Calling out Sam Carana and Deborah/Moresense

[J. Richard Stevens]

Sam,

Since your Philosophers forum posts have devolved into chanting a
single phrase over and over again, I thought it might be time to take
stock and point out they areas in which we are not in agreement.

1. Inalienable rights. I have no problem with inalienable rights, nor
have I ever expressed such a problem. According to our philosophical
and political tracts we have exactly three, and those three are
Jefferson's editorialized updates of Locke's inalienable rights.
Locke's original version contained the rights to life, liberty and the
pursuit of property. Jefferson's update included the rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I would first point out that your insistence on invoking the rights
from our political document (the Declaration of Independence was not a
philosophical work but a document drafted to make a political
statement) is ironic considering the number of times you have
belittled my arguments as "merely political" and therefore invalid.
But I myself have no objection to political speech, so I won't hold
your hypocrisy in this case against you for the sake of argument.

So we have three inalienable rights that cannot be taken away: life,
liberty and the pursuit of property (and I could go on about how
interesting it is that we alienated these inalienable rights from the
native Americans and African Americans, but let's just skip over that
particular issue for the moment).

All of our other rights come from the Bill of Rights and the
Amendments to our Constitution. And those rights are certainly
alienable, because each amendment changes or more clearly defines a
right. My earlier example was Prohibition. We had an amendment making
to consumption, sale or distribution of alcohol illegal and then a
another amendment giving us the right to consume or sell it.

So, three inalienable rights and the rest on the table to be
discussed. This is the way John Locke forged the philosophy (as long
as all parties respected the three inalienable rights, whatever social
contract they forged was binding.) This was the way Jefferson
justified the Declaration of Independence (King George had violated
those three rights in Jefferson's eyes, breaking the social contract
and leaving the colonies free to form their own social contract).

And nowhere in those three rights does a right of education exist. The
right of every American to receive an education comes from the New
Deal legislation, the same legislation that justifies the
establishment of public schools. So, as far as rights are concerned,
the right to an education is not inalienable, but it is a strong right
protected by our laws.

My point is that we currently have the right of education. We can
choose to remove this right from our social contract (though this is
not likely given the wide-sweeping recognition of the need for
education in democracy), and we can choose to modify the methods and
the boundaries of those set of rights. It has never been my claim that
vouchers are illegal, only that they will be less effective at
educating most Americans.

Also, that neither the existence of public or private school is a
violation of anyone's rights. The law does not claim that citizens
have a right to a private education, it is simply silent on that
point. So, arguing that vouchers are somehow connected to our
inalienable rights is simply not supported by our system of laws and
rights.


2. The rights of parents. Both you and Deborah have cited a prior
right of parents to make certain decisions for children. While we do
have laws that respect the sanctity of the home and that try to defer
to the wishes of parents, I'm afraid there is no prevailing collection
of rights for parents that exist outside of our Constitution.

When the rights of the individual come into conflict with a parent's
wishes (like in cases of child abuse or competing inheritance
interests), the law does not respect a prior right of parents. The
health and well-being of children is always the prevailing interest,
which is why parents are not allowed the option of not educating their
children at all. The parents may choose how that education is going
to be administered and how much they are willing to spend on that
education, but they do not have a choice concerning IF the child is to
be educated.

So, while a system of vouchers might give parents more choices, there
is no collection of rights at stake concerning whether or not parents
receive those funds. Parents are compelled to provide education for
their children but are not required to make particular choices
concerning that education's quality. Nor do they have their rights
infringed upon if they choose to send their child to a public school.


3. Your charge of my "Socialism." I began this thread to point out how
ridiculous it was to charge me with Socialism. Rather than get hostile
or charge you with libel (I certainly have evidence that you know your
claims are false and continued to willfully disregard the truth, but I
would still have a hard time showing damage anyway), I simply asked
you to make your case.

I challenged both of you to prove that you know what a socialist is
and what views he or she would most likely hold. I challenged you to
distinguish between certain systems of philosophy so that we could
determine if you really knew that it was you were accusing me of. I
challenged you to take that understanding and apply it to my arguments
critically and examine the merits of your charges.

Deborah bowed out pretty quickly. She saw no benefit of even defining
the differences between the philosophical systems. Since she doesn't
seem to know the difference between certain classes of philosophy and
has no interest in learning, that doesn't leave her in a very strong
position from which to make her claims. Not knowing or caring what a
socialist is or what one is supposed to think is a rather important
component of being able to to charge me with holding socialist views.

Sam, on the other hand, is in a worse place. He continues to argue
that I am a socialist because I use the term "social contract" in my
arguments. I have presented several persons who have used such terms
in their philosophical and political language, from Hobbes and Locke
to modern day Republicans.

If using that language makes one a socialist, Sam needs to figure out
why my use makes me a socialist, while Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson,
Hamilton, Adams and Newt Gingrich have all used that language while
obviously not being supportive of communism or socialism.

Furthermore, Sam has tried to hide behind ignorance, citing that he
doesn't really know what my views are (either because he says I
haven't stated them clearly enough or because he lacks the knowledge
to categorize them). Yet, he continues to call me a socialist, because
he says it is his "best guess" as to what my views represent.

This is intellectually indefensible. If one admits that they are not
in a position to make a judgment, claiming an authority of ignorance
to make an unsubstantiated judgment anyway shows a lack of respect for
reason and logic. Rationale judgment is passed after the evidence is
measured, not in lieu of evidence itself.

This deep into the conversation, Sam needs to do the following in
order to defend his continuing charges towards me:

A. Show why so many of our capitalist fathers who used the same
terms ("social contract") as I are socialists.

or

B. Show why my use of those terms is different from their uses of the term.

Either way, he must engage some of these source texts. Claiming
ignorance to avoid reading source materials does not remove the
inconsistencies in one's claims. Sam has claimed the use of "social
contract" as an indicator of subscription to the worldview of
socialism. Let him defend this methodology.

I do not agree with this methodology, which is why I also ask him to:

C. Show instances where socialists use the terms "social
contract." Sam has claimed that this is a "typical" component of
socialist rhetoric. So it should not be difficult for him to cite a
few dozen references to the term from the thousands of books,
manifestos and papers written by self-proclaimed socialists or written
in defense of the socialist worldview.

AND

D. Show how my use of the terms and my positions are consistent
and compatible with the documents that use these terms.

AND

E. Show how my use of the terms are more like the uses by
self-proclaimed socialists and less like the uses of the terminology
by the great capitalist thinkers previously mentioned.

I suspect that I already know the outcomes of this experiment, but the
burden of proof is on Sam. Sam is the one who continues to charge me
with a socialist world-view, and I ask him to defend this claim using
evidence.


4. Winning and losing. Sam's last few posts have devolved into some
rather ridiculous claims of how Deborah has "won" certain points of
the argument and "won" the overall debate.

Of course, I don't recognize the "winning" of the arguments, much less
the debate, and the continued charges and claims add nothing to our
discussions. Furthermore, I'm beginning to feel like we're all
standing on a grammar school playground at recess, with Sam trying to
bully my positions into the ground with his prattle.

Although this is the most juvenile example of such tactics, this is
the same as the "you have no argument" rhetoric, the "that's just a
political view" rhetoric, charges of my having made libelous
statements, the continued claim that I have somehow violated the
GoogleGroups agreement, or the rhetoric that leads you dismiss my
views because you erroneously consider them socialist in origin, which
somehow means you don't have to engage the merits of my argument.

Each has its own problems:

A. I have presented arguments based on economic theory,
philosophical constructs, experience, and direct knowledge in my
discussion topics. All of these have been called "no arguments" in the
face of nothing but opinion and tortured claims about our rights and
laws.

B. Both of you have admitted that Deborah (who first used the
"political view as irrelevant" device) in fact is arguing from her
political perspective. So, we have an fascinating double-standard
here.

C. I have repeatedly asked for both of the other participants to
make their case for the libel charge or drop it. They have yet to
offer argument supporting the proofs of the tort nor have they shown
any evidence of my willful disregard for the truth. And of course,
there still remains the not insignificant matter of showing economic
damage to Wal-mart. I ask again for proof supporting these charges or
their withdrawal.

D. I have not violated a single clause of the Google agreement in
my posts. But if you think otherwise, by all means file a complaint.

E. See the burdens of proof for socialism above. Justify your
claims or withdraw them.


All of these tactics are not only pedantic arguments, but they are
used when the assailants are dismissing arguments without engaging
their merits. Rather than enter open dialogue and debates points of
policy, philosophy and understanding, Deborah and Sam would rather
call names and dismiss large tracts of argument without stating what
their disagreements are.

Despite repeated calls for addressing external published arguments,
citing sources or providing evidence, neither Deborah nor Sam has
shown themselves honest enough to use such materials in their
arguments or charges against me. Books go unread, philosophical views
go unexplored.

This is not how understanding is built or how knowledge is exchanged.

I don't expect that this post will have any effect on Deborah or Sam.
Each seems beyond shaming. I suspect that the bad behavior will
continue and that they will continue to act as master judges of of the
philosophers forum while each refuses to engage any philosophy or cite
philosophers in the course of their summary judgments.

[Sam]

Good idea, let's have a debate. Since jrichard posted this message at
various groups, I suggest that we have the debate at a single place.

I suggest that we all go to the Debate group, at:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/debate
and discuss the terms of the debate, etc.

Sam