The Root Of All Evil

The latest installment from UserFriendly: ISBN 0596001932

Seriously, though,...

TheRootOfAllEvil is interfering in other peoples' business. If you don't like what someone else is doing, fine, civilization means you may let 'em know. But if it's not interfering with you carrying on your business, civilization means you must let 'em be.

Hey, isn't this the PrimeDirective?

Wasn't this the directive that was ignored whenever convenient?

StarTrek is fiction, so it doesn't prove anything about whether the PrimeDirective is a good idea or not.

See also GoldenRule#(Indian | Jewish versions)

Then why do we have police and courts at all? What is it to me if you get killed or robbed? -- AnonymousDonor

In doing business under a system of laws, you explicitly accept that your business partners will avail themselves of those laws. So it might not be anything to you if I'm killed or robbed, but by doing business with me you've explicitly accepted my recourse to the police and courts.

By what magic was this rule created? It certainly does not flow from the JustLetThemBeRule?.

By voluntary agreement between myself and the other members of our society. I agree to abide by the law. The police agree to uphold it. This is not magical. It is sensible.

By transacting business in no way have I explicitly agreed to anything.

I'm sorry, I assumed you were able to read the contracts printed on every commodity available to you, and the lawbooks in every public library. Perhaps the print is too small for you?

Your assumption of duties on my behalf is criminal. Your death does not impact carrying on my business so I invoke the JustLetThemBeRule?. And, of course, since we will probably never transact business, I doubly don't care about your death so again invoke the JustLetThemBeRule?. -- AnonymousDonor

All contracts are governed by systems of law. All people are too. You might choose not to recognize that, but it doesn't change it a whit. As to your not troubling yourself about my death, I encourage you not to. I am already handily catered to by those who uphold the system of laws to which I voluntarily submit, and which I voluntarily uphold. All I require is that you just let me be.

Similarly you might choose not to recognize the obligation to help when people are dying or being mistreated elsewhere in the world, but it doesn't change it a whit. We cannot JustLetThemBe? just like you don't want the government to JustLetYouBe? when you are in trouble. -- AnonymousDonor

You may assert an obligation, but since you have no power to compel it, your assertion is meaningless. Given the police and courts to back the rule of law, it is clear that its obligations are meaningful.

You further assume that I will not feel my duty to help others, whereas in fact I feel that duty most keenly. The difference is, I feel that the best way to help them is to offer my services to them and, at my discretion, to accept theirs in exchange. It seems you feel obligated to interfere with this ordinary human kindness - why is that?

As to whether you can or cannot let them be - that's what the page is about. If you can't let them be, and they can't let you be, then violence is the inevitable result.

Actually, I do have the power. It's called public policy which is what you are bitching against. It is all very legal so it seems you should be happy with the result. If this voluntary human kindness works for you in the large then it should work for you in the small. I think you should rely on voluntary human kindness in all situations. Otherwise you are hyprocritical. Which of course you are. For some reason your little zone of land is governed by laws, yet outside that little zone we must rely on human kindness. What a joke. -- AnonymousDonor

I grew up in a different country from the one in which I live, which indeed I chose for the extraordinary freedoms it bestows on its citizens. What's more, my parents grew up in different countries from the one I grew up in, to which they moved for similar reasons, and their parents in different countries again. Voting with your feet might be the only true democracy. As to public policy - by all means, you should do everything in your power to affect it, and I will do likewise, and enjoy the compromises that result. This is consensuality, not hypocrisy. That some other countries don't permit this is by policy a result of their governments preferring TheRootOfAllEvil.

Voting with your feet was the original position for America's founding fathers when the local and state governments became tyrannical, which they often did enacting all sorts of religious laws. This worked because in their time there was somewhere to run to where you could be left alone because there were so few people with which to interact. Now there is nowhere to run. Your little isolated zone of land doesn't exist. It is hypocrisy to say I'm safe with one set of rules yet use a entire other set of rules elsewhere where you don't care what happens. -- AnonymousDonor

Democracy is tyranny of the majority.

i believe that misquote was the work of one Lani Quinnier, a Clinton hanger-oner if ever there was one, anywho....I digress! Democracy is the voluntary agreement of members of a group to abide by majority rule after an initial guidance rules were promulgated. Thereafter it is not just for the losers of such an understanding to get mad and take their toys and go home. The basic tenants must be agreed on by all involved prior to any discussions or decisions. To wit the secession of the confederacy prior to the second Civil war. -- Tomtom.

A friend of mine always quits when the rules we agreed on to play yard football (American) went against him. Go figure.

The southern states ran the country for the first 80 years of its existence and when congressional opinion and decisions ran against them they up and left. A gross violation of the base of democracy.

There are always places to run to, so why stay and try to change.

ergo, we agree to disagree.