[extropy-chat] Constitution Restoration Act will effectively transform the United States...

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Mon Oct 25 17:58:10 UTC 2004


--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Mike, thanks for the explanation, but now I find
> this even more
> > disturbing.
> > You interpret the reference to "Natural Law" in
> terms of rights, and
> > believe it will be used to protect individual
> rights. I am afraid it
> > will be interpreted in terms of duties and things
> forbidden, and used
> > to take individual rights away.
> > "Natural Law" is a beautiful philosophic concept,
> but it is not
> > defined precisely, and cannot be defined
> precisely. So it is very,
> > very open to interpretation, and since we are
> talking of law and
> > legislation, the interpretation will be provided
> by those in power.
> 
> No, really, it isn't. I understand that those of you
> in countries
> without Common Law don't have the experience with
> this, but this is one
> of the advantages that the anglo countries have had
> for several
> centuries.

I'm not only in an anglo country, I'm in America,
but I agree with the likely negative interpretation.
Part of the problem is that many of those in power
have been trying to move away from rule-by-law, since
the laws keep them from imposing their visions on
other people.  ("[Other group] is allowed to exist?"
"Sorry, murder is against the law."  "Then change the
law."  "Sorry, the rest of America would rather not
legalize murder."  "Then get rid of the law - all of
it.")

Natural Law is fine in theory.  So's Communism.  But
just like Communism, the problem comes with how it
gets implemented by those in power: if "laws that are
obvious from Nature with no need for being stated" is
the supreme authority, then it becomes very easy to
abuse NL simply by ignoring some of its fundamental
concepts, for example that

> Natural Law starts off recognising that all power,
> rights, and
> responsibility originates in the individual as a
> sovereign entity in a
> state of nature. There are no societal rights, no
> group rights of any
> kind.

and instead just claim that NL recognizes the "rights"
of citizens to serve their government (or words to
that effect).  Similar perversions of original intent
fuel many religious neo-Luddites, who see in the holy
words of their founders only encouragement to hate
those who seek to unlock human nature, even if their
founders (if alive today) might have only nice things
to say about transhumanity.

Our current system of laws is not perfect, but at
least it somewhat protects against abuses like that.
This protection alone is perhaps responsible for most
of the difference between first world and third world
countries.  (And note that the second world arguably
was somewhere between absence of laws and rule of law
in terms of the protection given to citizens against
abuse by the powerful, in part because the ideology of
their government was in conflict with the reality of
control by a few elites.)



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list