I realize the name of this blog is Eclectism, so making my first two posts on politics might be a bad idea. The problem of course is that during a cold snap of -30 weather, topics of discussion boil down to either politics or hockey. However to be fair, this post actually concerns a border between religion and politics.
I consider myself a liberal leaning, slightly socialist person. My belief is that the most important role a government can have is protecting human rights while maintaining social order. (For arguments sake I will use the UDHR). I guess in a weird sense I am also a bit of a libertarian. Yes I realize how confounded that statement seems. Libertarianism and socialism can probably be found on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Governments will always be necessary, it is simply my belief that legislation should minimize its effects on people and occur only to protect the rights belonging to the people. Legislation occurring simply for reasons of morality, such as holding up the morals of a religion, should never be entertained.
I have always thought it to be an absolutely bizarre phenomenon to have a law put in place to uphold a religious belief. This does not mean that a law created for protecting a persons rights can not coincidentally uphold a religious belief. Such as is the case for the Judaeo-Christian commandment of "thou shall not kill" being coincidentally upheld by various laws against murder/homicide. It means that laws should never be passed in order to protect a person from being offended by another persons actions.
Sometimes there is some very gray areas, where one begins to question the authenticity of a law. For example, laws that are put in place to prevent the solicitation of sex for money. Prostitution, in its simplest sense, is an act that does not contravene a persons human rights. However sexual slavery would be against human rights. So the general argument for laws against prostitution would be that it prevents acts that fall somewhere in the middle, such as living off the avails of prostitution. However, living in a society that is very much against prostitution, these laws are for the most part moralistic in nature. The same can be said for laws against drugs/alcohol, pornography, sexual activity and other similar acts that can be said to be against morals but not against another persons rights.
It is strange to think that sometimes when laws are put in place they actually do the opposite of protecting a persons rights. In almost every situation where a law is put in place for moral reasons, it is almost guaranteed to be against human rights. Of course it is quite possible my logic is flawed...
Awww, man, the comment I was just writing was lost for some reason.
ReplyDeleteIn short, interesting ideas, I agree that human rights and stability are important, libertarianism and socialism are on - as I see it - the spectrum of liberalism, and that, ala Churchill, democracy is the worst system of government apart from all the others ... mostly stuff we have already talked about.
On another subject, however, with regards to our last meeting and discussion of the nature of art. I want to mention something I've been thinking about. You said that one of the things art must do is communicate. I agree, but the problem is that that is only a necessary condition, but not entirely sufficient. In other words how can you distinguish art which communicates from other forms of media, e.g. the news, entertainment, a street sign, which communicate.
Anyway, that was just a thought I've had since we had that discussion. I'm glad you have this blog now so that I can share it with you.
I agree that libertarianism needs at least a skeleton of socialism (human rights only). There is too much of a "tribal" ethics ingrained in most people to be concerned with people they don't know, so strict libertarianism wouldn't be nice for many.
ReplyDeleteBut I think human rights should be the beggining and end of government legal interference. Stay out of consentual victimless crime. I don't even mind a world of vast inequality, as long as everyone has the minimum human rights (freedom, sustenance, medicine, etc...)
I think Garret Hardin's tragedy of the common's could be easily avoided this way. I think we should share more than he does though. His "life boat" ethics is a terrible analogy, (how rich nations are on an overpopulated lifeboat and the poor nations are in the sea, trying to get on, if we help them we all die. I think a more accurate analogy would be "cruise ship" ethics, since rich nations are not even CLOSE to being in as dire straits as people on a life boat. I;ll eat a little less lobster at the buffet if it means saving a castaway is all. :)