Size Matters

By golly, thinking up titles is so darn much fun once you get the hang of it!

So, let’s continue with Hazeldia, which is naught but how I believe a government should work–starting from scratch. Today, we will begin with the locality of rule. So here’s the gist: people are different from one another. That’s an obvious point, but it’s one of those that aren’t quite grasped subconsciously by most people. But it’s true, and people should be able to control their own destinies as much as possible.

What’s my suggestion, then? Three laws for the people at the federal level–the three that are universal, no matter what your culture or beliefs: don’t kill, don’t rape, don’t steal (The Boondock Saints rule… not that that’s where I got this from, but they say exactly the same thing). Those crimes will be punished at the federal level only if the crimes or the criminals who committed them cross state boundaries. The states themselves are required to have at least those three in their legislation so that they can deal with such crimes on their own should the criminal not cross state lines.

So here’s a question: is it worth it to be even smaller, and have the states only judge on a case if a criminal crosses city or county boundaries? Should it be up to the states whether or not to allow this, with the inevitability that they will eventually decide upon it being in the hands of the larger body? Frankly, probably not. If a crime and criminal is stationary, the largest government that should handle the case is the county–city might be too small, but then again, look at the difference between people who grew up in downtown Raleigh vs. Cary. Now, that could get complicated, since people can often live in one city and work in another, but perhaps one should say that it moves into the county’s jurisdiction if the person crosses city lines in the act of running from the police. How about we just let that be something to be decided by the counties (you know, people who–unlike me–know something about political science… at least officially).

So, there’s something about having government mostly at a state-level that concerns me–just so we’re clear. Well, there are a couple, but the one of which I currently speak is this: look at Europe. Their countries are no bigger (okay, maybe a tad, but not by much. And they don’t even have anything as big as Texas (I use that instead of Alaska because it’s more populated, too). Got half of Russia, but… well, I’ll just shut up now) than our states, and they’ve still managed a great deal of oppression. That is why even state governments are too big to have any sort of strong reign over the laws of their people. Why should they then be separate from the federal government?

…Good question, actually. I’m not too sure I know, but I can come up with something.

I suppose my first thought would be the punishment of crimes. Let’s say the city/county has its own system of punishment for any laws it wishes to make (we’ll get to that soon), along with the big three. Some can have the death penalty for everything (well, at least the first two. Might need more thought for that) if they so wish, and others can be little sissies and have life in jail be the worst possible sentence. States, further, can have whatever sentence they wish for whatever crime, and the criminal can decide whether or not it would be better to stay put or cross the county line and get the state punishment. Then the federal… ehh… I’m not too keen on them being able to choose whatever punishment they deem worthy of the crime, and would be happier with forcing them to have a median of, “punishment fits the crime” (sort of; perhaps?). That is, death for murder, life in prison for rape, a certain amount of time in jail for theft (depending on the amount stolen or number of people affected). Now, that may not be perfect, and lawyers can easily use their wiley ways to convince a jury that there isn’t enough evidence to convict a federal criminal–I know this; I’m not all that naive, but there is no system free of human error. Perhaps, however, one might say life in prison for murders with lack of certainty, and the others… perhaps once there’s enough to go on trial, you go to jail until proven innocent or for the time for which you would have gone to jail (in the case of theft).

You know, I’ve decided to never, ever go into law. Let me know if you have a better perspective on these things, but just to reiterate, these are only cases in which a one of the big three crimes (or the criminal himself, but only in the process of fleeing custody) crosses state boundaries.

But this will, of course, still have its problems. First, there is an unfairness in how one criminal might have the choice between the sissy-type punishments and, say, the federal median, while others have a choice between the median and certain death. But hey, if you can’t do the time… Another problem arises in the fact that criminals will all be vying for the easier judgements, and might go, specifically, where those are, and there could be more getting off because of that. That’s partially prevented by the “crossing boundaries in the process of fleeing custody” thing–not solved at all, but helped at least a little. I feel that it should only be in the process of fleeing that it should transfer from small to big government because, well, because if, say, someone kills someone in one county and goes to work in another, there was nothing criminal about going to work–only the murder is wrong.

Here, then, we get to a very big problem: peer pressure. Or, in more scientific and less crappy-middle-school-PSA terms, conformity. My concern is this: not only is it a very viable phenomenon on the individual, interpersonal level, but it also works on a governmental scale. One county outlaws, say, smoking in bars (*achem*), and others around it start doing the same. More and more places follow suit, and eventually there are few places left that allow smoking in bars, and any ignoramuses in the counties that allow it start wondering why it hasn’t been outlawed yet there and, like ignoramuses, petition or something to get the law passed. Now, this might not happen absolutely everywhere, but more local government doesn’t quite gurantee preservation of liberty. Its pyramidal system of lawmaking is far less likely to fall than a top-heavy structure (the Great Pyramid has lasted a bit longer than the Lighthouse at Alexandria), but it’s by no means impervious to destruction.

Hence, other regulations upon government must be in place, such as those discussed (and still somewhat under debate from) last week. Suggestions for further refining of Hazeldia (mind you, I’m thinking from tabula rasa. That is, what is the ideal beginning for a civilization, somewhat free from historic influence of Jim Crow laws and hippies and the like? Not what is possible to do from here, but what should happen from the beginning) are always welcome, but for now, I shall leave you, for there is little else to say here. Next post on the topic, however, will quite probably be centered around possession laws–something about which I believe I’ve written at some point, but it never hurts to talk more about this stuff (that, and I just like to type Hazeldia).

Not a Place

Plato’s Republic pissed me off. Why, you ask? Because it’s bloody communism is why.

But I digress (yes, only 3 sentences in). The point of the work was not at all to create a government, but to answer the question of whether a just life is more profitable than an unjust one. That was answered well enough–at least, in terms of how well philosophers ever actually answer anything. It was done through scaling up–that is, looking at a large version of something in order to discover something about a smaller similar thing. They were trying to discover what made a just person just, so they created what they believed to be the most just city–let’s call it Kallipolis, because that’s what they called it.

Now, it was a very just city, but not for its citizens–for itself and anything with which it comes into contact. That’s perfectly fine for the purposes for which it was created. After all, the amount of justice (possibly better translated to morality) with which a person lives his life does not depend upon doing the best for every individual portion of a person, but for the entire person.

Hmm… actually, I don’t think that makes sense, but I can’t figure out whether it’s because the point is invalid or I’m simply having trouble explaining it. Either way, suspend disbelief, if you will, so that I might make my point.

In the end, though, the structure of the society describes is essentially socialistic. There are three classes, in rising order of power: money-makers, soldiers, and philosophers (really, who did you expect?). The latter two literally live in a communistic system, with no posessions of their own, sharing everything down to wives. The money-makers, however, get to conduct business as they will (IIRC; correct me if I don’t, as they were not the focus), though all were under stringent laws governing, basically, that they can only do the one thing that is their profession… or something of the sort.

Ah, but I go on too much about one work. The overall purpose of this post is to show that any ideal society humans invent completely fail to take into account human nature (also see: Utopia (which I’ll not describe in such detail, since it was in my literature class in which the professor has been far less clever in terms of how to make us actually do the reading)). Every one that did not unintentionally transform humans into angels (which, by the way, are not humans) collapsed pretty darn quick (see: Genesis Genesis, The Golden Age, Numenor Atlantis, etc.).

Yet we still search. So I’ll set off on my own little quest for the perfect society. This was actually started more, not by Plato, but by my mother (congrats, Mom, you’re more important to me than a dead guy 2500 years ago). We went to my cousin’s wedding in DC a couple months ago, and the weather was bad, so we ended up taking the 5-hour car trips there and back. On the way back, we somehow got on a topic that led my mom to suggest something very interesting, if I understood correctly (I suspect I did): a government completely without taxes; funded completely by charity.

See, I don’t think it’s an idea that should be completely written off. Obviously, no one’s ever attempted anything of the sort, so there’s little room to say exactly how it would play out. Just so we’re clear, I’m not at all suggesting anarchy. There would be a governmental authority, but its power would be very limited by the people’s money and guns (and you bet there’d be guns! This is my ideal society, buddy). Some form of authority is absolutely necessary for life, peace, and happiness to be possible. The problem is that people only see extremes–it’s either anarchy or tyranny. So, let there be an authority, but don’t let it have much power at all. Things like roads, military/police (clumping here, I know), and… huh, can’t think of much else (firemen? Ooh, printing currency! Maybe.), are best left to a single authority. Laws are necessary to punish crimes such as murder, theft, and rape, at the very least (kind of “The Big three”). So, let me reiterate, this=/=anarchy.

How will it be set up, then? Well, I must admit I know very little about actual political science. Therefore no draft of a constitution will be outlined here. I have yet to deeply consider any system of choosing leaders, but so far, I’m leaning on the side of representative democracy. Moreover, and I hate to suggest something like this in my little Utopia, but a basic fiscal competency test should be passed for citizens to vote. “But Hazel, thou gleeking flap-mouthed mammet,” you say, “isn’t that pretty darn hypocritical, in your super-awesome free society?” Well, yes, thou pribbling boil-brained hugger-mugger (Shakespeare insult kit; tell your friends) but I’d kind of like my society to remain free in the thing that really matters–everyday life. As a Psychology major, I can say that from my personal observations, I’ve deemed an unfortunately large number of people to be bloody morons. People who vote for someone based on anything other than their personal belief that that person, if elected, would do the most good for the country/state/whatever should not vote.

Now, returning to funding for the government, I know at least someone will ask whether or not anyone will donate to the system. To those people I say, thou spongy guts-griping giglet, that you need to have more faith in the goodness of people. Yes, I just said that many are idiots, but that does not make them ungenerous. If the most insane, freedom-loving, big government-hating man I’ve met willingly “sometimes” pays his taxes (because he believes in the basic duties of the government mentioned before–roads, military, etc) as we are now, I have no reason to believe that the system will go unfunded. Sure, there’ll be plenty of people who contribute nothing, but there will also be large donations made that counteract those. The government will only be able to do as much as it can afford based purely on how much its citizens think it needs.

Obviously, I can’t think the whole thing through down to the very last detail, particulary as this post is probably plenty long as is, but the basic premise has been explored, and that can suffice in my mind for the time being.

Part 4 of Justice goes up tomorrow. Have a good Good Friday. All hail Hazeldia (but only if you want to)!

UPDATE, a couple minutes later: I think I meant to make some mention of size of the government, in terms of localness, but failed to do so and ran out of time/space. I’ll make a separate argument about that in some later post.

Writers as Philosophers

Well, you’ve got to admit they do sometimes come up with some really interesting theories of the sort. The current one I’ve been considering is Heinlein’s World as Myth theory (been bouncing around my head since I finished The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, so you see it really does take a while for topics to really form in me). Now, I’ll not likely be trying to prove or disprove this, seeing as I’m not immortal and my last name ain’t Long, but more like its believability in relation to the human mind.

See, my mom and I have both been working a lot on stories and helping each other out in coming up with and writing these things–she with her library of crazy “how to write” books and me with pure intuition. Last weekend, while we were eating at this yummy asian restaurant that we frequent, she said something that reminded me of Heinlein’s above-mentioned idea. I can’t remember to an exact quote, but it was something to the effect of, “I feel like once I come up with a story, it has to be set in stone and I can’t [or shouldn't] change it.”

Guess what this got me to do? That’s right–think. Because I sort of have the same problem. I mean, I’ve been able to change a number of things–for instance, Regina was originally going to live at the end of I’d Hit It, and I’ve rewritten the events of the beginning of my grad. project novella thing 3 times now–but overall, there are certain aspects of a story that I write that I somehow believe simply can’t be any other way. No matter what, they have to get that magic or whatever from an oasis, specifically (yeah, that’s part of the grad. project). There’s simply no other possible way (and, frankly, I can’t really come up with a better one and still have it be a story). T-guy must betray D-guy, who then kills T-guy. Nothing else is possible; that’s just how it is. Once it is, that’s how it must remain.

So my theory is that we’re naturally inclined to believe this. Perhaps it’s simply strength of imagination or something, but the Greek gods, Frodo, Darth Vader, Mike the computer, etc. all seem just as real to us as real people–if not as real as our friends, at least as much so as celebrities, politicians, or otherwise famous people–likely moreso, assuming the author/other creator adequately portrays the character to the audience. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can say I know Harry Potter a helluva lot better than I do Britney Spears and Obama combined (wouldn’t that be a messed-up child).

So my hypothesis, I suppose, is that there’s some natural human inclination to not only believe in different dimensions–Sliders-style–but to believe that supposedly fictional stories do, in fact, exist in their own particular sort.

Hmm… Sliders brings up an interesting random question, though. If the theory holds, then there is a separate 90′s in some dimension in which (I suppose) the only difference from ours happens to be that some Quinn guy does, in fact, discover some portal to other dimensions. Then, we would be one of their alternate dimensions, and there would be a chance for them to come to ours and find that they don’t exist, but there are actors who look exactly like them and play people exactly like them in a series that chronicles their actual adventures. Wait… did they do an episode on that? It seems like they would, but Hulu only has the first season. It’d be kinda creepy, though.

Aww, they’d have to find some other guy to be Gimli in that world. Now, that’s just sad.

But I digress. Let’s play around, though, and suppose that the reason we believe so easily in these other universes is that they do, truly, exist (can you prove they don’t? I think not). That’s right, I decided to contemplate the theory itself after all. Well, first, what is the nature of them? Do they exist because people think them up, or do people write (and such) about them because they already exist and the “creator” simply has some insight into the particular universe about which he writes? Well, there are holes with both situations (but, might I remind you, the same applies to quantum, string, and evolution theory. Just saying, problems aren’t essentially synonymous with impossibility–not that it’s definitely correct, but plausible at least).

On the one hand, let’s say someone invents a tale that happened and ended in a factual version of the past. Let’s say something like Forrest Gump. Does it exist in the fictional universe at the time at which the person invents it, or at the time at which it takes place? Or is time simply not a constant between universes, and it’s technically neither and both? Well, that actually seems rather plausible, that time is simply ambiguous throughout this… er, let’s call it the Meta (ether was taken in the 50′s-70′s or so as the possible medium for light waves to travel through), just to have a name. Anyways, the question can now become whether or not time is infinite in this dimension, or if it begins and ends with the story. But I suppose that seems easy enough to answer as well, doesn’t it? Of course time is infinite in these worlds; just because something isn’t told doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I can’t necessarily prove this without creating a paradox, but just trust me if it doesn’t seem to follow your personal version of common sense. Well gosh, I don’t know what to say… it seems plausible enough to me, actually, given that the human mind is powerful enough to actually create an entire universe.

But say it’s not–say we can only glimpse these other dimensions, and they exist on their own, independent of our minds. I suppose the prime argument against this is that stories often change after their initial creation–not to mention the many discontinuities we find most often in series’. Obviously, the circumstances of the universe don’t change. In this world, America will always have revolted against the British, Hitler will always have come to power, I’ll always have been born in a hospital bathroom. Always. The past cannot be changed. Granted, what we believe to have happened can be molded by new evidence and whatnot, but it’s impossible for the reality to reform. Two options, then (and, actually, one of these applies more to the previous supposition that the worlds are created by people): one, is that yet another reality is created to fit with these changes and the previous one follows yet another timeline; and two, is that humans reshape the stories of the world as we tell them (or, perhaps, only see portions of them and it takes time to form or find the rest of the story the way it actually is).

Eh, it’s all about belief. One can’t give a rational argument for the Meta (tee hee), but I don’t think it’s not all that much less believable than God (no offense, dude. Please don’t kill me today).

On the other hand, it’s equally plausible that this is the only universe there is, and humans are simply susceptible to believing in fallacy somehow. But man, that’s just kind of depressing to me–to think that this is the one and only reality, with all the decisions that could have been made differently and everything. The thought that this universe is the only real possibility is just kind of lame.

Another Paper I Got an A on – Part 2

Is this sad at all? Anyways, Part 1, for people who join the party late. Just my version of throwing a dead body out the window (major points for immediate reference recognition. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have even gotten it). Anyways, yay for Wednesdays not having any good shows for me to watch online Thursday!

One may still argue that having a definition of something is necessary for the understanding or description of the thing. Even if this were the case, it could still not be necessary to know the definition in order to determine what qualities a thing possesses. In fact, it may very well be the opposite, and knowing what properties a thing has is necessary for defining it. A computer keyboard, for example, can most succinctly be defined as a board with buttons in it, each of which has a letter, number, or function that tells a computer to do or display a particular thing. That definition cannot be given without knowing that a keyboard has a few particular qualities such as needing to be connected to a computer, having certain features such as a number of keys and being board-like, and its function of telling the computer something. The definition is naught but the sum of a few qualities of the keyboard.

Thinking of courage, virtue, and justice, then, this could certainly still apply—perhaps more so due to their abstract nature. Continuing with the Meno, in the absence of an acceptable definition, Socrates ends up simply describing things that can be taught (knowledge) and things that cannot (traits), and ends up determining that virtue is neither of these through the use of examples that run counter to them both. He invents a third possibility, that of correct opinion, that seems to fit with the concept that both he and Meno have formed throughout their lives of what virtue is. Indeed, the formed concept might even be a correct opinion itself, in which case Socrates has little room to disapprove of the idea that it cannot alone exist without the ability to be articulated.

Courage, also, can be best defined through its features. It is characterized by a lack of shown weakness and fear in immediate danger, particularly if one is acting of or to protect one of the other virtues. In order to form a definition of it, we take into consideration the examples that we find in stories or experiences in which we feel that courage is present, find the most common feature of all of them, and attempt to describe that element. In the case of justice, Plato did just this in the Republic. He first described something that he considered to be the most just example of that thing—the imaginary city Kallipolis—and then searched for what the feature was that made it just. He took the concept of justice that was formed in his mind throughout his life, and created something with that without even defining it in words, thus again disproving the idea that one must be able to put something into words in order to have a definite understanding of it. He then pieced together a number of things about the city that were characteristics of justice, and brought together a definition from there, later applying it to parts of the soul and so-on to answer the original question of the work of how it compares to injustice.

One cannot say that it’s absolutely necessary to be able to define something in order to 1) know what it is and 2) know what qualities it possesses. If it is necessary for knowing what it is, it would be impossible to define something to begin with since one cannot define something unless they already have a notion as to what it is. Additionally, one does not need to be able to necessarily define a lamp to know that it gives light—and, in fact, the quality of light-giving ability is almost certainly in any given definition of a lamp. Definition, concept, features, and divisions of a given thing all have certain amounts of both independence from and dependence on one another, but none fully requires that any other be present in order to exist in the human mind.

Another Paper I Got an A On – Part 1

The only teacher that seemed completely unimpressed was my Linguistics professor last semester. Understandably, too, since she’d spent her entire career on studying and explaining to us dumb college students how no dialect is better or worse than any other… or something. Anyways, I get proud of my achievements easily, so here’s the first half of my Ancient Philosophy paper on Plato. Some generalities you may like to reference (just linking to the wiki’s here; I don’t think it’s absolutely crucial): Laches, Meno, Republic. Part 2 will go up in an hour or so after I’ve watched the most recent episode of Lie To Me. I’ll get to actual thoughts specifically for posts soon; got a couple bouncing around the ol’ noggin by this point.

In Plato’s writings, Socrates regularly asserts that one must know what a thing is and be able to define it before being able to answer any given question about it or its properties. He demands that virtue, courage, and justice be assigned a satisfactory, all-encompassing—yet not too general—meaning before figuring out whether it can be taught, how best to achieve it, and the extent to which it is profitable, respectively. This point tends to be more of a premise than a conclusion in his arguments, as the purpose of the various works is the exploration of a virtue or virtue itself rather than on how the search for an answer is best performed. Of course, the correct manner of searching could very well be considered a secondary point of the dialogues, particularly given the consistency with which Socrates uses this method within his arguments.

This is not discussed at great length in any given dialogue, perhaps because it digresses so far from the primary question of the piece. An argument, however, is briefly given in the Meno by the question of whether or not one can know any given thing about Meno, himself, if he had never met him. This is open to flaw, for one could surely have heard things about him, even without having seen the man himself. One may change the wording, though, to ask whether or not one could know anything about Meno if he had never heard of him. This is a completely sound argument, as there is no way to know anything about a given thing without having at least been told a little about it. Granted, one might use reason to discover new qualities of something, but one must already know at least a minute amount of information about the thing in order to do so. For instance, Newton had to know that objects fell to the earth before coming up with the theory of gravity (and, frankly, required a fair amount of work from Galileo to do so).

Thus, if one had no knowledge even that someone named Meno existed, it would indeed be impossible to know anything further about him, but even if all he knew was the name, he might at least be able to surmise that Meno was a man, or even simply an animal. The problem that enters here is that we do, in fact, know something about virtue, what parts it has, and what qualities it possesses, otherwise Meno would not have thought to ask whether or not it can be taught. We know that virtue is called virtue; that what it does is make a [thing] a good or great [thing]; that virtue of the soul consists of justice, wisdom, courage, and temperance; and have, as individuals, formed a general concept of what it is. Socrates, however, asserts that we must be able to create a definition, even within the constraints of language, for something, avoiding a simple description of its parts and what it does, and that if we cannot do this, we don’t truly know what the given thing is.

Thinking of color, one can give a definition of it—in the scientific sense, the property of an object that makes light of a certain wavelength reflect while others are absorbed, or even Socrates’ own definition of an effluence of form—but it would be far more difficult for one to make an attempt at describing it or what it does. If one can give a definition of one thing, but not describe it, can’t one be able to describe something without needing to give a definition and still understand what it is?

As an additional thought, most people at least believe that they have an acceptable grasp on the concept of virtue or justice or courage—again, or questions would never be asked about them and Plato would never have written any of these dialogues—yet there are many things for which we have definitions but no firm understanding of. The most prime example, of course, is the concept of infinity. It almost certainly must exist—at least in the case of time, for time is the medium of all change and thereby could not begin if there was no time before time—but is an idea essentially incomprehensible to the human mind. It’s only as believable to us as it is because the only less comprehensible thing is absolute nothingness—we reason that the universe must be eternal because there’s no possible human understanding for a complete lack of the physical realm. If there is such a thing as definition without understanding, there’s no reason to believe that understanding without definition is impossible, particularly given that understanding is a more fundamental process than defining.