Holding Parents Responsible

Here’s a philosophical brain teaser for you: Should parents be held responsible for their children’s actions? My culturally programmed answer to this question is, “Yes, because children can’t be held responsible for their actions, they’re too young to really know what they’re doing, and since somebody should, why not the ones who are raising them?”

Social Coercion, Rights, Thin Blue Line, & Utopia (34m) – Editor’s Break 043

Editor’s Break 043 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: social coercion and voluntaryism, rights in the negative sense and as a social convention, how markets, and not governments, increase peace and tolerance in society, using force when persuasion fails, the negative aspects of the so-called “thin blue line”, what Utopia is and why the free society is not Utopian, the foolishness in treating celebrities as authorities on politics and economics, and more.

Authorities They Are Not

Political discourse is an open-access activity. Anyone can have a say. Among those whose opinions and allegations receive the most notice are celebrities — especially entertainers, actors, TV news figure and pundits, athletes, and people who are famous only for being famous — and politicians. The prominent attention that these persons’ statements garner is unfortunate, to say the least.

Maintaining Victim Fluidity

The difference between crimes and non-crimes is that with the former, you have a real, identifiable victim, but with the latter, you don’t. Therefore, the government stands in place and assigns itself victimhood in order to bring charges. The more charges it brings as a victim (eg. The State vs…), the more revenue it generates. The more dynamically ambiguous it identifies itself as a victim, the richer and more entrenched in the fabric of society it gets.