Burke's Qualifications for Liberty...

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0_equals_true
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24 Dec 2015, 10:33 am

Mikah wrote:

This is probably the finest argument against democracy one can make.

Actually it is not. It would be if all other system were fairer. What is true is the democracy is not what most people think it is.

The reason is why lying is effective is becuase to an extent people want to be deceived, in that they want certain things to be true when they often aren't. There is a reason why certain personalities make for effective leaders, like it or not. They also expect people to have very similar views to them in every sphere. This is quite unrealistic.

However no systems has consistently produced a turnover of leaders in as fair a way as possible asdemocracy.

Tyrants don't like freedom of information, in order prevent people from finding out about deception. In democracy people with try to deceive, but it has a much better record of exposing these deceptions. The main exception is where there has been legislation and practices that undermines the democracy.

Now this can give the impression of going down the pan, but that is still better than than creating a facade.

Mikah wrote:

Regarding marriage: Chat to someone from 100 years ago about the right to get married they likely would have laughed at you. Marriage was not a right, it was a rather overbearing social pressure, and for most respectable people the only way to procure sex and intimate companionship. There were rules, if you broke them, you faced serious social and possibly even legal consequences. These rules didn't pop into existence overnight, they evolved, through much trial and hardship, outliving empires and building new ones.

and this is good how?

Mikah wrote:

Monogamous marriage and by extension the married family is one of the very pillars of civilisation as we know it. There is a reason children of broken homes do poorly in life. There is a reason slaves were allowed to breed as much as they pleased, but not to marry. It is the best way to raise children, to transmit culture and heritage from one generation to the next.

Broken families are terrible, but you got the cause an effect the wrong. You are also assuming that family life was much better in the past, this is a big generalisation based on a romantic view of the past. A legal definition of marriage doesn't prevent broken families.

Quote:

The government have certainly made it their business. I wonder if you think that if marriage is not the under government's purview did they have the right to intervene in the way they already have? Should we tolerate Sharia courts that laugh at abused women asking for divorce because it's not our business?

I believe in the harm principle, next question. Or do I need elaborate?

Quote:

This is nonsense, an invented right with no moral grounding, made to sound like a moral absolute by the last dying defenders of multiculturalism. We don't really mean it in practice either.

I always wish to make clear there a few fundamental rights and this is important. Freedom of expression is one of them. This is the right I wish to protect.

I am very much against invented rights based on the principle of right of one right not violating another person's. However you haven't got the moral high ground. Marriage is symbolism at best, and you have the same responsibilities in relationships and to your children married or not.

Quote:

Rulers have every right to do so, as much right as they have to define murder as a crime, though in a society where marriage is so devalued people cannot understand why this is so. Our past rulers didn't have to because the church took care of it.

I don't think the state should define marriage. Marriage isn't comparable to crime there is no reason why a society would not function without legal marriage. Crime violates the harm principle.

Quote:

Ok, but then you also must say the government should not have allowed no-fault divorce.

So government are the arbiters of relationships? Why?

Quote:

No there are so many divorces because it is trivial to get one. Marriage is a difficult thing even when perfectly matched, it's why so many people run away from it.

Marriage isn't that difficult. Divorce can be.

Quote:

Works for some, but not the majority. If you license this behaviour for him, you license it for everyone and I am sure you don't wish to tell me that everyone is doing what your cousin is doing.

Freedom is not to be licensed.

Quote:

Indeed I was born in the wrong time. People don't want it? You sound as though there is really a choice in the long term. I am afraid there is no correlation in history between sexual liberty and the traditional liberties or "development".

Or you haven't really though it through.

Quote:

The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs. -- Joseph Daniel Unwin

What has being monogmous have to do with being married? I'm not saying don't get married either, I'm saying it is not for the state to define that.

Quote:

That is the long and short of it. If you care about any part of this country's culture and heritage or indeed "free society", you are on the wrong side.

I think lecturing me on freedom whist auguring in favour of licensing freedom is tad ironic.

Quote:

There used to be, if you are suggesting there isn't much left now, I am inclined to agree. Part of me does think it is too late to reverse the process, but the least I can do is throw this ancient wisdom in your face before the end, and say "I told you so" as we sink into the sea together.

Again this is revisionism. Something that Victorians did. You could say that the Victorians defined an English and British culture to an extent but it was largely based on historically inaccurate foundations. There were very may English and British cultures and they were influenced by culture around Europe an further afar.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 24 Dec 2015, 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

GGPViper
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24 Dec 2015, 11:37 am

Mikah wrote:

0_equals_true wrote:

Government has no business in people's private life.

Ok, but then you also must say the government should not have allowed no-fault divorce.

Mikah wrote:

0_equals_true wrote:

You are conflating the nuclear family with marriage. If marriage made for successful families, we wouldn't have so many divorces.

No there are so many divorces because it is trivial to get one. Marriage is a difficult thing even when perfectly matched, it's why so many people run away from it.

0_equals_true wrote:

Mikah wrote:

... well...

Here are two studies from 2006 and 2014, both of which investigate the effect of introducing unilateral and no-fault divorces (in the US and Spain, respectively).

Stevenson & Wolfers (2006) wrote:

This paper exploits the variation occurring from the different timing of divorce law reforms across the United States to evaluate how unilateral divorce changed family violence and whether the option provided by unilateral divorce reduced suicide and spousal homicide. Unilateral divorce both potentially increases the likelihood that a domestic violence relationship ends and acts to transfer bargaining power toward the abused, thereby potentially stopping the abuse in extant relationships. In states that introduced unilateral divorce we find a 8–16 percent decline in female suicide, roughly a 30 percent decline in domestic violence for both men and women, and a 10 percent decline in females murdered by their partners.

Brassiolo (2014 wrote:

This paper investigates whether lowering the cost of divorce can reduce domestic violence. The cost of divorce influences the bargaining position of spouses, and thus, their behavior within the marriage. This study takes advantage of a large and unexpected reform of the divorce regime in Spain, which allowed for unilateral and no-fault divorce, and eliminated the pre-existing 1-year mandatory separation period, to estimate the causal effects. This reform dramatically reduced the cost of exiting a partnership for married couples, but not for unmarried ones, which favors a difference-in-differences identification strategy. This study analyzes several measures of spousal conflict, ranging from self-reported spousal abuse and technical definitions of spousal violence based on recorded behavior, to more extreme measures of well-being such as partner homicide. Results suggest a decline of 27-36 percent in spousal conflict and around 30 percent in extreme partner violence as a consequence of the reform. Moreover, spousal violence has been found to decrease among couples who remain married after the legal modification, which suggests an important role for changes in bargaining within the marriage when divorce becomes a more credible (cheaper) option. The results are not driven by selection and are robust to a variety of checks.

Source:
http://users.nber.org/~jwolfers/papers/ ... he_law.pdf
http://www.scioteca.caf.com/bitstream/h ... sAllowed=y

... a romantic view, indeed.

0_equals_true
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24 Dec 2015, 11:57 am

GGPViper good points.

I apply the harm principle. If someone is being harmed, the state should have law and means to do something about that. Marriage and divorce don't on their own do anything about that.

I also don't understand Mika's point here:

[quote]Ok, but then you also must say the government should not have allowed no-fault divorce.[quote]
prepared to accept non-interference on the condition that you interfere, using a system which is endemic of interference in the first place. If there is no marriage there is no divorce, but you could still take them to court based on contract violation. You can still have someone arrested for crimes if there is sufficient evidence, and they should have chance for a fair trial should it get to court.

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24 Dec 2015, 1:28 pm

Short post, I am busy with Christmas duties.

JSM, Jesus Christ of the secular left. People abuse his words horribly. In practice today, his "harm" means two different things. For the person wishing to take liberties with it harm means what you imagine plus any kind of discomfort, unhappiness or discontent. For the "other" harm means direct visible harm, sometimes not even that. Certainly discomfort or unhappiness do not count for the "other".

He is abused for drug legalisation, because people dont care about the devastating effects on family members of the drug addict, nor the effect on society in general if more and more people take drugs. The drug addict shouldn't be kept unhappy and sober or be punished to prevent these things.

He is abused for abortion, the unhappiness of the mother trumps the baby's right to live or be protected from violence.

And of course he is abused for divorce:
Party A divorces party B on the grounds that they are unhappy and staying in the relationship is harmful to their emotional state. If party B would become unhappy due to the divorce, tough titties. Unilateral JSM to the rescue.

Another key point often ignored : Divorce harms children immensely. But the followers of Our Lord John Stuart Mill ignore it or pretend they are much better off, pretending all divorce is about marriages where the husband is wife-beating child rapist.

Domestic violence from husband or wife is inexcusable in a marriage, it is in my opinion a valid reason for divorce. However most people today do not divorce for that reason. That is why I believe no fault divorce causes more harm than it prevents.

Merry Christmas to all, especially to my honourable opponents.

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24 Dec 2015, 4:33 pm

Mikah wrote:

Another key point often ignored : Divorce harms children immensely. But the followers of Our Lord John Stuart Mill ignore it or pretend they are much better off, pretending all divorce is about marriages where the husband is wife-beating child rapist.

Domestic violence from husband or wife is inexcusable in a marriage, it is in my opinion a valid reason for divorce. However most people today do not divorce for that reason. That is why I believe no fault divorce causes more harm than it prevents.

Actually, multiple studies have shown that children in high-conflict marriages are *worse off* if their parents stay together rather than divorcing.

Rather than going through multiple studies (most of which are behind paywalls) I managed to find a (relatively) recent review here:

Lansford (2009) wrote:

Interparental Conflict

Interparental conflict has received substantial empirical attention. There is consistent evidence that high levels of interparental conflict have negative and long-lasting implications for children’s adjustment (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Grych & Fincham, 1990). Amato (1993) and Hetherington et al. (1998) found more support for a parental conflict perspective on why divorce is related to children’s adjustment than for any other theoretical perspective that has been proposed to account for this link. Averaging across measures in their review, children in high-conflict, intact families scored .32 standard deviation below children in low-conflict, intact families and .12 standard deviation below children in divorced families on measures of adjustment, suggesting that exposure to high levels of conflict was more detrimental to children than was parental divorce (Hetherington et al., 1998). To illustrate, using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, Vandewater and Lansford (1998) found that when interparental conflict and family structure (married and never divorced vs. divorced and not remarried) were considered simultaneously after controlling for family demographic covariates and children’s prior adjustment, high interparental conflict was related to more externalizing behaviors, internalizing problems, and trouble with peers, but family structure was not significantly related to child outcomes. The finding that children whose parents divorce look worse before the divorce than do comparable children whose parents do not divorce is also consistent with this perspective; worse adjustment prior to the divorce could be accounted for, in part, by exposure to interparental conflict.

If divorce leads to a reduction in children’s exposure to interparental conflict, one might expect that their adjustment would improve. Indeed, this issue is at the heart of parents’ question of whether they should stay in a conflicted marriage for the sake of the children. In an important longitudinal investigation of this issue, Amato, Loomis, and Booth (1995) found that children’s problems decrease when parents in a high-conflict marriage divorce (which encompassed 30%–49% of divorces), whereas children’s problems increase when parents in a low-conflict marriage divorce. Booth and Amato (2001) examined correlates of divorce for low-conflict couples and found that factors such as less integration in the community, having fewer friends, not owning a home, and having more positive attitudes toward divorce were related to an increased likelihood of divorce; the authors suggest that because these factors may be less salient to children than conflict between their parents, the divorce may come as more of an unwelcome and unexpected shock, accounting for the more negative effects of divorce on children from low-conflict families than those seen in children from high-conflict families.

Source: http://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessi ... 140-52.pdf (page 145)

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24 Dec 2015, 4:43 pm

Mikah wrote:

JSM, Jesus Christ of the secular left. People abuse his words horribly. In practice today, his "harm" means two different things. For the person wishing to take liberties with it harm means what you imagine plus any kind of discomfort, unhappiness or discontent. For the "other" harm means direct visible harm, sometimes not even that. Certainly discomfort or unhappiness do not count for the "other".

Liberalism is not the same as leftist. In fact Liberalism can directly oppose Left ideas and is often if anything linked to the right when it is classical Liberalism or Libertarianism.

It is important to define harm in terms of the harm-principle and non-interference. However you can have you own ideas on this, you don't have solidly based on one philosopher or political theorist.

I fail to see what all your points have to do with needing legal marriage. Other than perhaps including in the definition of harm, social pressure put on these people (i.e. those born out of wedlock) by people with views like yourself.

I don't think you have made a good case why social conservatism is better. I don't actual mind social conservatism so long as it is not compulsory.

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24 Dec 2015, 6:58 pm

Quote:

Actually, multiple studies have shown that children in high-conflict marriages are *worse off* if their parents stay together rather than divorcing.

I'll read the study properly later, from that though it all depends what high-conflict means, if it implies physical violence, that doesn't hurt my position. If it implies the two parents don't like each other very much and argue a lot, then the sane course of action is to resolve or hide the conflict for the sake of the children, not destroy the family. This is the problem with such an easy "out". People will abandon ship much much earlier if the option is there. If you say "sorry you cannot have a divorce, learn to live with one another, or at least pretend to do so in front of the children" then how many of those high conflict families might become low conflict families and all the benefits that offers. We are so demoralised that the idea of divorce is preferable to controlling oneself and not arguing with your spouse.

Quote:

I fail to see what all your points have to do with needing legal marriage.

Where personal morality fails, the state must step in, as Burke well knew. I would much prefer marriage to be held together by religion or a code of honour or anything else other than law really, but that isn't an option for most of Europe right now thanks to the death of Christianity and the cultural revolution of the 60s. If monogamous lifelong marriage is vital, and I believe it is, as many other rulers knew it was, the state will have to take steps if it wishes to survive along with the people it rules.

Quote:

I don't actual mind social conservatism so long as it is not compulsory.

That's the problem with social conservatism it's rather fragile and if it's not socially enforced it inevitably runs into trouble. There are parallels with it and ones diet. Social conservatism is a lean dinner of meat and veg, social liberalism is cake. If cake is widely available and there is no shame for gorging yourself on it, lots of people will do so. There are problems with eating all that cake though...

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25 Dec 2015, 5:56 am

Mikah wrote:

Where personal morality fails, the state must step in, as Burke well knew.

I agree completely. It's about time that the government steps in and makes comprehensive sex education mandatory in schools in the UK.

It is a succinct example of failing personal morality when parents fail to provide their children with proper sex education (or with abstinence-only sex education, which is essentially the same thing as "no" sex education).

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25 Dec 2015, 6:43 am

Sex education in schools is an interesting topic. On paper it sounds like a good idea, we're told we have a problem in say teenage pregnancies and STDs and some bright spark says "lets have sex education in schools to deal with this problem". Ok. But then 10 years later these problems have increased, and some bright spark says "lets have more detailed sex education at a younger age". The cycle repeats and that is pretty much the history of sex education in my country. I would agree with any plan to reduce teenage pregnancies and STDs but whatever they are doing in schools seems to be failing on the very terms it is advanced.

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0_equals_true
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25 Dec 2015, 7:17 am

Mikah wrote:

wrong

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_410897.pdf

Teen pregnancies are at its lowest level in 70 years

Also note that the Netherlands has extremely low teen pregnancy and it has some of the most comprehensive no nonsense sex education.

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25 Dec 2015, 8:08 am

Quote:

wrong

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_410897.pdf

Teen pregnancies are at its lowest level in 70 years

The case is not solid, your link talks about live births among teenagers, not pregnancy. For a true picture we would need to factor in abortion (another thing sex education was supposed to reduce among all age groups), and of course the morning after pill that is handed out like sweets, because it is in effect a DIY abortion pill that prevents implantation. For a truer picture still I would also like to see the data broken down by ethnic origin or cultural background - I am willing to bet this a problem for decultured white kids not muslim girls from strong conservative backgrounds or other conservative communities whose parents as I recall from my education often refused to let the school teach them sex ed. You will know of course we have been importing them in large numbers over the last 20 years and they make up a sizeable minority of our young.

I will look into NL but given the failures of sex education in other countries we have hardly discovered a causal relationship.

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25 Dec 2015, 8:14 am

Quick google search found this on the Dutch "miracle":

http://www.famyouth.org.uk/pdfs/LDM.pdf

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25 Dec 2015, 8:26 am

Mikah wrote:

What country do you live in? The teen pregnancy rate in England has been in a constant decline for decades.

Source: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_410897.pdf (see page 6)

Mikah wrote:

I would agree with any plan to reduce teenage pregnancies and STDs but whatever they are doing in schools seems to be failing on the very terms it is advanced.

False.

1. Comprehensive sex education works.

Kohler, Manhar & Lafferty (2008) wrote:

Purpose: The role that sex education plays in the initiation of sexual activity and risk of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) is controversial in the United States. Despite several systematic reviews, few epidemiologic evaluations of the effectiveness of these programs on a population level have been conducted.

Methods: Among never-married heterosexual adolescents, aged 15–19 years, who participated in Cycle 6 (2002) of the National Survey of Family Growth and reported on formal sex education received before their first sexual intercourse (n = 1719), we compared the sexual health risks of adolescents who received abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education to those of adolescents who received no formal sex education. Weighted multivariate logistic regression generated population-based estimates.

Results:
Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education were significantly less likely to report teen pregnancy (OR adj = .4, 95% CI = .22– .69, p = .001) than those who received no formal sex education, whereas there was no significant effect of abstinence-only education (OR adj = .7, 95% CI = .38 –1.45, p = .38). Abstinence-only education did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse (OR adj = .8, 95% CI = .51–1.31, p = .40), but comprehensive sex education was marginally associated with a lower likelihood of reporting having engaged in vaginal intercourse (OR adj = .7, 95% CI = .49 –1.02, p = .06). Neither abstinence-only nor comprehensive sex education significantly reduced the likelihood of reported STD diagnoses (OR adj = 1.7, 95% CI = .57–34.76, p = .36 and OR adj = 1.8, 95% CI = .67–5.00, p = .24 respectively).
Conclusions: Teaching about contraception was not associated with increased risk of adolescent sexual activity or STD. Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education had a lower risk of pregnancy than adolescents who received abstinence-only or no sex education.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pa ... 000000.pdf

2. School-based sex education works - in the UK, BTW - And is more effective and more widely utilized than parental sex education:

Macdowall et al. (2015 wrote:

Objectives To examine variation in source of information about sexual matters by sociodemographic factors, and associations with sexual behaviours and outcomes.

Design Cross-sectional probability sample survey.

Setting British general population.

Participants 3408 men and women, aged 17–24 years, interviewed from 2010–2012 for third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles.

Main outcome measures Main source of information (school, a parent, other); age and circumstances of first heterosexual intercourse; unsafe sex and distress about sex in past year; experience of sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnoses, non-volitional sex or abortion (women only) ever.

Results Citing school was associated with younger age, higher educational level and having lived with both parents. Citing a parent was associated, in women, with lower educational level and having lived with one parent. Relative to other sources, citing school was associated with older age at first sex (adjusted HR 0.73 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.83) men, 0.73 (0.65 to 0.82) women), lower likelihood of unsafe sex (adjusted OR 0.58 (0.44 to 0.77) men, 0.69 (0.52 to 0.91) women) and previous STI diagnosis (0.55 (0.33 to 0.91) men, 0.58 (0.43 to 0.80) women) and, in women, with lower likelihood of lack of sexual competence at first sex; and experience of non-volitional sex, abortion and distress about sex. Citing a parent was associated with lower likelihood of unsafe sex (0.53 (0.28 to 1.00) men; 0.69 (0.48 to 0.99) women) and, in women, previous STI diagnosis.

Conclusions Gaining information mainly from school was associated with lower reporting of a range of negative sexual health outcomes, particularly among women. Gaining information mainly from a parent was associated with some of these, but fewer cited parents as a primary source. The findings emphasise the benefit of school and parents providing information about sexual matters and argue for a stronger focus on the needs of men.

Source: http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/3/e007837.full

Thus, given the proven effectiveness of school-based sex education and the erratic and less effective nature of parental sex education, the most obvious solution would be to make school based sex education compulsive.

Some more food for thought:

Office for National Statistics wrote:

Figure 4: Percentage of Conceptions Leading to Legal Abortion by Age of Woman at Conception, 1993, 2003 and 2013

Source: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/con ... o-Abortion

Given that more than 50 percent of 16-18 year old pregnancies and more than 60 percent of <16 year pregnancies end in abortion - and given your adamant opposition to abortion - shouldn't you be campaigning aggressively for compulsory sex education in England in order to bring down the teen pregnancy rate (which is higher in the UK than many other Western countries)?

Mikah wrote:

I will look into NL but given the failures of sex education in other countries we have hardly discovered a causal relationship.

Your ignorance of the empirical is astronomical.

Last edited by GGPViper on 25 Dec 2015, 8:37 am, edited 2 times in total.

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25 Dec 2015, 8:32 am

Mikah wrote:

Quick google search found this on the Dutch "miracle":

http://www.famyouth.org.uk/pdfs/LDM.pdf

Oh, goody.

You managed to find a British version of The Family Research Council.
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Fam ... rientation.

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25 Dec 2015, 7:01 pm

Mikah wrote:

Quote:

BS. Justice is justice.

Not the way Burke would have understood it. I only took ire at your attempt to paint Burke as a forerunner to the modern SJW. His justice was of a personal moral and legal sense. In that sentence you could substitute "honesty in your dealings" or "love of the law" to understand his meaning when compared to rapacity. He was not talking about aggressively redistributing the wealth of the great, the good and the lucky to the envious worker class.

Well, I cannot read Burke's mind, but I can read the sources that would have informed him about justice and rapacity in a healthy repubic.

Read Livy's description of the Servian Constitution and the introduction to his history of the city. Read Polybius' analysis of the Roman Constitution, or Plutarch's biography of Cato the elder.

In these works:

Accumulated wealth is measured to determine one's obligation to the state, while greatness and goodness are determined by one's generosity to clients and slaves and one's service to the public.

Further, land reform (smells like wealth redistribution to me) and the optimates' resistance to it, is cited as a primary cause of the destruction of the Latin middle class and failure of the Roman republic.

Social justice is not new but short [collective] memories aren't either.

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25 Dec 2015, 9:15 pm

GoonSquad wrote:

C'mon people, nobody's got any thoughts on this?

I think Burke's on to something here... It wuld certainly explain why so many revolutions fail to establish free societies and usually just swap one dictator/dominant group for another...

This reminds me of the idea that before most people are born, their natural inheritance (land, food, folk medicine etc.) has already been stolen out from underneath them.

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