The "Social Contract".

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by flacaltenn

Never mind signing up for pledges that we can't keep as whole society...

Dude, sometimes pledges are shortsighted and should never have been bothered with in the first place. (As in, "I signed it just to get elected.")

Signing the Norquist pledge is as silly as a candidate signing a pledge stating he/she will never send our kids into combat. You have no idea what the future holds, or what you may have to do even if it goes against your own personal beliefs. Life just doesn't work that way. And just because someone finds himself/herself having to do something they promised they wouldn't, doesn't necessarily make them a liar. And that's not a partisan thing, that goes for anyone.

At least that's how I see it. You may disagree.

Dave

[CarlV]

It would be grand thing if our GOP friends grew a pair and told that dude to kiss off. What's he going to do, become a Democrat?



Carl

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by CarlV

It would be grand thing if our GOP friends grew a pair and told that dude to kiss off. What's he going to do, become a Democrat?



Carl

Really. Who in the he** is Grover Norquist anyways? "Oh, I can't do that, I promised Grover I wouldn't."

Well, I guess the way it's worded, they're not really making the pledge to him. They're making it to us. Which, I don't really care, I think it's an absurd pledge anyhow. Like making a pledge to my boss, that I will never, ever be late for, or miss another day of work...........And then I get stuck in a traffic jam or my gall bladder bursts, or something. Know what I mean?

Dave

[BlueStreak]

"Heck they can make Rhodes scholars out of kids with Crack moms.."

I thought it was YOU that could take any group of inner city kids and turn them into Chemical Engineers?

"And if you believe it's "eminently sensible" to condemn most inner school children to a public education monopoly that has criminally low expectations for them..."

I think success is up to individual drive and ambition. So, in lieu of public education, which worked out pretty good for me and very well for you, apparently, just what do you propose? Are you ready to pay for all of those kids to attend private school? Because their parent(s) can't. How about jobs? And not shitty, worthless, low wage jobs that leave people applying for food stamps despite the fact that they work, but gainful employment for the parents of those kids? Seems to me that that would solve a lot of these issues. Then, they could pay their own way. Oh, that's right, the business community finds wages like that to be completely intolerable. Oh, well. Looks like we're stuck paying for it through our taxes. And, you know what that means..............

Anyhow, the "Social Contract" to which we refer is really very basic and simple.
Like it or not, we are a village. A village that grows more and more interconnected everyday. Each man living as an island may have worked somewhat, a hundred years ago, but it is as gone as the last Mohican now. And it aint comin' back. EVER.

Dave

[d-ray657]

The social contract is not an explicit document or well-defined law. It is a theory concerning the most just and effective way to live together in a society. It is assumed that one will give up some freedom to act according to the law of the jungle when he receives some implicit promise of security in return. We are presumed to prefer social order over a life that is "nasty, cruel, brutish and short."

The ruler in Ghana is the type of person who the social contract is presumably designed to protect us from - one who asserts power by violence. Tyranny is not accepted as part of the social contract, and the conduct in Ghanna is unquestionably tyrannical.

In our own "more civilized" countries, we will differ over the degree to which society needs to exert authority to assure some social order. Some of us would see the conduct of the robber barons during the industrial revolution as a type of tyranny which would be rejected under the social contract. Some of us might see that any sort of excessive use of wealth to assert power is outside of the social contract. Others, of course, will see the regulation designed to prevent financial tyranny as in itself tyrannical, because it is an assertion of greater influence than that to which we have implicitly consented. Simply because the range of political opinions can run from anarchy to dictatorship, does not mean that an implicit social contract does not exist in that range between the extremes.

Regards,

D-Ray

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by d-ray657

The social contract is not an explicit document or well-defined law. It is a theory concerning the most just and effective way to live together in a society. It is assumed that one will give up some freedom to act according to the law of the jungle when he receives some implicit promise of security in return. We are presumed to prefer social order over a life that is "nasty, cruel, brutish and short."

The ruler in Ghana is the type of person who the social contract is presumably designed to protect us from - one who asserts power by violence. Tyranny is not accepted as part of the social contract, and the conduct in Ghanna is unquestionably tyrannical.

In our own "more civilized" countries, we will differ over the degree to which society needs to exert authority to assure some social order. Some of us would see the conduct of the robber barons during the industrial revolution as a type of tyranny which would be rejected under the social contract. Some of us might see that any sort of excessive use of wealth to assert power is outside of the social contract. Others, of course, will see the regulation designed to prevent financial tyranny as in itself tyrannical, because it is an assertion of greater influence than that to which we have implicitly consented. Simply because the range of political opinions can run from anarchy to dictatorship, does not mean that an implicit social contract does not exist in that range between the extremes.

Regards,

D-Ray

Once my feeble and weary mind successfully navigated the mouse-in-a-maze-like mental gymnastics required to understand your lawyer-speak..............I'd have to say this is a most excellent post.

Bravo, Counselor!

Dave

[flacaltenn]

Dave:

"Heck they can make Rhodes scholars out of kids with Crack moms.."

I thought it was YOU that could take any group of inner city kids and turn them into Chemical Engineers?

"And if you believe it's "eminently sensible" to condemn most inner school children to a public education monopoly that has criminally low expectations for them..."

This public education thing is really what set off my latest volcanic eruption. In terms of the "social contract", when I made the offer to turn inner city kids into chemical engineers the agreement was that their parents would VOLUNTARILY (and eagerly) commit them to my care and my rules. (Actually I know for a fact it can be done and it's not by rules that I have developed, but that I'd willingly adopt)

This would be opposed to believing that the same "miracle" could be done without "a contract" or cooperation from the reciepient or the Crack Mom.. Or by more simple Redistribution of wealth (as taken from the "social contract") we just cast checks upon the wound and watch it all heal up...

Don't know why you copied the last phrase.. "emminently sensible" were MerryLander's words describing all the rules of society.. I've got piles of innocent Drug War bodies and mountains of wasted minds in the poverty pits to dispute how "emminently sensible" it all is..

I think success is up to individual drive and ambition. So, in lieu of public education, which worked out pretty good for me and very well for you, apparently, just what do you propose? Are you ready to pay for all of those kids to attend private school? Because their parent(s) can't.

Actually MANY of their parents are TRYING real hard to do that. But they are burdened with paying for school TWICE -- like the "rich parents" do -- except she doesn't have enough hours in the day. She may not pay property taxes, but her landlord has to. Just give her a voucher for 80% of the $12K that's allocated for her student and we'll call it fixed..

Anyhow, the "Social Contract" to which we refer is really very basic and simple.
Like it or not, we are a village. A village that grows more and more interconnected everyday. Each man living as an island may have worked somewhat, a hundred years ago, but it is as gone as the last Mohican now. And it aint comin' back. EVER.

My village is getting cluttered with emails from China and Germany.. Are they now part of my village? Who are the people on this board that want to FENCE the village..

The lefties want to keep jobs and money here by erecting economic and trade fencing, and the righties want to fence and moat the social borders of this country to protect jobs and money (and arguably security).. There's no big diff here.. Got news for you -- THAT "ain't gonna happen" either..

It's a false choice that you offer here with a nebulous concept like a social contract.

That without it -- we're savages- people die..

And if we just sign up today -- we're angels -- and everyone is healthy, wealthy and the kids are all brilliant..

I'm kicking back into society.. Quite alot actually.. But I'm doing it in a measured and focused way. I don't need a "United Way" to show me how to it...

[piece-itpete]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

... I've worked in both environments. And seen darn little difference in productivity. It's about the pay and the pay alone.

Dave

Then why on earth would an employer want to unionize? So all the work goes to China?

Tell me - if I'm running a press, and it goes out of spec, if I could I would adjust it back. Try it in a union shop. So me twiddling my thumbs for hours waiting for maintenence doesn't matter? Why did Toyota crush the UAW?

The founders understood the need for something like the thought behind the social contract, which is why they said repeatedly (whether they were true belivers or not) that our form of gov't was only workable for a Christian society and encouraged it at every turn. Even though "we were never a Christian nation"

Karl, Jefferson believed that every generation had the right to write their own Constitution....

Pete

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

...Karl, Jefferson believed that every generation had the right to write their own Constitution....Pete

Can you imagine giving the current herd of Fools on the Hill the responsibility to write a Constitution? They can't even take a pro forma vote on the debt limit for monies they've already committed.

[JCricket]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Then why on earth would an employer want to unionize? So all the work goes to China?

Tell me - if I'm running a press, and it goes out of spec, if I could I would adjust it back. Try it in a union shop. So me twiddling my thumbs for hours waiting for maintenence doesn't matter? Why did Toyota crush the UAW?

The founders understood the need for something like the thought behind the social contract, which is why they said repeatedly (whether they were true belivers or not) that our form of gov't was only workable for a Christian society and encouraged it at every turn. Even though "we were never a Christian nation"

Karl, Jefferson believed that every generation had the right to write their own Constitution....

Pete

?
That is a new one to me. I have not heard or read this before. I'll google, but do you have a source I can look at too?
MArk