Liberty and Vice--on a soapbox

[Tiassa]

The first thing to note is that I picked this up looking for stuff on the War Against Drugs in the United States. I would hope, then, that nobody's surprised when I cite my source:
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/vices.htm

However ... this isn't entirely about getting stoned.

The following is quoted from Vices are not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty, by Lysander Spooner, 1875.

(from Section 1)

In vices, the very essence of crime--that is, the design to injure the person or property of another--is wanting.

It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practices a vice with any such criminal intent; he practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.

Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property ....

Mind you, I'm always behind well-thought libertarianism and anarchism, so of course some of my sympathies lie with this brand of rhetoric. However, a couple of fun points I thought I might pull out:

Do we accept the maxim that "there can be no crime without a criminal intent"? What limitations arise?

It sounds nice to me, and even idyllic in its more refined moments. Spooner is railing at society in general, and also the Pope (though I'm given to the notion that this was specifically on the negative potential of Papal infallibility). In that broader context, what the heck constitutes a vice, these days?

If we look at Spooner's assessment that "Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness", what can we say of the public will that will finance pro sports arenas but not reasonable educational standards? Does the idea of vice affect a body social?

Were I to assert the following: That economy is a vice in the sense that Americans, at least, derive personal pleasure from accumulation of wealth as opposed to spending of it .... Now, I could care less if we agree with the assertion there (I'm just throwing it out as an example). What I'm seeking is the application of vice ... does the body social act like the individual? Maybe Joe masturbates too much--orgasms being his vice. Jill might have a hidden meth addiction. But could "America" or "Seattle" or "California" (or any collectively identified body of individuals) enact its own conceptual vice? Economy? Dominion? Identity?

For the record ... there are no wrong answers. Well, okay, but they're wrong answers for about any questions if they're wrong for something this speculative. But for my own liberal sympathies, I'm kicking myself for having ignored Lysander Spooner's name in the past. So I'll probably come back to this essay through the thread. But heavens be kind ... I'm not even sure if my part of the above makes any sense.

thanx,
Tiassa

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

[This message has been edited by tiassa (edited June 30, 2000).]

 

[Bowser]

<hr>
'But could "America" or "Seattle" or "California" (or any collectively identified body of individuals) enact its own conceptual vice? Economy? Dominion? Identity?'
<hr>

If I understand the question correctly, yes, they can and do define social evils. Each community does, that is, apply its own identity to its local laws--providing that it doesn't step on the toes of the larger community.


------------------
It's all very large.

 

[666]

I'm not to sure exactly what your getting at. So if this sounds off the wall thats why.

A crime can be commited with out criminal intent. Take for example Jill with meth addiction. She may not fully intend to brack into the house and steal money to found the addiction, but does. of course life is not all black and white. there are those who will intend to do the crime with malice. For example the night stalker. He did it becuase he liked it, and with full intent.

Bowser,

I have to aggre with you. In my local paper a while back there was an artical about how the suprem court struck down several local laws that put trade restrictions on countrys that they felt were violating human rights. They clearly stomped on some elses toes.

 

[Tiassa]

Sixes--

You're not off the wall at all. In fact, I would choose to split a finer hair and that's about it:

]Take for example Jill with meth addiction. She may not fully intend to brack into the house and steal money to found the addiction, but does. of course life is not all black and white. there are those who will intend to do the crime with malice.

Jill's meth addiction is the vice here. Certainly, she may not intend harm--that is, she might argue an aspect of that intent in court. But the act of theft to support her habit is overtly harmful to another, which renders it the crime.

In its most naked and daring form, Spooner's position might be interpreted, in the modern American sense of meth addiction, to indicate that our labor-related drug testing, subsequent economic disempowerment, and lack of educational resources contribute to the criminal aspect of the drug vice. Spooner, in later "chapters" (each "chapter" is about a hundred words long; maybe two hundred) describes the right of a person to "experiment" with vices and determine that which brings their self happiness. Specifically, Spooner drives at the idea that no body of men has the right to determine the results of those experiments for others. This is interesting, especially in terms of Jill's meth addiction. To the one hand, she has the right to discover if the pleasures of methamphetamine outweigh its detriments. To the other is the obligation of other individuals to put up with her while she does.

It might be that Spooner and other individualists, anarchists, and philosophers, are driving after such fine distinctions as this: that if the worst you or I must put with from Jill's time with methamphetamine is loud, obnoxious behavior and hospital expenses when her heart explodes, so be it--this is America and in its most demanding form, that's what it's here for. If we have to put up with thievery, we should prosecute the thievery. However what if Jill's not actually a meth addict, and finds herself stealing because she's been evicted because our punishment of vice--drug testing and disqualification for employment--simply because she performed the experiment with meth. While her conclusions don't actually matter without moral assumptions concerning meth, our punishment of her lack of agreement with our idea of propriety as attends the vice of drugs might actually foster the continuance of the negative aspects of the vice. That is, because we have made conclusions about her behavior based on a pre-employment drug screening, we might cut off options which permit Jill to progress in a non-criminal, non vice-related manner.

As long as we're on drug vices, I would like to offer a bit of my own substance-related recklessness: that once I started experimenting with drugs, I found them to be utterly unlike their stereotypical schoolborne warnings. I might say that, having finally done it, I still didn't understand why people get addicted to coke. Perhaps they believe all that crap about how intense the rush is; there's better drugs with less harmful effect, but people seem to believe the propaganda when they get around to doing it. By punishing the vice, the culture made it quite difficult for anyone to get real, well-thought information about their drugs. Textbook definitions didn't warn sternly enough; public service announcements lied about the dangers. High Times magazine is wonderful, but since everyone involved is pro-drug, the political biases are too naked.

Of the culture, I might note a well-intentioned meth bill going before the US Congress would assualt the First Amendment so that the act of posting on the internet instructions concerning how to save someone's life when they've overdosed on speed would constitute a felony offense. We punish our vices indeed; in the mad rush to trap the vice, we open the floodgates to the shadowy potential.

Crap ... I'm almost pointless by now.

***

But.... It's not entirely about drugs. What about those whose vice is sex? Prostitution is still criminalized in this society, as well as certain forms of consentual sexual expression. (I am not referring to sexual intercourse with children; while Spooner does offer criticisms of parenting, I perceived no notion that a seven-year old needs to experiment with the benefits of fellatio--nor, for the record, should it be construed that I would suggest such experimentation. I hold with the principle that sex with children, despite all else, invites harm to the child and still--NAMBLA can bite themselves--qualifies as a crime.)

What of less identified vices? Could money be a vice? (Ask a day trader, though he might give you better vices than money itself.) If we accept Spooner's notion that a man practices his vice for his own happiness solely, what, then, of the acquisition of money, goods, or status?

I must be careful there, for in any argumentative theatre in which money is accepted as a vice, I'm prone to hauling out my soapbox; suffice it to say Software, sports arenas, and prisons, but not schools; guess which one of the above doesn't show an immediate capital return? "Someone's gotta pay for it," said my father, the Capitalist. Boy, are we ever ....

I would suggest that we start by identifying vices, but that might lead to us actualizing Spooner's concern and arguing over whether whose behavior was actually a vice or not.

Okay, I'll shut up now. I promise

thanx for putting up w/it,
Tiassa

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

[666]

Tiassa,

What you have to look at is the fact that manny of "Jill's" actions while under her vice historicaly lead to infrigments on thr rights of others. For example the hospital expenes incured by everyone when her hearts explodes. Why should I be forced to pay for anyone's vice.

As far as the pre-employment drug screaning that "prevents" her from going down any other path than crime. One has to take responesibilty for thier own actions. It is well know that to get a job that pays well you will most likley have to take a drug test. Sniff the meth and take the risk. By taking up that vice she forfited most jobs that will pay worth a dam. Historicaly job performance has suffered to the abuse of these types of vices. These are just the choices we have to make in life. If bad things come of them we are the only ones we can blame.

When comes to theses vices there arte those, like your self, who do find a great rush from it and don't become addicted. I have been first hand witness to the those who so lucky. I don't know how long toke up this vice, but over a long period of time habit, which is no longer a vice, sets in. Bringing with it many of our social ills.


Ware do we draw the line between vice and addiction? To me a vice is on the surface harmless, but when gone with out check becomes harfull. Wether for the individual or for to the country as a whole. Who many sucessfull herion addicts have you seen? Now once again we have to define another term, "success". One can say that a rock star who's life has been torn apart by an addiction to herion is successfull becuase he has a lot of money, but I am talking about average everyday Joe. With the high finace of the rocord industry there lives fall apart and in so many cases never come back together again.

One can argue that this is the persons own freedom of choice, but this freedom most often directly infringes upon the freedoms of others. wether it's the path of destruction left in thier own wake, not only in life, but the destruction bleads over to lives of others or the extream finacial drain it has on the entire country. Posibly even robbing valuble resources from those who are not chosing to leave this path of destruction. So I come full circle. How far do we let individual freedom go? Do we let infringe upon the indiviual freedom of others? If we do then we have to pick one person and tell them that we will give up or freedom for only him.

 

[ozarky]

"How far do we let individual freedom go ?
Those are just about the same words that Bill Clinton used as his excuse to send police searching through Goverment Housing Projects in search of guns.

SMILE IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY

 

[666]

Oz,

Yes, but that is taking it past the limit. Which is something that politicians are good at.

 

[FyreStar]

Greetings -

This may miss the general thrust of your posts, tiassa, but there are a few statements to which I must respond.

First, I take exception to some of Spooner's statements.

**Spooner: "But no one ever practices a vice with any such criminal intent;"

That is rather ridiculous, I think. Man cannot act without intent. As a volitional being, he cannot be caused to do something by another's will alone, nor can he perform any action without the use of his mind. It may be argued that the person doesn't know what their actions will cause, or is perhaps under the influence of mind-altering substances, but either situation is a case of irresponsibility on the part of the person. Jill may not have originally intended to become a theif, but by doing the drugs in the first place, she opened herself to that possibility. She willfully did something that she knew could cause her to act recklessly and violate the rights of others.

**Spooner: "..he practices his vice for his own happiness solely,"

This may be poor word choice on his part, but I don't see how happiness could ever be caused by a person's self-admitted vices. If, however, you substitute 'physical pleasure' for 'happiness', his statement would make more sense.

Also, in regards to your statement about the economy being a vice(and I'll keep this brief because I'm running short on time), I submit that the accumulation of money is *NOT* a vice. Money is the physical representation of your labor and productiveness(which is why the welfare system screws things up). However, accumulation of money for its own sake could be construed as a vice, or at least a misguided effort. Wealth is not a cause, it is an effect.

Sincerely,
FyreStar

 

[Tiassa]

Sixes--

Truly, I swear this whole thing wasn't intended to be about drugs, but you gave me quite a bit to think about on 7/5. I wanted to start with the pre-employment drug screenings. For today, I'm reading through a study called Drugs and the Workplace, authored by John Hoffmann and Cindy Larison, of the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. ( http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/new/drugwork.htm --it's a .pdf)

A couple of points that the study raised:

* The study notes, on page 4, that, surprisingly, those respondents who acknowledged drug use showed that they are no more likely to have work-related accidents than other employees. Furthermore:

Some research indicates that drug use leads to accidents only in "high-risk" occupations such as construction work or among machine operators. This seems reasonable given that these occupations require a high degree of manual dexterity that may be impaired by drug use. We explored the relationship between drug use and accidents in "high-risk" occupations, but found no evidence that it exists. These results show clearly the lack of a relationship between drug use and accidents. (pg. 4)

I should add that this pertains to drug use in general; the study states: "Since there is no information available in this data source about on-the-job use, we cannot examine for this possibility." I should note that, of all my friends who use drugs, most don't use at work; the general opinion is that it's not worth it to waste drugs on work-time.

It's worth mentioning, though, of pre-employment screenings, that they might be unnecessary. In the case of Jill's meth addiction, I might expect to see bad hair, rotting teeth, and a generally inappropriate behavior pattern. (Of personal anecdotes, even the recovered crank addicts I know still bellow and draw undue attention to themselves; I don't get it, so I write it up to a characteristic of the drug.) Generally speaking--and I've known enough people stupid enough to use the more dangerous drugs--heroin and crank users generally give enough other reasons to not hire them than a UA. Furthermore, various issues, according to the UC-NORC study, demonstrated that frequent drug and alcohol users were as much as 7 times as likely to be fired from their jobs in the past year (pg. 4 again), and stoners, to say the least, were slightly more prone to quitting their jobs. (pg. 6)

The big issue, though, according to the study, is that these workers who--as the study indicates for its purposes--are no more likely to be in work-related accidents for having used drugs, are as many as 20 times more likely to refuse employment with a company that tests for drugs (pg. 8)

Of quitting and being fired, the study's Conclusions (pg. 9) note the cost of retraining new employees, as well as the cost of unemployment insurance and the general burden of other government assistance. Of drug users' eschewing companies that drug-test, the conclusions imply that drug-testing policies "may have cast a net of deterrence that is too broad and discourages many otherwise capable workers from applying for jobs." There also is mention that there are "few available data on the costs of drug testing, although one must consider not only the direct costs of testing, but also the indirect costs of lost employee time."

Like I said ... you gave me tons to think about. I was a little surprised myself when I saw the NORC study.

-------------------

I might mention that I know drug users (and non-users) who don't drink Budweiser because there's formaldehyde in it. That tells me much about how people learn through, as Spooner puts it--and, I suppose, so do I--experimentation.

When addiction tears apart the addict's life, I often wonder how much of that destruction wouldn't be present if the addict's vice wasn't exclusively black market. Bad heroin kills junkies. Squalid, underground-society shooting galleries contribute to the disease factor. The prohibitive cost makes the junkies desperate for any fix. Crack addiction? I stand with the San Jose Mercury-News ... no matter how you look at crack, it's the government's fault. We owe it to crack addicts to drag them out of the cellar and into the daylight so they can bloody well look at themselves and see what's happening to them. Of more functional drugs--the cost of the black market has proved an ineffective deterrent to drug use. The reason there's so little reliable data about certain drugs is because you can't do the research; e.g.--the very day that the National Institutes of Health held a symposium in Washington, DC, outlining the need for medical marijuana research, Congress passed a resolution declaring that Congress had found marijuana to be dangerous, addictive, and of no medical value. If we stop punishing people's vice--that is, the use of drugs--we can eliminate much of the darkside created by a War Against Drugs. Costs will go down, market-related violence will virtually disappear, intervention and harm reduction will be more effective, as will prevention. Hard drugs will be cleaner, more consistent, thus reducing overdoses, and we always have the option of tacking a "stupid-incentive" into crime sentencing: steal a car, fine, we'll throw you in prison; get geeked out and then steal a car, we'll throw you in prison a little longer, because you're too stupid to maintain your vices safely and have, as a result, committed a crime directly by your behavior, and furthermore, because we can hold you longer since all the hippies aren't wasting bed space in the prisons.

I think the experimentation that individuals undertake with substances will be safer in general, and perhaps even more conservative in execution. Just like I don't drink Budweiser because I consider it poorly made, nor would I buy drugs that I consider to be poorly made. By general trend, that disqualifies a good many illicit drugs.

Aside from the times I did LSD in college and my twenty-four hours of coke experimentation, I simply never used anything that must be manufactured or "processed". Well, okay ... there's beer, which I wholly support, and coffee, to which I have no objection, but, even as a smoker, I can't believe cigarettes are legal, all things considered. I'm also starting to believe that MSG is addictive; I go through phases with it and even suffer withdrawal.

What I'm after is that I think people will make generally intelligent choices. Certainly, I have my doubts about anyone who puts crank in their body (it's got diesel in it for heaven's sake), but I also have a longtime friend who has an affectation for the crap every once in a while, and after four years of toying with it, I have yet to see him display any problem controlling it; in fact, I'm convinced he does it only when he's chasing a woman, because he only does what small amount he buys and that's it for months on end. In fact, about two months ago, he told me he quit because he had started buying tooth polish to clean the nicotine stains off his teeth and realized, What's the point? If he kept up with the crank, he wouldn't have teeth to polish.

The last person I saw hit addiction was my dealer. He's since quit most of his drugs, kept his favorites, and moved to a quiet corner of the country specifically to stay out of people's way.

And therein lies the key; allow people to make intelligent choices, and they probably will.

Speaking of vice ... While I'm droning on and on, it has been pointed out to me that it is time to go get drunk. C'est huh?

later
Tiassa

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

[Tiassa]

For the record, I'm ridiculously sloshed now.

I am more dangerous to society at this moment than I have been for a couple of years; call it stress factors.

But I will submit that alcohol, the legal of the various toxins in my body, is encouraging me to do something violent about whatever the hell's got me so worked up. (Honestly, I don't even know; I'm listening to The Wall for heaven's sake.)

But of all the contraband that I carry in my bloodstream right now, the legal one is the only one that encourages me to violence. I know my intoxicants, and I resent the fact that the most part of my bloodstream is dangerous to my neighbors. As frightening as it is, the only part of me that poses any threat whatsoever is fueled by the legal faction of my vices.

Yeah, Congress knows my vices.

thanx,
Tiassa

"Alcohol--the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." --God ,I love the stuff.

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

[Tiassa]

FyreStar:

Don't ever let me say those aren't good points, but I do think it possible to reconcile the issues. I offer the first four paragraphs, in sequence, of the essay itself (italics reflect web version; not a post-edit for effect):

Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime - that is, the design to injure the person or property of another - is wanting.

I think that's whence Spooner derives the phrases in question. On the "criminal intent" issue, I think we need to draw a clear line. Sixes and I have discussed meth addiction as a vice, and I submit the following comparison:

* Jack's vice is alcohol. He likes it a lot. He's a good drunk, never gets loud or obnoxious. But Jack got in a car wreck while drunk; we'll assume for the sake of argument that, alcohol excluded, Jack is still at fault. Now, are we punishing Jack, if we send him to jail, because he put the bottle to his lips? Because he has beer in his refrigerator and whiskey on the shelf? Or because he got into a car and drove irresponsibly, knowing that he increased his chances of injuring another person? (Spooner, I believe, was not examining the idea that Jack didn't actually want to hurt anyone when he started his car. I believe he is examining the idea that Jack's drinking hurts nobody, his disregard for other people when driving does hurt people.)

* Compare that to Jill's meth addiction. So Jill gets geeky one night and ends up stabbing someone in a streetside argument. Do we punish Jill for the act of putting methamphetamine in her bloodstream, which Spooner would mark as the vice, or for the act of stabbing someone? When she's stealing for a fix, do we punish her for being in withdrawal (a result of the "experiment" of vice), or for the act of depriving another person of property?

Thus, Jack doesn't drink with malice toward anyone; Jill doesn't snort with malice toward anyone. At least, no more than someone might drink coffee while holding a grudge. Jack drinks because he likes it, or thinks he does. Jill snorts because she likes it, or thinks she does. This, I believe, is what Spooner means when he states that no one ever practices vice with criminal intent. Myself ... I don't drink much whiskey; it's not my thing. The experiment showed it doesn't make me happy.

Of the possible cause to act recklessly and violate someone else's rights: We are convicting someone of a crime they haven't committed, save for the fact that we've made it a crime. We have decided, as a body public, that we know the results Jill's meth experiments for her. I remember the anti-drug hysteria of the 1980's, when it was the general trend to assume that we, the people, knew what lay in the hearts of men and women.

On that subject, I submit, from Chapter 8:

In the midst of this endless variety of opinion, what man, or what body of men, has the right to say, in regard to any particular action, or course of action, "we have tried this experiment, and determined every question involved in it? We have determined it, not only for ourselves, but for all others? And, as to all those who are weaker than we, we will coerce them to act in obedience to our conclusions? We will suffer no further experiment or inquiry by any one, and, consequently, no further acquisition of knowledge by anybody?"

People have decided the answer for me; the only reason I know the local black market at all is because I have to in order to continue the experiment. But I'm coming to vastly different conclusions than those who decided for me. So are many people I know.

Imagine living without coffee.

thanx much,
Tiassa

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

[Stretch]

Hi Tiassa,

You are a riot! I love your logic. Unfortunately there is more to the whole drug issue than meets the eye/cerebellum. (but I think you understand that) I will respond to this thread when (dare I say it) when I am a little more sober. Yet I can draw a certain conclusion from your argument which, to me illustrates your thinking. And I know a perfect poem to cast said thinking in perspective.

"He who binds to himself a joy , does the winged life destroy.
But he who catches a joy as it flies ... lives in eternities sunrise"

I think it really is all about adult choices. But that can also go awry.

Take care

 

[Tiassa]

Having reached a pause in the drug use portion of our discussion on vices, I thought I might muse some about other aspects of vice.

Of Vice and Virtue

Chapters IV and V discuss aspects of how we mark a vice.

It is not often possible to say of those acts that are called vices, that they really are vices, except in degree. That is, it is difficult to say of any actions, or courses of actions, that are called vices, that they really would have been vices, if they had stopped short of a certain point. The question of virtue or vice, therefore ... is a question of quantity and degree, and not of the intrinsic character of any single act, by itself ....

(What's scary is that I now realize that's about half of chapter 4.)

The obvious path to follow on this one might seem right back into the drug quagmire. It certainly seems to be decorated with pink neon signs, at the moment. But a number of things on degrees:

* Drugs--What is the difference between consumption/use and abuse/addiction?
* Sex--We regard prostitution, legally, as "Vice", according to law enforcement. To the other, I've known at least one person in the world to be diagnosed by counselors, social workers, and medical psychiatrists to be "addicted" to sex; yes, apparently it is an excuse to rape people, but you can take that up with Judge Warren Chan, of the King County, Washington, Superior Court. (I don't know that the old fart still has a bench to sit on.)
* Money--What actions qualify as greed? Is greed a vice? What results might classify greed as vicious?
* Power--Can notions of authority lead to vicious behavior?

Okay, if the following note is condescending, I apologize:

The word "vicious" should not be read as in the modern American context, "A vicious attack". Rather, I'm using an older academic form which Spooner employs (of necessity, I think) of virtue/vice, virtuous/vicious.

Again, if it's condescending ... but I'm hoping to avoid spending posts on that definition.

Of virtues and vices, Spooner offers, in chapter 5:

Vices are usually pleasurable ... and often do not disclose themselves as vices, by their effects, until after they have been practised [sic] for many years; perhaps for a lifetime. To many, perhaps most, of those who practise them, they do not disclose themselves as vices at all during life. Virtues, on the other hand, often appear so harsh and rugged, they require the sacrifice of so much present happiness, at least, and the results, which alone prove them to be virtues, are often so distant and obscure, in fact, so absolutely invisible to the minds of many, especially of the young that, from the very nature of things, there can be no universal, or even general knowledge that they are virtues. In truth, the studies of profound philosophers ahve been expended ... in efforts to draw the lines between the virtues and the vices.

I think there's something there that is more subtle than naked, spiritual, human greed. In the modern day, especially, with collapsing attention spans and egocentric ideas about what's best for one's neighbors, there comes a new sense of urgency about virtue in the context Spooner addresses above.

* In 1990, the State of Oregon passed Ballot Measure 5, which was a property tax cap. (To all not American, generally, we pay our public schools from county-level taxes on property values.) Politically, it was acknowledged that the educational-finance picture would become immediately grim and remain so for two fiscal years while the measure's devices moved into place, at which time, schools would begin receiving greater sums of money than imaginable under the old taxation rules. Two years. So, by the beginning of the 1993 school year, at the absolute latest, and perhaps by the beginning of the 1992 school year. By late 1991, the people were impatient, and had forgotten that this low financial period was projected, and that they accepted it when they voted for the measure. However, they forgot that they had approved that. Thus, the legislature, citing public concern, revised the money structure of the measure and implemented changes that raised everyone's tax bills beyond the cap without violating its terms and managed to do virtually nothing about the funding crunch.

Now, how is this even barely relevant?

If one undertakes an action that we feel is virtuous, we might agree with Spooner (or not) that virtues often take much time to realize as virtuous. Certainly this person remembers their virtuous decision, but in the time it takes to recognize the degree of virtue in that action, it may be that the principle engaged by the virtue has changed. Thus, one's virtue is for naught, and people won't ever examine the degree of sacrifice because the principle on which the sacrifice rests no longer exists as the sacrifice knows it.

For instance, I was taught against greed. I was taught (somehow) against materialism. These things, at one point in my life, were considered vicious for their extraneous nature. Now, greed seems virtuous in practice. Thus, much of what I learned from the virtue of (allegedly) not being spoiled is either irrelevant or considered to be a personal weakness.

Certainly I, or any other individual, can stake their entire lives on virtue, but in the end, it seems humanity rarely takes notice, and when it does it seems to be at the edge of a vicious (in all contexts) oppression.

Consider anything you learned as a child and still believe, despite the fact that nobody else around you seems to share your belief. Do the principles which compel you to belief even have credibility?

Have you ever watched "regular" or "common" or "mainstream" people around a source of compassion? Normal Americans, to say the least, seem immensely capable of sucking all the compassion out of the compassionate. It is demanded, enforced, dragged kicking and screaming into the light. I've seen it to greater degrees in at least one person's life, but one of the questions I've got is why is it that everyone who advises me on human compassion thinks it only applies to them? I can uniformly say that, with the exception of one person, everybody I know asks the compassionate people in their lives to constantly be pouring out that bounty. And what's scary is how many people reserve another person's compassion for themselves. For instance, I had a girlfriend once who used to demand that I give her a specific brand of attention simply because she knew I was capable of it. Sorry, Honey, but I'd rather not find you beaten and bleeding on a sidewalk. You know, it isn't the fact that the object of my compassion had been beaten badly, but that the girlfriend felt she was owed the same degree of concern 24-7 after having seen it displayed. And I'm not the only one who puts up with that kind of crap. I recall one guy I knew in high school who couldn't stand the conflict of being both the objective scapegoat for, as well as the apparent cause of the troubles of his family and friends. He tried to kill himself. The biggest issue of his post-event counseling, though, seemed to be, "Have you no compassion? Don't you care about your family? Look at me, I'm your mother, are you trying to break my heart?" How far do we push our loved ones? And why are we so surprised when they can't bear our burdens anymore?

Might I say, then, that the receiving of compassion appears to be a vice among Americans? From personal experience, I assert it unrepentantly.

I want to get to money (and take a trip through the considerations at the end of Fyre's 7/10 post), but I'm running quickly out of time.

Thus, I'll reserve a better examination of my list of four vices and their considerations for later. I thank you all for your patience.

thanx,
Tiassa

PS--I had hoped to include a couple of sections for consideration, hence the bold title. But I didn't even get through that, so we'll see what scary things the future holds.

------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)

 

[Tiassa]

Since this topic stalled out on drugs, and I haven't been able to put my economy-as-vice to words yet, I thought I'd chime in with this relevant note regarding some ranting I did above concerning drug testing for jobs. The reference for this article is http://www.drcnet.org , which site I'm well aware I plague you all with. (Thanx 4 the patience, though ....)

8. Drug Testing on the Job Loses Popularity, Tight Labor Market Cited

According to a study released last week by the American Management Association (AMA), job-based drug testing, along with other employment tests such as medical and psychological exams, is losing popularity among employers.

The AMA polled more than 2000 firms, and found that companies requiring drug testing declined from 62% of those surveyed in 1997 to 47% this year. The number of firms requiring psychological tests dropped from 52% in 1998 to 33% this year.

There is a reason for this, apparently.

"Companies are adjusting to a tight labor market," AMA spokesman Eric Greenberg told USA Today.

"If you've got an absolutely critical position you need filled and the person shows up dirty on a test for marijuana, you may regret you ever asked. You're dealing with a situation where you don't have the luxury to pick and choose."

So, on the one hand, I'm well encouraged that companies are starting to figure out that 2 + 3 does not equal 4. But to the other, why is it that it's always a financial matter? Labor market tight? Gotta do something? Hey, let's drop that anti-drug clause from our terms of employment since the people we're disqualifying now are so much better drug users than the people we disqualified then.

To be fair, there is also included the statistic that positive test results have dropped to their lowest rate since 1989. But drug users knew that since before 1989. The number of "using households" had gone down from 1973 to 1980, and then Reagan declared his emergency War Against Drugs. But the number of using households has been falling for a while, and, beyond that is the notion that masking tools are getting better and more subtle. No more birth control pills for our drug-using American men ....

thanx much,
Tiassa



------------------
We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)