From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Nov 24 2004 - 13:44:41 GMT
> On 21 Nov 2004 at 17:39, Platt Holden wrote:
> > platt:
> > What's immoral about "inequities?"
>
> > msh says:
> > Inequities that result in one's inability to satisfy basic
> > biological needs seriously impede and sometimes destroy one's
> > opportunity for freedom. If such inequities are large enough
> > between a vast majority and small minority within a social system,
> > the social system is in danger of being destroyed if it does not
> > either enforce the inequities with violence, or change in response
> > to DQ to ameliorate the inequities. Since the violent solution is a
> > rejection of the DQ solution, it is immoral; and therefore allowing
> > inequities which may be ameliorated through DQ-inspired social
> > action is also immoral.
Using DQ as your source of morality is tantamount to "the devil made me do
it." My response to DQ is exactly the opposite of yours. It tells me that
inequities are morally preferable to mediocrities.It also tells me there's
never an excuse for biological violence unless threatened with violence.
Finally it tells me it's morally wrong to rob Peter to pay Paul.
> My argument does not mention taxation specifically, although a form
> of progressive taxation may very well be one of the DQ-inspired ideas
> necessary to prevent the destruction of a society. As, for example,
> a capitalist society's implosion was prevented by the DQ thinkers
> behind The New Deal. And, please, don't tell me that Pirsig in Lila
> dismantles the specific ideas of the New Dealers. He does not.
The New Deal was DQ inspired? What a strange notion. I suppose Marxism was
DQ inspired, as well as Johnson's War on Poverty. Seems like if it's left-
wing, it's "DQ inspired." Finally, to say the New Deal saved "a
capitalist society's implosion" is rewriting history to uphold a political
agenda. Read "FDR's Folly" for a fair and balanced view.
> msh says:
> There's plenty of MOQ support for a free market of ideas. Anyone,
> including Pirsig, who believes there exists anything like an economic free
> market is economically naive. Funny, this is one of those points I've made
> many times. So far, you've made no attempt to prove me wrong, and yet you
> constantly advance the Myth of The Free Market as if it is a sacred truth.
Yeah, me, Pirsig, Milton Friedman and many others. Just because you say
the free market is a "myth" doesn't make it so. I forget what your
arguments were, but I'll bet it presumed that consumers are a bunch of
ignorant boobs who don't know what's good for them and are easily
snookered by advertising moguls -- similar to the belief that those who
voted for Bush put "social over intellectual," i.e., are red-necked, gun-
toting, homophobic Neanderthals.
Oh, well. Here's hoping that someday DQ shines down on you so you'll see
the light. :-)
Platt
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