Quote from: smscotten on August 07, 2013, 03:11:04 AM

Quote from: Mike Christ on August 07, 2013, 02:32:45 AM

Therefore, your problem is still there: your problem is to change minds. Without this, government or not, you can expect to achieve nothing, no matter what you fight for.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Apply that to other sorts of things that there are laws against. Do you say, "you can't stop people from killing each other. No, you can't. You have to change people's minds or else there is no purpose passing a law against murder."

Yes, I'm well aware of the straw man I've just built. I think it's a rather nice straw man.

That is somewhat the point I want to make. There is a law everywhere in this nation against killing, and yet murder rates are all over the place in every city. It seems to me that a law against killing, despite having much the same consequences, does not stifle murder. Rather, I don't want to kill you because I have food, and water, and all the things I could ever hope for (chiefly, a computer with Internet access.) If, however, it was a life and death sort of thing, and you had food and water, or the thing which could get me food and water, that being money, I would kill you if it meant my own survival. Violent crime, it appears to me, is spawned from necessity, and there is a lot of that going on even in this nation, but violent crime is even more prevalent in places where one's survival is threatened.

Anyhow, if we made a law that said, "If you kill someone, we will kill your entire family," murder rates could still be high or low, depending; I don't think history has shown this has ever stopped crime, which would imply that crime is not affected by law. But in the case of murder specifically, the solution isn't to change someone's mind; the solution is for them to not have a reason to murder, which is essentially what we're all driving for, I believe, whether we're socialist or not. This, of course, does not apply to organized crime, but the mafia isn't that much different than government in this respect. Anyway, for now, until we get this mess sorted out, trying to change a murderer's mind isn't going to help the position he is in.

Comparing murder to ideologies is a bit different, though; murder isn't something we do because we believe in it, except for the tiny amount of sociopaths among us who don't care how they get their way, and I believe it's clear what jobs they prefer and what positions they strive for, but when it comes to global issues, such as saving the animals or killing all the blacks, it's really not something we should force on people, for we would all be saving the animals or killing the blacks if it was something we all believed in. I'll be honest, I don't give a fuck about the animals, and I'd rather not kill all the blacks, I like some of those fellas, but I don't think I should force people to believe in the same things I do.