Should people be protected from their own stupidity?

[removeduser_4536284751384]

I think this question is the fundamental divider between anarchist/libertarian types and proponents of bigger welfare states.

I think we all agree that in an anarchist society, private alternatives to all government services would exist. Police would be provided by private security firms or insurance companies. Education can simply be paid for and health insurance is widely available in our current system. Public works projects could be funded voluntarily. There is already private social security in the form of income protection insurance, and charity can supposedly provide for those who are never able to work. And united by common human empathy, there wouldn't be total anarchy, pardon the pun.

However, I think we would all be worse off. Health insurance may be widely available but there will always be people who are too mean or too stupid to get it and then end up needing medical treatment. Charity will not cover all of these people and many of them will die or be permenantly disabled for making human mistakes. Why is that ok? Isn't being forced to pay for something you would buy anyway a cheap price to pay to make sure that doesn't happen?

Education is in a similar vein. What if my family is too poor to go to school? Sure, there would be cheap/non-profit schools, scholarships and charities, but the fact is in an anarchy some people will always slip through the net. Is it alright for them to be condemned to a life of mediocricy because of the birth lottery? Only free primary and secondary education can prevent this from happening. And that leads on to another point. What about abusive parents? Who deals with them? More will be missed by vigilante/charity groups than a government, and besides without a monopoly of force they have no legitimacy.

The same goes for social welfare. Just look at the interwar period. Unemployment was very high and millions died in the developed world from poverty before social welfare policies started to be introduced in the 30s. Income protection insurance is a very rare type of insurance that not many people bother buying. Yet many people at some point in their lives find themselves with no source of earned income and could they not live temporarily on unemployment support they would be reduced to begging, or worse, dying.

The same reasoning applies to every government service. Shouldn't we protect people from their own stupidity if it's going to cause them life-changing harm?

[Raubritter]

Should people be protected from their own stupidity?

Catchy question because everyone defines something else as stupidity. Someone likes druges and takes drugs, its his deal. Someone else things its stupid, its also his deal and also mine if i say this person is right or not. But no one can force the drug taker to stop taking his drugs.


The formulation "stupidity" already is appraising and puts the hole debate in an precast appraising.

And i'am getting sick of this "lets rob someone to teach poor timmy over here to read and write".
You family can teach you read and write and the basics of math, we don't life in the feudal ages anymore and there isn't a nessary need for this other crap they teach in school. I know that because i wastet enough years in school, listening to the greatest BS you can imagine and just wasting paper and pencils.

[Dr Zoidberg]

And i'am getting sick of this "lets rob someone to teach poor timmy over here to read and write".
You family can teach you read and write and the basics of math, we don't life in the feudal ages anymore and there isn't a nessary need for this other crap they teach in school. I know that because i wastet enough years in school, listening to the greatest BS you can imagine and just wasting paper and pencils.

A reread of this paragraph certainly does reinforce the bold part, that's for sure.

[Enemy of the State]

Who are these brilliant infallible people who are going to organize society for us? Should we create some kind of Bureau of Right Decisions from which we have to seek permission for our every action? If you accept the principle that people should be protected from their own "stupidity", you're essentialy endorsing a war of all against all. What is stupid is after all entirely subjective. Somebody might believe you are stupid. And would you accept it if they barged into your house with a gun and told you to stop what you're doing and do as he desires instead?

I'd also like to bring attention to the quote in my signature. We all make mistakes. We have to be allowed to make them. It is how we develop who we are.

And i'am getting sick of this "lets rob someone to teach poor timmy over here to read and write".
You family can teach you read and write and the basics of math, we don't life in the feudal ages anymore and there isn't a nessary need for this other crap they teach in school. I know that because i wastet enough years in school, listening to the greatest BS you can imagine and just wasting paper and pencils.

We're in the 21st century but using the Prussian model of education from the 19th century. There has been no real innovation in schooling in a long time. There is after all, no real competition, no chance for innovation. Even private schools are under strict government control. And it is assumed that failing schools are the result of simply not enough money being thrown at them. Has anyone considered the idea that it might be that we're using a model that is not in touch with the times? Who knows what we could come up with if we had a free market in education. Would we even have classes? Maybe there would be E-schools, or something else entirely. I don't know, but I'd certainly like to find out.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Who are these brilliant infallible people who are going to organize society for us? Should we create some kind of Bureau of Right Decisions from which we have to seek permission for our every action? If you accept the principle that people should be protected from their own "stupidity", you're essentialy endorsing a war of all against all. What is stupid is after all entirely subjective. Somebody might believe you are stupid. And would you accept it if they barged into your house with a gun and told you to stop what you're doing and do as he desires instead?

But despite the sujectivity of the concept, nearly all of us agree on what it is. I think modern welfares states are prima facie evidence that they can work fine without abuse of power or ridiculous restrictions.

I'd also like to bring attention to the quote in my signature. We all make mistakes. We have to be allowed to make them. It is how we develop who we are.

Of course we do. But dying because you were trying to save money on health insurance, or deciding not to send your child to school, are not mistakes you can learn from. They are not like being sacked, failing an exam or investing all of your money in a failing company. Do you not have empathy for these people?

[Raubritter]

I think modern welfares states are prima facie evidence that they can work fine without abuse of power or ridiculous restrictions.

Did you ever go to one of those social offices to department social security? Were you ever forced to reveal every income source, privat property and income of parents and children to an buerocrat hog to get some of the money back that you payed them over the last years?
Its not even an abuse of power, its power. Its power to tax, power to controll, power to destroy. It doesn't help the poor because they must registrate every one of their employment contracts and taxes them. It doesn't help the lower qualifite because it makes it harder to employ someone.

And it there wouldn't be these tyrannical mechanisms, it would be a paradiese for abuse, fraud and loafing.
You can see in Greek how worse it can go. This can and will never work.

But dying because you were trying to save money on health insurance, or deciding not to send your child to school, are not mistakes you can learn from.

I explained already why the school thing is a myth, and others explained why the healthcare thing is a myth.
Why We Don't Need Socialized Medicine

I'am against this because it implies force. And to talk about people "to protect them from their own stupidity" is another conceited wording of someone who things he knows how the lives of others should managed.

[Simon Cashmere]

It's actually impossible to protect people from their own stupidity. Human stupidity is the most powerful force on earth.

There are also many who are truly stupid, who are *CONVINCED* of their competence. Because if you lack the competence to be aware of your limitations or shortcomings, you could be someone who believes as a matter of faith that you are BRILLIANT! So while people who are brilliant have the self-doubt to hold them back, stupid person has no ability to self-critique to have self-doubt, and have boundless amounts of misplaced confidence.

Often they have good social skills so they have risen to the top of organisations either private or in government, but are woefully incompetent. They surround themselves with yes men and fire anyone who disagrees with them. They are excellent at risk shifting their incompetence onto subordinates, and re-write history to say that while their conduct in the affair was at its utmost brilliant (as always) they were let down by these scapegoat inferiors who required the chop.

They are the most dangerous of the dangerous, and, there is little or nothing that can be done about them, except if someone more powerful sees through them and gets rid of them. It happens occasionally, but more often than not they stick around to inflict further damage and are protected from the effects of their incompetence by their social skills and networking.

I think we all agree that in an anarchist society, private alternatives to all government services would exist.

In an anarchist society we would live in totalitarian enclaves, with ceaseless warfare between each other as powerful dictators vied for control of land and resources. There would be no utopian corporatist like Irvine condominium community. Unless one warlord could establish absolute brutal control and wipeout all other contenders, disarming them, then you'd have warfare between the various areas. Forget about the private bus line running. While democracy and the welfare state is in an appalling mess, you just wont know what a real mess is until anarchy is at your door step.

[Condottiere 40K]

We create authority in order to enforce some agreed upon rules, which we think will help us all to get along better.

[Ahlerich]

in my mid-thirties i do regret that i did not soak up more knowledge during my schooltime. it was a grand opportunity i wasted.
i want to disagree with raubritters opinion because i know the german school system has much more to offer then reading/writing and basic math. that part was covered from grade 1 to grade 3.
without this school system we would be in feudal ages again before the decade is over.

the socialist idea is to offer equal opportunity to everyone. the idea i find very similar to the enlighteed, humanist ideas of the founding of the USA and the French Revolution. events that brought a significant amount of freedom to what we call "the west" today.
of course the attempt to give everybody equal opportunities is flawed as 2 new born babies already have unequal opportunities based on the family they grow up in, genes and other factors.
in germany the school systems vary significantly from south to north. in the very conservative south the niveau on schools is much higher then in the socialist dominated north.
to put it simple - in the north the education speed is aligned to the slowest learner which holds the faster learners back, while in the south the slowest are abandoned and the faster benefit more.


personally i think the art of a good system is to balance the burden of performers with the aid and support given tot he slower. after all we live in societies and healthy societies need to harmonize. you cant prohibit wealth like the communists but you also have to control exploitation by the powerful part of the society.
anything else leads to tension, protest, riots and ultimately sabotage and civil war.

[Raubritter]

We're in the 21st century but using the Prussian model of education from the 19th century. There has been no real innovation in schooling in a long time. There is after all, no real competition, no chance for innovation. Even private schools are under strict government control.

This Model was also overworked by Wilhelm Wundt, Burrhus Frederic Skinner and Iwan Pavlov. All of them hated the individual freedome, followed the hegelian dialectic of the almighty collectivist state and transformed the classic system of teaching by intresst in a system of force similar to animal training.

And were i live its is so.
They sell you the constraint to visit a government school as a right to education and i heard there are people running around which still believe that. And the Taxpayer is forced to pay for this system his hole life, not just as long he visited school. Its a total Nazi System.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Public Education is the only way to protect people from their own mistakes, not necessarily stupidity. For example a Consumer Finance class in Highschool would prepare young adults with how to handle credit and money...

Same with sex education class would help with preventing unwanted pregnacies.

[Eofor]

I think this question is the fundamental divider between anarchist/libertarian types and proponents of bigger welfare states.

I think we all agree that in an anarchist society, private alternatives to all government services would exist. Police would be provided by private security firms or insurance companies. Education can simply be paid for and health insurance is widely available in our current system. Public works projects could be funded voluntarily. There is already private social security in the form of income protection insurance, and charity can supposedly provide for those who are never able to work. And united by common human empathy, there wouldn't be total anarchy, pardon the pun.

However, I think we would all be worse off. Health insurance may be widely available but there will always be people who are too mean or too stupid to get it and then end up needing medical treatment. Charity will not cover all of these people and many of them will die or be permenantly disabled for making human mistakes. Why is that ok? Isn't being forced to pay for something you would buy anyway a cheap price to pay to make sure that doesn't happen?

Education is in a similar vein. What if my family is too poor to go to school? Sure, there would be cheap/non-profit schools, scholarships and charities, but the fact is in an anarchy some people will always slip through the net. Is it alright for them to be condemned to a life of mediocricy because of the birth lottery? Only free primary and secondary education can prevent this from happening. And that leads on to another point. What about abusive parents? Who deals with them? More will be missed by vigilante/charity groups than a government, and besides without a monopoly of force they have no legitimacy.

The same goes for social welfare. Just look at the interwar period. Unemployment was very high and millions died in the developed world from poverty before social welfare policies started to be introduced in the 30s. Income protection insurance is a very rare type of insurance that not many people bother buying. Yet many people at some point in their lives find themselves with no source of earned income and could they not live temporarily on unemployment support they would be reduced to begging, or worse, dying.

The same reasoning applies to every government service. Shouldn't we protect people from their own stupidity if it's going to cause them life-changing harm?

None of these aren't examples of protecting people from their own stupidity, they're examples of basic first world social programs that are in place for very good reasons, followed by some frankly quite anarchist rhetoric.
An example of government protecting someone from their own stupidity would be cops putting drunk/high drivers in a jailcell for a night when they're caught driving. And that's because drunk/high drivers pose a threat to the people around them, not just themselves.

[Claudius Gothicus]

Yes, we must. Because social stability depends on it... that's why the State exists, to ensure social stability and survival. Sometimes it's needed to protect people from their own stupid misconceptions or mistakes, and the enforcer or said ''protection'' is the Bureaucratic Hierarchy known as ''The State''. The idea is that individuals make mistakes, and stratas of individuals(social classes, ethnic groups, etc.) tend to make systematic mistakes(the same mistakes or taking the same risks over and over again) derived from their position in reality, therefore there has to be a basic safety net that prevents said mistakes from deriving into Cascade Failure.

Basically it's the same reasoning that goes for ''allowing everyone to vote'', should we allow manifestly ignorant people to have the right to vote?

In libertarian/aristocratic Wonderland we shouldn't, in the real world to deprive people of their rights usually comes with a cost... and collective deprive is usually followed by collective costs.

Another example: Why should the State prevent individuals from sending their little children into labor? Why should the state enforce compulsory education on all our young?

Because, a lower class family with little education and living on a day-by-day basis will find it much more reasonable to make the son join the ''income-source'' instead of making more sacrifices to allow that kid into reaching higher levels of education than theirs. If allowed for said habit to continually exist the kid would never advance past the parent's class and would, consequentially, inherit all their risky habits, poor decision making and could possibly be hit by an outer event(like an economic crisis) that makes him fall even deeper into the social scale... compulsory education forces the kid into acquiring new knowledge and habits that might be enough to put him into a more ''autonomous'' and ''secure'' social position, effectively making him less of a burden to society and less of a possible liability as well(let's remember that underclasses have a tendency toward deviant criminal activity).

[Condottiere 40K]

We're supposed to be protected from our own stupidity, that's what parents were put on this earth to do. The State is just an extension of that concept.

Upto a certain point, after which others have to be protected from our stupidity.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Universal Healthcare is still far cheaper to the consumer or tax payer than private insurance. See Canada or any Scandinavian country, ridiculous your supporting private health insurance simply because its "private" or Universal healthcare isnt a service recognized by some achaic 18th century document. Time to evolve. The Airforce is unconstitutional as well.

[Raubritter]

Please tell me why you value semantics more than people's lives?

Thats another catchy question in the same style as "people be protected form their own stupidity".
Peoples lives? People, adult peopel, can take responsibility for their own and know which kind of healthcare and insurance they need.
I set peoples lives above anything else. Thats why i damn force and thiefery above everything else!

I'm fine with being foced to buy something

Its against the bill of rights to force someone to buy services under force.
If you go fine with that, you can make such decisions also voluntary. But you and no one else has the right to force to do also. This would be the first stept to a state like the soviet union.

Hey, "you don't buy this anyway" you will pay for school your hole life. You will also pay the public school for the sons of doctors and other ones which could afford these services for their children anyway.

MathiasOfAthens
Universal Healthcare is still far cheaper

Iam to old to waste anymore time un such BS.



Freedome of decision is more important than any kind of security politicans try to sell you.



Universal Healthcare is still far cheaper to the consumer or tax payer than private insurance. See Canada or any Scandinavian country,

Where a veterinarian can do way quicker blood tests just because hes privat than the government runned hospitals?

Hey, socialism didn't worked because the russians are "lazy" or "stupid", they aren't. Socialsm didn't work because socialism itself is the problem. I can't work. Government institutions always need foce, otherwise they would be free enterprise. And force is something against human nature.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Thats another catchy question in the same style as "people be protected form their own stupidity".
Peoples lives? People, adult peopel, can take responsibility for their own and know which kind of healthcare and insurance they need.

But our point is, they can't take responsibility for themselves. You can see evidence of that by looking at the hundreds of thousand of uninsured people who require hospital treatment every year in the USA.

Answer this question without dodging again: why do you prefer people dying or being disabled to being forced to do something you would do anyway?

Hey, "you don't buy this anyway" you will pay for school your hole life. You will also pay the public school for the sons of doctors and other ones which could afford these services for their children anyway.

A small price to pay if it means I also have to pay for those who can't afford it. Ultimately the price will be cheaper for me than private schooling, because much of the tax will come from tax types I don't pay (coorporation tax for instance).

This would be the first stept to a state like the soviet union.

Hey, socialism didn't worked because the russians are "lazy" or "stupid", they aren't. Socialsm didn't work because socialism itself is the problem. I can't work. Government institutions always need foce, otherwise they would be free enterprise. And force is something against human nature.

I can't think of any welfare states that are anything like the Soviet Union.

We aren't discussing the Soviet Union. We're discussing the welfare states of western liberal democracies. The two incomparable.

Iam to old to waste anymore time un such BS..

From reading your posts I'd say you aren't older than 17.



How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
And how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
And how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

[Raubritter]

But our point is, they can't take responsibility for themselves.

I this way of thinking you must regulate every kind of human activity because people could harm themself. You must regulate every kind of property because someone could do something stupid. You must force people to buy the services the social engineers toke for the right services which they would need.
Its an anti individual, tyrannical way of thinking which sees men not as a being to born and live free but as a stupid, allure performed animal which need someone to manage their lives.

A small price to pay if it means I also have to pay for those who can't afford it.

Even if someone is so poor he can't afford basic medical support, its not your right or anyone else to steal from another to help this person.

Ultimately the price will be cheaper for me than private schooling, because much of the tax will come from tax types I don't pay (coorporation tax for instance).

Do you have any idea how much one year in school for a kid the taxpayer costs? Its a fortune.
And because in such a system the state tries to create a school which should fit for every child, in the end it fits for no one.
Imagine the parents of maybee 16 children would hire a private teacher. That would cost every parents a doller evey hour. Studies showed all the time that homeschooled children are way more smarter, socially competent and show more initiative than the ones i public schools.

Make things cheaper because every one is forced to pay isn't just wrong, its a lie.

I can't think of any welfare states that are anything like the Soviet Union.

Because you don't know anything about the subject matter, but badmouthing our species talking trash about what peoples decisions as stupid.

From reading your posts I'd say you aren't older than 17.

I guess you are leftist teenager which thinks declairing acts as robbery and deprivation of liberty for the higher good gives him some kind of moral advantages.
But is does not, its the same way of thinking the National socialists had.

Answer this question without dodging again: why do you prefer people dying or being disabled to being forced to do something you would do anyway?

Dodging again, showes us again the arrogant boastfulness mindset of yours. Iam accountable to no one, you wanna steal for the higher good, you wanna force, you have to make account for that.

If people would buy it anyway, they don't need to be forced. Its against our nature and if people are being forced they will conspire against a system which force them to do something they don't want.

" People dying, people dying." All the socialists, which declared in the first point that people are to stupid being trusted make their own decisions are now full of compassion for the poor people which are dying becaus they can't afford basic needs of medicare... its so sad. Whuhuu, :,[
The last time i checked the numbers more people died by doctors mistakes than by sicknesses. Because doctors are overworked and than ofcourse make more mistakes.
But maybee some medicare financed doctor in clinical psychology should treat you for the mentaly illness of sociopathy.

You wanna help people? Go to the soupe kitchen. Grab a broom. Just do something before spreading this garbage over the internet demanding a nannystate because a one-tenth of a percent of people are to stupid to tie their shoes.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

I this way of thinking you must regulate every kind of human activity because people could harm themself. You must regulate every kind of property because someone could do something stupid. You must force people to buy the services the social engineers toke for the right services which they would need.

I'm an idiot. I make mistakes all the time. But there's a difference between most mistakes and dying as a result of your incompetence.

Even if someone is so poor he can't afford basic medical support, its not your right or anyone else to steal from another to help this person.

Of course it is. In this case your right to liberty is infringing on their right to life. Only someone completely lacking in empathy could choose murder over being forced to do something they would anyway.

Studies showed all the time that homeschooled children are way more smarter, socially competent and show more initiative than the ones i public schools.

[Stark of Winterfell]

Studies showed all the time that homeschooled children are way more smarter, socially competent and show more initiative than the ones i public schools.

Which studies? School is where kids learn social interaction. Home schooled kids need extensive extra curricular activities to meet and interact with other peers their age.