Consider High Fructose Corn Syrup ... why do you think it's such a cheap alternative to sugar? Because corn is subsidized by the Government ... and then the Government turns around and tells us it's un-healthy for us.

Originally Posted by peterp1964

I hear the drone manufacturers are buttering-up a bunch in the Government in an effort to unleash their products on The People. Obviously, The People don't want this new form of surveillance. But do the corporate Galts care ? of course not...their lobbyists will get the job done and thousands of drones will start roaming our skies looking down at our every move like we're Afghanistanis or something...

What's the problem, exactly?

First off, I hear apologists for State power often using the idea that if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. Now, it will be harder to hide it.

Second, with the vast network of laws and rules so many support imposed on all of us, what's the problem with actually enforcing them?

Are you trying to create a system of arbitrary power where first you create a hammer for use at will, and then default to the whims of whoever is in power to now use that hammer only on some of those breaking the law? Or is the goal the clear, consistent, non arbitrary forced compliance of as many people as you can get to follow the law on a consistent, non arbitrary basis?

It sures seems to me that if you want so many laws on so many things, that actually forcing compliance as broadly as possible is the very point. Unless of course, all you really want is a political weapon cocked and loaded so you can use it against chosen targets at will, while letting others skate.

Drones will be a tool to up compliance and enforcement on the vast number of laws. If they are on the books, they should be enforced. Or are we now to understand there is a right to violate the law?

I almost couldn't believe what a staunch libertarian just said, until I remembered that he works for a drone company.

Originally Posted by thunder1

I almost couldn't believe what a staunch libertarian just said, until I remembered that he works for a drone company.

I'm not surprised by your confusion. You've never demonstrated a thorough grasp of the ideas you reject.

Not one thing I stated contradicts a single position I have ever espoused.

Laws should be 100% enforced if at all possible. Never have I once argued that there is a legal right to violate law.

What you're reading wrong is taking expression of the above, as agreement with the morass of law being created. To not have a police State one does not avoid and unjustly and arbitrarily enforce at whim or will a vast array of strangling laws, tolerable solely because of lax or uneven enforcement or thr ability to evade detection.

The sustainable and morally consistent position is to limit the laws in the first place so their just and thorough enforcement effects only people violating negative rights.

David Brin was right. There will be no privacy if there is any now. The issue is not hiding yourself or your actions, or the happenstance evasion of law actually on the books. Arbitrary enforcement is no better than what Kings did.

The point is making sure what you do is no one else's buisnees and you cannot be harmed by the State even when in full view.

I totally want drones cruising my neighborhood. Armed

Originally Posted by MtnGoat

Not one thing I stated contradicts a single position I have ever espoused.

Of course not. Nothing you say ever does.

Originally Posted by thunder1

Of course not. Nothing you say ever does.

Then it should be easy for you to show a contradiction between my other positions and this one.

Your misunderstanding of basic ideas does not represent sufficient evidence of a contradiction. I've always espoused 100% enforcement, though a shallow understanding of the difference between law enforcement and opposition to many laws may cause some confusion, yes.

Originally Posted by MtnGoat

Then it should be easy for you to show a contradiction between my other positions and this one.

You have strenuously advocated limited government, and individual privacy. Yet drones flying over US neighborhoods doesn't strike you as big government, or an intrusion into privacy.

Originally Posted by thunder1

You have strenuously advocated limited government, and individual privacy. Yet drones flying over US neighborhoods doesn't strike you as big government, or an intrusion into privacy.

Limited government I already alluded to, in my previous explanation.

The limits to governance, to be sustainable and consistent with rational rule of law, must apply to the limitation of law itself and what it can cover. Limiting enforcement as a mechanism to protect freedom and privacy is merely sidestepping the actual problem, which is the laws themselves. It also undermines the entire point of rule of law, which is enforcing the law equally and not in an arbitrary fashion.

When I say big govt, I do not mean govt of a particular size in terms of spending or manpower, I mean it's legal reach.

Privacy, as noted, is on life support at best. Soon it will not exist. The ability to enforce all laws is growing by leaps and bounds. Until recently, the breathing space still existing via the inability to enforce them was one of the few unintended results of a lack of technology, and this breathing space provided respite from all these laws.

Now, the ability to enforce them improves daily and to argue they should not be enforced begs the question of why have them at all, if it's intolerable to enforce them all. After all, enforcing more and more of them is becoming ever easier. Before, it was not a question because the capability did not exist. Now, the capability will exist.

And arguing not to enforce them also creates the other fundamental contradiction...arguing that laws should exist to protect people, while arguing simultaneously that breaking them and not being caught is what provides one aspect of privacy. So the point of law is to have it and only enforce it sometime, on purpose, to protect people's privacy..... from the laws claimed to protect them?

I appreciate your posting a reasoned point with a good question.

Originally Posted by thunder1

You have strenuously advocated limited government, and individual privacy. Yet drones flying over US neighborhoods doesn't strike you as big government, or an intrusion into privacy.

It is the disconnect in the espoused ideology where the virtual rubber meets the actual road. When it affects the bottom line the silence is deafening. Making tools for the "thug" pays the bills, simple as that.

Have you found an actual contradiction, or is claiming but not showing cutting the mustard?

Originally Posted by leccyflyer

It is the disconnect in the espoused ideology where the virtual rubber meets the actual road. When it affects the bottom line the silence is deafening. Making tools for the "thug" pays the bills, simple as that.

Clothing, housing and feeding oneself makes it oh so much easier to rail against the thugs. Even better when you're doing it on his dime.

Lol.. such a high level of critique

Originally Posted by logan5

Consider High Fructose Corn Syrup ... why do you think it's such a cheap alternative to sugar? Because corn is subsidized by the Government ... and then the Government turns around and tells us it's un-healthy for us.

Like tobacco, and of course at one time it was asbestos. We get screwed twice at least with most things government does.

Originally Posted by MtnGoat

Have you found an actual contradiction, or is claiming but not showing cutting the mustard?

The contradiction is as Thunder has described it. You bang on about the state being the "thug" on a regular basis, but appear oblivious to the fact tgat your profession is directly involved in providing the tools for "the thug" to do that and express no misgivings about that. It appears as a huge blind spot as if a "somebody else's problem field" has been erected around that subject.