Paternalistic Laws Make Very Little Sense
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There are 3 types of laws: Freedom laws; Power laws and Paternalism laws. Freedom laws are those laws we actually like. Free Speech and things like that are all freedom laws. Some freedom laws are less obvious than others. But if the law makes your freedom stronger, it is a freedom law. Power laws are similar. Some people confuse power laws with freedom laws. Power laws are those that give people power. Most obvious examples are laws about censorship. Or laws that state that you can't criticize the government, some countries have that. Those give power to the government over the people. Power laws are any laws that give anybody power. Taking away somebodies else freedom in the process. But then there are paternalism laws.
Technically speaking paternalism laws are power laws. But to understand what I'm talking about we have to understand the 3 words in question.
Freedom
Freedom is when a person has control over per's live. Meaning if the person can make independent decisions about every aspect of the live that touches this person and only this person. For example: Free Speech is a freedom, because a person can control per's own mouth to produce any sound what so ever. And restricting that would be unjust. And if we are talking about writing. It's the freedom of per to scribble any line. Or change an appearance of any object belonging to per. And of course a freedom to show that outwards. Because me showing you something doesn't touch you in any way. You can choose to look at something else if you don't like what I show you.
There is a debate to be had about things like manipulation, or coercion, when it comes to Free Speech. This is a freedom collision situation that makes everything inherently paradoxical. But worth diving into. Because if we simply forget about the issue at hand, we could potentially make more problems than good. So with manipulation there is an argument to be had that it is not longer Freedom of Speech, but rather Power of speech, because it can force people to do things those people might not choose to do otherwise. There is also a counter-argument to be had, that manipulations are just words and you may not listen to those, making you free, and therefor making the person speaking no longer poses a power of speech and rather only have Free Speech. Some laws, like those making certain types of threats illegal are in the gray zone between Freedom laws and Power laws. Because it is to be argued if a mere thread posses any power to begin with.
Power
Power, contrary to Freedom, is control over other people. People tend to confuse Power and Freedom. And often even view both of them as one and the same. Freedom sounds like "ability to do whatever you want". But in reality that would be freedom plus total power. Because freedom is control only over personal matters. Stuff that do not touch other people. Power instead is control over other people. You can even have power without having freedom. And a lot of those in power do not actually possess freedom because there is somebody else who holds power over them. Hierarchy structures give people in the structure power over anybody under them, but not above them.
Power laws are laws that are designed to maintain power over other people.
Paternalism
Now let's talk about the strange word. You could probably make sense of it looking at the world and seeing a slight resemblance of it to "parenting". Another word that could describe Paternalism is "Parentalism". This is a very strange philosophical thing. It is inherently divisive. And even when you choose one way in certain paternalistic situations. You will most likely choose the other way in other paternalistic situations. This is what I like about paternalism. It breaks the head in the most interesting way.
The basic idea is: holding power over somebody for that person's own good.
You can already feel how it sounds not very nice. Especially when I put it like this. A lot of dictatorial regimes use paternalistic arguments similar to that to hold power over people. Actually it seems like in our days everybody who holds any power uses some kind of paternalistic justification for said power.
But then for example: Parents holding power over their children. So, for example, the children will not hurt themselves. You can see how just pointing this particular case of paternalism out changes how you feel about it. Before that, with the previous way I described it, it looked like something an evil person would say to justify being evil. And now it's more like common sense good thing to have.
In a pure Freedom / Power debate, Paternalism of all kinds is Power and therefor unjust. Therefor even parents that are trying to protect their kids from danger, are exercising unjust power. Given, of course, that those kids didn't want the protection in that particular situation.
Now, here is a little complication to paternalism that is very important to take a look at, making the entire debate a little bit more interesting. The kid in question might not know about a danger in question. And therefor mind not want protection. In which case are we suddenly justifying paternalism? Or are we making it a necessity to disclose the danger? How about another complication? What if a child cannot speak? We cannot confirm that the child understands the danger even if said danger is disclosed.
A similar situation is going on when people sign documents. Have you have read an end user license agreement before agreeing to it? Have you ever read an employee contract before signing it? Well the agreement is there to disclose all kind of possible dangers that could be. Including all possible freedom violations. To which you are agreeing without realizing that those dangers exist. And even if you can read the document in question. Can you understand it? Or do you need a lawyer? Is your lawyer good enough? And so on and so forth...
Would you prefer instead to not being able to agree to anything?
Well in this case if you are not able to agree to nothing you are not able to do anything. You are not able to decide things about your life. And therefor what kind of Freedom is there? None! So the most logical thing is to remove paternalism entirely and try at least to disclose things. And communicate with people about the dangers. Without forcing them to avoid them. And without forcing them to actually listen to your warnings.
Paternalism laws
The laws in question, those that I wanted to tell you make no sense, are those laws that restrict people for their own good. Like for example: When it's illegal to cross the street on a red light. A car can hit you. Of course it is illegal! Right?
Let's look at this particular example. The danger in question is car hitting you. So if a person goes on red, it is potentially very dangerous. The action is - going on red. The punishment for doing it is - car hitting you. When you add a law that makes it illegal, you add an extra punishment to it. You aren't making the action impossible.
What this law is trying to solve is people being hit by cars. First problem: Those people might want to be hit by cars. That creates a complication. A person is not a feather and getting hit by a car will damage the car in question, which belongs to a different person that might not want that. But let's say that that different person wants to hit the person with his car. And is fine with the car being broken in the process. We have a fully consensual stunt. The law, therefor is unjust, because is doesn't take that into account.
How about then making a law that does take this into account. Well then to not get a punishment all you need to do is claim that you wanted to get hit by a car. Nullifying any effectiveness of the law. Making the law pointless.
Okay, let's say that a law in question is designed as a kind of disclosing mechanism. To make sure people know about the danger. Well then you have to ask yourself this: Is it more likely that a person will know about the existence of the danger, or the existence of the law? We already know that nobody read contracts they sign. How many people read the law? And okay, let's say that the government will spend money to promote the law in question. Why not instead just spend money to promote the awareness of the danger instead? What is the point? This makes no sense!
And you can follow the same logic with every paternalism law. No matter how intense the danger in question is. Every time just promoting the awareness of the danger is a more sensible and more just thing to do. And yet legal systems around the world have plenty of paternalism laws.
And not only that. New pop up every time. From book censorship laws to bogus kids protection against various things laws. Ridiculous! Simply ridiculous!
Makes you think. Were they designed to protect anybody? Or were they designed for something else?
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