Government...and the promotion of virtue.

To "promote virtue" will always be an imposition on those who do not agree about what the nature of virtue is, and is notably the point of the comment i made about the "virtuous" right in my post.

I advise you to keep your sophistry for those who will be impressed, FdA, i'm not going to bite.

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Not conceding at all Cyclo...I just withdrew from the thread in the face of intractable stances.

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Setanta wrote:

To "promote virtue" will always be an imposition on those who do not agree about what the nature of virtue is...

And you would accuse me of sophistry?

There is a significant difference between actual and perceived imposition. The government promotes charitable contributions by providing tax relief for those who are charitable. This does not impose charity upon anyone who does not wish to contribute to the welfare of his fellow citizens. The rejection of charity does not result in ruinous tax burdens for the uncharitable which might impose a behavior not otherwise consistent with that citizen's philosophy or preferences.

There will be instances where the converse of promoting virtue, deterring vice, will definitely be seen as an imposition. For the pedophile, the government's prohibition of child pornography, must be quite an imposition, however, in this prohibition, the government is acting to preserve and advance society.

Society cannot tolerate (let alone embrace) all behaviors that are aberrant to its organizing principles. This is the nature of a society. The aberrant citizen is free to disassociate himself from the constraints of the society which finds his behavior aberrant, but in so doing he must give up the benefits of that society. This is a matter of simple social equity.

Setanta wrote:

... and is notably the point of the comment i made about the "virtuous" right in my post.

There is always the possibility that government, whether manipulated by the virtuous Right or the virtuous Left (and if you believe that the threat lies only to the Right than you are more partisan than I supposed) will breach the terms of the Social Contract. If, however, the prescription for this possible societal ill is the removal of government from the consideration of virtuous behavior - preservation and advancement of society - than the contract cannot but be rendered null and void.

Whether you will admit it or not, most of the institutions you take for granted are based upon the concept that government is very much involved in the consideration and promotion of societal virtues.

setanta wrote:

I advise you to keep your sophistry for those who will be impressed, FdA, i'm not going to bite.

One man's reasoned argument is another's sophistry.

Thanks for the advice Set, but considering I didn't invite you to bite (damn, it's tough to rise above the temptation here), I think I'll continue to post as I please.

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FdA wrote:

. . . By choosing to answer a question not actually asked, and by injecting commentary on the "virtuous right," he has anchored the discussion firmly in the Political forum.

Here's your sophistry . . . it was already in the Political Forum when i responded. As usual, you take a few comments and run with them, in the attempt to create strawmen from what someone with whom you would like to disagree has written. I don't intend to play. Your written diarrhea in response to so few lines from me stand out as an example of your sophistry. You attempt to deconstruct what i've written to authorize your rant.

Have fun playin' all alone in your silly little sand box.

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Quote:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a 1998 Alabama law banning the sale of sex toys in the state, ruling the Constitution doesn't include a right to sexual privacy.

In a 2-1 decision overturning a lower court, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state has a right to police the sale of devices that can be sexually stimulating.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Sex%20Toys%20Ban

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Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:

Not conceding at all Cyclo...I just withdrew from the thread in the face of intractable stances.

Not to give you a hard time, but I've seen this happen quite a bit when you are faced with contradictions or holes in your argument. When you can't answer a simple question that should support your entire argument, you may want to consider the fact that you are wrong on the issue....

But, that's another thread, and I ain't trying to start a fight with you, so I'll drop it. Cheers!

Cycloptichorn

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Of course, this question/discussion has a proper home in either 'politics' or 'philosophy'.

Part of my reason for beginning it was to, hopefully, bring more clearly into view the modern intersection between Straussian neoconservative notions and Christian Right notions regarding 'virtue' and what ought to be a government's role in fostering it.

The two groups have quite different rationales at the bottom of what they are doing, but it is a point of practical accord and comradeship.

I think it is pretty easy to make the case that either presents a significant danger to liberal society. It's pretty easy because both explicitly decry liberalism as the sure road to disaster.

The link in my earlier post points to notions of 'virtue' which arise from a corner of the Religious Right.

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I have always been amused by the demur denials of the right about their dedication to a notion of virtue. With "family values," "the moral majority" and "faith-based initiatives" trumpeted about for so many years, you'd think they'd find it hard to lie so often with a straight face.

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Setanta wrote:

FdA wrote:
. . . By choosing to answer a question not actually asked, and by injecting commentary on the "virtuous right," he has anchored the discussion firmly in the Political forum.

Here's your sophistry . . . it was already in the Political Forum when i responded. As usual, you take a few comments and run with them, in the attempt to create strawmen from what someone with whom you would like to disagree has written. I don't intend to play. Your written diarrhea in response to so few lines from me stand out as an example of your sophistry. You attempt to deconstruct what i've written to authorize your rant.

Have fun playin' all alone in your silly little sand box.

Well as they say, if you can't stand the heat...

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blatham wrote:

Quote:
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a 1998 Alabama law banning the sale of sex toys in the state, ruling the Constitution doesn't include a right to sexual privacy.

In a 2-1 decision overturning a lower court, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state has a right to police the sale of devices that can be sexually stimulating.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Sex%20Toys%20Ban

"If the people of Alabama in time decide that a prohibition on sex toys is misguided, or ineffective, or just plain silly, they can repeal the law and be finished with the matter," the court said.

"On the other hand, if we today craft a new fundamental right by which to invalidate the law, we would be bound to give that right full force and effect in all future cases including, for example, those involving adult incest, prostitution, obscenity, and the like."

An entirely sensible opinion.

There is never going to be unanimity on what is a virtue and what is a vice, but there can be a majority view. The Constitution is the failsafe mechanism to protect us from the tyranny of the majority, but even if one subscribes to the Living Constitution school of interpretation, the list of rights protected by the Constitution is not all encompassing and endless.

The people of Alabama, through their elected officials, have expressed the belief that the sale of sex toys is a vice -- a practice that is injurious to an ordered society. The 11 Circuit, by virtue of its ruling, found that there is no Constitutionally protected right that would be infringed upon by this decision of the people of Alabama. If it proceeds to the US Supreme Court and there it is found that there is indeed a Constitutional right which must be protected from the Alabama statute, that will become society's decision on the subject.

It seems to be working quite well to me.

Ultimately, someone might be disappointed if the the US Supreme Court establishes a Constitutional right that prohibits the banning of sex-toys, because it might open the door for the legalizing of other, more harmful vices, or because it is simply not a democratic means to resolve the issue but those are the rules that we have agreed to play by in return for the benefits of an ordered society.

Of course a Supreme Court decision is not set in stone for all time. The political process can and will, eventually, result in changes in the makeup and rulings of the court that more closely mirror the people's perception of virtue and vice.

In the main though, it should be the collective perceptions of the people that drive the perceptions of the courts and not the other way around. The means to assure the proper dynamics of political change, and still preserve the failsafe nature of the Constitution is to apply a fairly conservation interpretative process to the Law of The Land.

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While some deplore the evil right for presuming to prohibit the sale of sex toys, others think it is A okay that Santa Monica, California, has decreed a fine of $2,500 a day for not cutting your hedges!
Lose your hedge trimmers there, and you wouldn't be able to afford any sex toys anyway.

It boggles the mind some of the twists and turns we take to define was is virtuous, what is not, what is moral, what is not, what is saintly, what is sin. I suppose it has always been that way.

And while every law on the books has a moral value, some of this stuff is so frivolous and/or intrusive that it trivializes those things that do impact on the inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

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Re: Government...and the promotion of virtue.

blatham wrote:

Ought government to be in the job of promoting 'virtue' in its citizenry?

A fundamental notion of the Straussian neoconservatives, now a powerful influence on this White House, is that government indeed ought to involve itself in raising the level of virtue of citizens. It's an interesting question and not a simple one, I think. I recently put the question to two friends, both thoughtful, well-educated and liberal of persuasion. The first, an education administrator replied, without pause, "Definitely not." The second, a writer and parole officer replied, again no delay, "Yes".

I'm not sure Straussian neoconserviatives believe government ought to promote virtue. Here is a quote from Leo Strauss' famous work, Natural Right and History. "The best regime is that in which the best men habitually rule, or aristocracy. Goodness is, if not identical with wisdom, at any rate dependent on wisdom: the best regime would seem to be the rule of the wise, In fact, wisdom appeared to the classics as that title to rule which is highest according to nature. It would be absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by any regulations; hence the rule of the wise must be absolute rule, It would be equally absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by consideration of the unwise wishes of the unwise; hence the wise rulers ought not to be responsible to the unwise subjects. To make the rule of the wise dependent on election by the unwise or consent of the unwise would mean to subject what is by nature higher to control by what is by nature lower, i.e., to act against nature." He seems to be promoting tyrrany, Blatham, not virtue.

I believe they do pay lip service to virtue, but only so far as it keeps the masses controllable. Think about the effect 9/11 had on the masses: it united a nation. It united most of the world in righteous indignation. Think about the messages we got fromour gov't after 9/11. "You are either with us, or with the terrorists." Most people saw the U.S. as representing the side of virtue. After all, we didn't turn airplanes into missiles, they did. All the good citizens of this nation waited to be told what to do by our president. Think about his messages about the rightness of this cause, we had to fight against the axis of evil... By doing what they've done, using the rhetoric they've chosen, they've already inflated the level of virtue in our citizens. Subtle, don't you think? Or scary?

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

In the main though, it should be the collective perceptions of the people that drive the perceptions of the courts and not the other way around. The means to assure the proper dynamics of political change, and still preserve the failsafe nature of the Constitution is to apply a fairly conservation interpretative process to the Law of The Land.

I agree w/this, and am glad that people can't just arbitrarily reassign value to concepts outlined in our Constitution. It would be a much more dangerous gov't to be allowed that sort of freedom.

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I have always believed the laws of any community, state, or nation should reflect the collective values of the people. The United States started out that way. The entire constituion is a combination of practical bylaws and value statements.

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The notion that the constitution is a set of bylaws is laughably asburd. As John Marshall had it, the citizenry would not have written a constitution as the a priori basis for all succeeding legislation were it not intended to be the supreme law of the nation--bylaws are regulations made by lesser governmental authorities to regulate local affairs.

Still more absurd is a contention that there are any value statements in the constitution. Amendments to the constitution might in some cases be described as enshrining values, such as freedom of speech or the press--however, even these were promulgated as the necessary concommitants to assure a healthy democracy in which the government as constituted would operate most effectively to: " . . . form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

What people like to contend are "values" promoted by government are, to my mind, pragmatic matters of governance. To choose examples of "leftist" values which prononents would like to impose, take smoking and nutrition as health matters. I do not object to bans on smoking in public places, even though that sometimes inconveniences me, as i am a cigarette smoker. However, a reasonable case can be made that a government (local or state) has a compelling interest in protecting the health of those citizens who do not choose to use tobacco. This week the local talk radio station to which i listen while at work has had several programs on nutrition. One of the more "radical" of the guests proposed that government ban all foods containing trans-fats. This would be in the imposition of a value on others. I would oppose such a notion. I cannot conceive a circumstance in which one could reasonably make the case that the state has a compelling interest in protecting people from the harm they are alleged to suffer when consuming products containing trans-fats (potato chips, "snack-food" cakes, and the like). To prohibit them, without being able to clearly show that the state has a compelling interest in protecting citizens from the consequences of their personal choices, would be an imposition in my opinion.

I feel the same way about attempts by the government to enter bedrooms, and by government bans on stem-cell research, or the disbursement of funds to planned parenthood programs, or HIV programs which are not based upon a principle of sexual abstinence. In such cases, i see an impostion on the freedom of others for which there is no compelling interest on the part of government, other than the pandering of politicians to the religiously induced prejudices of a vocal and agitative minority.

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Its all in one's definition of virtue I guess.

I agree that the U.S. government should not be in the business of banning stem cell research, abortion, sex toys, or Big Macs, though I have no objection of any kind if people reach an agreement that they do not wish to be subjected to these things in their local communities and forbid them by local ordinance.

I have no problem with the U.S. government withholding funds from programs/projects. This is not the same thing as banning however much the 'left' wishes to make it appear that it is.

I am a long time reformed smoker now and do not wish to be subjected to second hand smoke; however I strenuously object to government imposition against smoking in all public places whether I am to be subjected to such smoke or not. In other words, I think its fine to declare government buildings off limits to smoking as everybody, smokers and nonsmokers alike, share these facilities. But for the government to say no private restaurant or bar can allow smoking to me violates all principles of private property ownership. I can see requiring a smoking establishment to post at the door that smoking is permitted inside so that people can choose to enter or not. But if a restaurant or bar wants to caters to smokers, while the use of tobacco is legal, I cannot see how the government can justify forbidding that policy. This to me is improper imposition of virtue.

I also object to coercive restrictions on use of private property because particular value is placed on the wildlife or plant life indigenous to that property. This is especially coercive if no compensation is provided the land owner. I can see the government acquiring land and selling it to private owners with agreement of how the land will and will not be used. But to pass laws after the fact that restricts a citizens' rights to use their property as originally intended is simply unAmerican.

So you see, it isn't only the pandering to religious induced prejudices of a vocal and agitative minority that is the problem. It is pandering to any special interest groups that is questionable virtuek even those issues favored by the left. The Federal government imposing a one-size-fits-all virtue on the populace is especially wrong.

I support the local community putting whatever ordinances in place, within constitutional boundaries, their citizens wish to be in place.

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I would agree that pandering to any special interest group is wrong, in any case in which it cannot reasonably be shown that government has a compelling interest in the matter. I mention the religiously fervent because of extent to which such people themselves loudly and publicly call for government regulation of private matters.

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Foxfyre wrote:

While some deplore the evil right for presuming to prohibit the sale of sex toys, others think it is A okay that Santa Monica, California, has decreed a fine of $2,500 a day for not cutting your hedges!
Lose your hedge trimmers there, and you wouldn't be able to afford any sex toys anyway.

It boggles the mind some of the twists and turns we take to define was is virtuous, what is not, what is moral, what is not, what is saintly, what is sin. I suppose it has always been that way.

And while every law on the books has a moral value, some of this stuff is so frivolous and/or intrusive that it trivializes those things that do impact on the inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

You've hit the nail on the head Fox.

Many of the folks who are so outraged with what they see as an imposition of values are merely reflecting their personal bias as to what virtue may be.

What is the difference between a government that decides that same sex marriage is injurious to society and prohibits it, and one that decides that hate speech is, and prohibits it?

Assuming that both governments are simply reflecting the majority view on these subjects, there is no real difference. Those that find a material difference are exhibiting their personal views on the issues.

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The most frustrating thing to me is the entirely arbitrary way it is decided which issues will be decided by the courts, which issues will be declared the law of the land by our elected officials, and which issues will be decided by the general population. In almost all cases, those pushing for a particular outcome will want it to be decided by the group most likely support their own views.

Take the gay marriage amendment as one example--and I do not and will not debate the merits of that here. One group wanted the amendment to be put on the ballot and let the people decide if the definition of marriage would be changed. Others wanted Congress to decide one way or the other but no amendment. Still others want the courts to decide the issue or for it to be left to the state or local communities to decide. The same applies to all sensistive issues such as affirmative action, abortion, human cloning, etc.

Personally, on those issues that don't fall into the realm of inalienable rights or that don't require a degree of practical uniformity among the states, I would prefer decisions be made via local referendum and thus reflect the moral values of the local community. Those who want a particular outcome, however, frequently strongly resist allowing a popular vote to decide the issue.

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Interesting and thought-provoking question. I suspect the real issue is 'what is included, and what excluded, from the virtues government might justifiably promote?'.

The government already very actively promotes the virtue of tolerance for people of various backgrounds and behaviors. I doubt that anyone here would propose that this shouldn't be done.

The government promotes the virtues of thrift and saving by insuring personal bank deposits and through tax-deferred savings programs..

The government promotes various virtues relating to the conservation of natural resources and protecting the environment through educational programs, regulations, and tax subsidies.

The goverenment promotes charity through tax exemptions.

The government promotes religious observance, also through tax exemptions.

Given this fairly broad range of virtues already promoted by most Western governments, I find it difficult to make any general statements of exclusion. Except to note that almost any law or program, too rigorously enforced will eventually become intolerable.

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Government...and the promotion of virtue.

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