Posts by quieteagle16

Keith Lee2 said:It’s hard to spot the irresponsible person or the idiot who’s going to become
aggressive and seriously threaten everyone else because of
substances, ignorance, or a lack of morals, so you can only ban *that* specific
behavior or mandate certain actions for them.
I mean, I still have to stop at a red light when there isn't a soul in sight just because of regulations
designed to protect society from the idiots who kill people with cars.
But protecting against those types is pretty ineffective.
So, first you have to prove you're a conscientious, responsible, moral person, and
then you can do whatever you want.
Since the system is set up to make you prove other kinds of things, then...

yeah, finish the sentence however you want.

Honestly, all this "preventative" security nonsense and the obsession with bureaucratic red tape is, in my humble opinion, way less effective than just letting a liberal system run its course. If you look at it realistically, someone who’s determined to blow through a red light regardless of pedestrians isn't thinking about safety—they’re just making sure they don't get caught. If you're a conscious, responsible driver and you make a mistake because of some totally unpredictable situation out of your control, that's just a bad break. In those cases, I think instead of heavy-handed punishment, people should just be sent through mandatory re-education courses to brush up on things. But as for the people who lack the judgment to make those calls in the first place? Honestly, if you don't have the basic knowledge to handle the road, you shouldn't even have a driver's license to begin with. 🙂
Those other values are basically just a massive red flag for anyone actually trying to act with a sense of responsibility or a moral compass—at least based on how things work around here in the States. 🙂 )

That’s exactly what I call "Meritorious" goods—when an individual can't quite wrap their head around what's actually good for them, so the government steps in to make the call instead. It’s like when the state decides you only need a basic high school diploma to get by, or when they start policing things like alcohol, drugs, or sex work. It's that whole vibe where the government acts like a parent because they don't think we can handle our own business.

That’s exactly what I’m getting at—it feels like our idea of a "liberal" society basically boils down to this: if you happen to hold an opinion that doesn't align with the crowd, people immediately decide you're incapable of making sound judgments. It's like having a different perspective is treated as a defect in logic rather than just a different way of looking at things. 🙂 That’s a pretty interesting way to look at it... It definitely highlights that individualistic angle and the statistical chance of things going sideways. Honestly, it reminds me of that old Henry Ford line: "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black." 🙂)

Look, I honestly don't think the whole concept of democracy or statistical trends should ever be used as an excuse to stifle what an individual can do. To me, that completely misses the entire point of being an individual—it’s all about exploring every single possibility out there. Think of it like a massive, real-world experiment; eventually, natural selection will step in and decide whether my ideas were brilliant or just plain wrong. Sure, society might try to step in and shut me down or tell me "no," but you can't really legislate away the drive to test things out. 🙂 Look, it’s not about me stepping in just to trample over everyone else's freedom. If you look at democracy through a purely statistical lens—where the idea is that the majority should technically hold the winning hand—that doesn't actually mean the majority is always right. It’s more about how things function from a legislative or social standpoint. It's like saying a majority vote in a local town hall meeting gives a decision legal weight, even if half the people in the room think it's a total disaster. The system is built on the framework of the majority, not necessarily on the absolute truth of their opinion. Most likely. I mean, honestly? Most people are probably right on this one.

Dennis Rogers6 said:It’s quite fascinating, really... I was actually discussing this exact point just the other day here.
👍Thanks for starting the thread.

It’s pretty much the same vibe, but what I’m really digging for is some actual insight from someone who actually supports these kinds of bans. I want to wrap my head around that specific way of thinking—since it’s clearly a super common viewpoint—but honestly, that "mindset" just doesn't click for me, at least not based on my own experience. Theoretically, I'd guess it's the kind of people who lean toward dogma and aren't big on independent thought, but maybe there's some deeper logic I'm missing. When it comes to stuff like drug enforcement, I can somewhat wrap my head around the conspiracy angle—like how the police get funded to wipe it out, which just drives up the street price—but then you have these much bigger, more global examples of absolutism and the government stepping all over privacy and individuality. That's where I get stuck. What's the actual driver behind maintaining those systems? Is it just societal inertia? I'd love to see a real, deep-dive debate on this topic.

Here’s my take on this—from a purely practical standpoint. I feel like if an action doesn't directly jeopardize someone else's freedom or safety, society shouldn't have the right to condemn it. Yet, I keep seeing these constant crackdowns on individual liberties just to satisfy certain socially accepted dogmas—think mandatory schooling requirements, drug laws, religious finger-wagging... It feels like there are only a handful of instances where someone isn't actually infringing on anyone else's rights, yet we still force our views on them. We're living in the 21st century, for crying out loud. Even physicists—who used to be hardcore determinists—have embraced the idea of statistical probability (that gray area between black and white) rather than clinging to absolute certainty. Relativity has been part of the conversation for ages, stretching from Galileo all the way to Einstein 😁. But when it comes to morality, we’re still acting like we can dictate 100% absolute values and force those mandates onto minorities.

How do you guys even justify stuff like this? I honestly don't get how anyone can defend banning the mere possession of drugs (or using them in your own home, where the risk to anyone else is basically zero). Or how you justify mandatory education, where the state decides certain things are absolute facts and forces them down everyone's throats. Wouldn't it make way more sense to leave education up to the people, so anyone who wants to learn something—regardless of their age—can just dive into the subjects offered? It blows my mind that people are so bothered by someone using "illegal substances" in private, or that simply carrying them on a street in the US could land someone in a jail cell. Since when did we decide that prison is the answer to social infractions? I agree that people who are genuinely dangerous to the public should be separated from society, but it should be about rehabilitation and reintegration, not just punishment. And setting a fixed timer on that process just seems totally nonsensical
. How can any of this be justified in what we call a "liberal" society?