on St Pauls?
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ianjmatt:
No. The City is different. It is unique in its demographic and make-up. There is no evidence or campaign by the residents of the City of London to change it, and commercial organisations pay the most taxes and make up the majority of the population of the place. It is a district dedicated to commercial activity and is unique in this. The system isn't broke, I don't know of anyone who lives there who finds it undemocratic - do you have evidence to the contrary?
I appreciate that it's early, but I fail to see how your description of the workings of the Corporation fits any reasonable definition of 'democratic'. Of the 20-odd wards, only 4 have voting by the people who live there.
The system is clearly broke. It's a medieval fiefdom with its own man to sit behind the Speaker of the House of Commons, that connives to cheat the tax payers out of billions in lost revenue, thwart criminal investigations into fraud and circumvent financial regulations the world over.
Pleading special circumstances isn't going to wash.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ianjmatt:
The system isn't broke, I don't know of anyone who lives there who finds it undemocratic - do you have evidence to the contrary?
It not being broke(n) is not in and of itself evidence of democratic operation.
Given the demographics, I suppose special pleading might be allowed in terms of companies forming part of the electorate. However, the main evidence I see of it being undemocratic is that as I understand it, to be eligible to stand for office you have to have been co-opted by an existing officer (you also have to be a freeman, which demonstrates that despite protestations to the contrary on this thread, this is more than a "purely honorary" position).
There are plenty of organisations that are run that way (including, I suspect, lots of churches) and plenty of arguments in favour of it, but it's hardly democratic in the way that one (perhaps naively) expects a local authority to be.
[x-post with Doc Tor]
[ 02. November 2011, 08:01: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
quote:
Originally posted by Late Quartet:
Fascinating piece by George Monbiot analysing the power & principality that is the Corporation of London. Their weight cannot be easily underestimated. (Link anyone?)
Link
I think I'd like to know what this quote means: quote:
As Nicholas Shaxson explains in his fascinating book Treasure Islands, the Corporation exists outside many of the laws and democratic controls which govern the rest of the United Kingdom. The City of London is the only part of Britain over which parliament has no authority.
Shocking stuff, but the only example it gives is the role of the remembrancer, who, in the final reckoning, is just a lobbyist who could be ignored if Parliament had the will.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
quote:
Even the most powerful companies can't force me to buy their products
Apparently Microsoft don't exist.
Apparently Apple, Linux, Unix, etc. (not to mention the choice to not buy a computer at all) don't exist in your world.
Sure, lots of people choose to buy Microsoft products, and I'm sure Microsoft would like to get everybody buying them. But last time I looked nobody could be arrested and sent to jail for choosing not to do so.
There are a heck of a lot of jobs advertised that say "must be proficient in MS Office". And my IT GCSE - not to mention the ECDL - wasn't really about learning to use computers; it was about learning to use Microsoft products.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Shocking stuff, but the only example it gives is the role of the remembrancer, who, in the final reckoning, is just a lobbyist who could be ignored if Parliament had the will.
Unlike Prince Charles. I'd start a Hell thread on this if I could face it; anyone else prefer to do so?
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Sure, lots of people choose to buy Microsoft products, and I'm sure Microsoft would like to get everybody buying them. But last time I looked nobody could be arrested and sent to jail for choosing not to do so.
There are a heck of a lot of jobs advertised that say "must be proficient in MS Office". And my IT GCSE - not to mention the ECDL - wasn't really about learning to use computers; it was about learning to use Microsoft products.
I never said the choice was without consequences, merely that it is each person's to make if they wish.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ianjmatt:
I don't see what the problem is - I don't hear ay complaints from the 9,000 residents of the City on how their bins are emptied, planning regs or any of the other mundane activity that the Corporation carries out. The businesses are regulated through the appropriate body (FSA, Bank of England etc), not through the Corporation that is only concerned with municipal affairs - and seems to do a pretty good job.
I'm sure they do, but to claim they are only concerned with municipal affairs is a statement that is naive in the extreme. They control the City Cash, a vast pool of liquid reserves from their enormous property empire, that is entirely secret, and what they do with it isn't subject to any form of transparency or accountability to anyone but themselves. To claim they use this vast capital, coupled with their unique lobbying powers built right into the heart of government, just to ensure the bins are collected on time is extraordinarily gullible.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
ken - your link seems to bring up another article.
Try this link.
(ETA crossposted with Dave M)
[ 02. November 2011, 12:18: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I never said the choice was without consequences, merely that it is each person's to make if they wish.
By that logic you have the choice to break the laws set by government, accepting the consequences of fines or prison sentences.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I never said the choice was without consequences, merely that it is each person's to make if they wish.
By that logic you have the choice to break the laws set by government, accepting the consequences of fines or prison sentences.
It depends on how you define freedom, I guess.
I'm referring to self-imposed consequences of a choice (such as "if I choose not to use Microsoft products that will reduce my ability to compete in the job market"), rather than externally-imposed consequences (such as "if you choose not to obey our law we will throw you in jail").
It all comes down to the line between passive and active consequences - the difference between someone doing something to you and someone not doing something to you. Not being offered a job is, to me, categorically different in terms of consequences to being locked up - the latter is a loss of freedom while the former is not.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Or to put it another way, the consequences of one are not freedom-limiting, while the consequences of the other are.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Hmmm - not having a job has seriously limited my freedom in all sorts of ways. I agree there is a difference between not being offered a job, and being locked up, but I'm not usre we've found the right terms yet.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Hmmm - not having a job has seriously limited my freedom in all sorts of ways.
That's one of the buggers with freedom - it cuts both ways. A prisoner is not free, but because of that lack of freedom he makes moral demands of his jailor - the jailor is beholden to provide him with warmth, food and protection. A free man is prisoner to no other man - but no other man is beholden to him either. A free man, by virtue of that very freedom, can make no moral demands of any other man.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
A free man, by virtue of that very freedom, can make no moral demands of any other man.
That sounds like an Ayn Rand soundbite.
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"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt
Posts: 6917 | From: pob dydd Iau, am hanner dydd | Registered: Apr 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Confession time - I've never read a single word of Ayn Rand. And to think I call myself a right-winger ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Confession time - I've never read a single word of Ayn Rand. And to think I call myself a right-winger
Careful. Could be aversion therapy.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
A free man is prisoner to no other man - but no other man is beholden to him either. A free man, by virtue of that very freedom, can make no moral demands of any other man.
A lot of modern moral and political philosophy is based on the idea that the basic human condition is that of a man i.e. an adult male.
Consider what happens if we replace 'man' in the above sentence with 'small child' or 'pregnant woman', or for that matter, if we think of the representative man as being elderly or having some disability.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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