We should be careful not to lose too much freedom

[Scott - A2A]

Yes, I saw this coming 30 years ago when my father walked in the house from work with a patch over his eye. I said "What happened?" And he explained, "I was in a car accident."

It turns out, downtown in the city, my father was turning left through a green light when from his right, a motorcycle driving 60+ mph ran through the red light into the passenger side door. The window shattered and blasted into my father's entire right side and face. The biker was speeding, ran a red light, had no license and his motorcycle was uninsured. He ended up losing a leg.

Later that month I hear his insurance company was giving the biker $125,000 for damages. I spoke with their lawyer and he said "Scott, there is no way we are going to go into court with a guy hobbling in or in a wheelchair without a leg. The jury will feel sorry for him and award him damages no matter what the circumstances are."

However, there is good news as I don't see things as bad today as they were then. The pendulum appears to have swung a bit in the better direction.

Scott.

[pjc747]

Benjamin Franklin said that "those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," and he was right. Too often today people wish to play the victim, to join a culture of grievance and shrug off their responsibility for convenience.

There was a Great Depression not because the market crashed, but because for the first time government reacted to it, and successive actions in reaction resulted in a protracted period of depression despite the economy's attempts to leave. President Calvin Coolidge had it right: "Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still." We need less pearl-clutching and less of people expecting their problems to be solved for them at others' expense. We need more of the Coolidge don't just do something, stand there! mentality.

[Alan_A]

Benjamin Franklin said that "those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," and he was right.

Except that when he wrote that, he was arguing as a Pennsylvania legislator for the right of the government to tax a private interest (the Penn family) to fund a defense budget (in the French and Indian wars).

So it's actually a statement in support of collective interests, and of balancing public and private needs.

Details here.

More here.

So... I do not think that this quote means what you think that it means...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk[/youtube]

[Alan_A]

And furthermore....!

[AKar]

Later that month I hear his insurance company was giving the biker $125,000 for damages. I spoke with their lawyer and he said "Scott, there is no way we are going to go into court with a guy hobbling in or in a wheelchair without a leg. The jury will feel sorry for him and award him damages no matter what the circumstances are."

There is a balance of freedom and liability. As I see it, it comes back to how we see and value our choices, notwithstanding whether we believed in destiny, free will or causality.

Then, there is also this balance in between theater and proof. As I see it, it comes back to how we value our intelligence. I'm sorry to hear that apparently the theater got the upper hand.

Of course, as much as I hate it, I must always understand that the Scale has two cups, and I must pick mine. It is not about the truth, or really about the justice really... in any legal system it is merely about balancing the values. But this is more to criticize the justice system, not to make much of a philosophical argument of mine. How to equally value anyone? That's an impossible question by definition.




That said, I have a few contacts in my mobile that won't answer anymore. The people behind I still rate to the highest - even knowing the hindsight on their mistakes, the stupidity of those, making them unable to answer my shouts. The six feet of dirt attenuates the signal of wisdom enough, it seems, so that we won't get much to fulfill the questions of ours. Luckily, their work live by us left behind, we hope at least.

The funny thing is, if one can say so, is that these have been some people of extremely liability. Some of the best, in positions according to. It really makes one to think, how much better did I really know if I knew, if I just arrogantly condemned their actions and in the hindsight decided to not to take the foolish risk - the part "foolish" given by the hindsight. Did they wrong? Obviously. Did they know how to do better but ignored it? They should have and they did. But did they really? Obviously, they didn't. Answering the question if they should have, of course makes me into a besserwisser position, I'm often not even nearly competent to be in at. I wasn't there. As we say in Finland, "tekevälle sattuu". I don't know how that translates to any language, except worldly by almost missing the meaning.

As Sidney Dekker often puts it, the accident brings up the latent issues into attention. In cases where drunk driving while speeding causes injuries or fatalities, the logic follows: we want to enforce our actions against such behavior. That's all right, I believe in your example, Scott, the guy was lucky to be even alive, and even if he paid the consequences, there should not have been any doubt of the guiltiness.

But where the behavior of our mentors cause them to step over the line? Their behavior is daily business, undetectable by our very systems that would rat out the "lesser folks", being by the nazi-card "unsafe". I'd ban any aerobatic pilots for starters! After I've had shot all the parachutists still alive. No, the issue appears to be that there is no line, or if there was, it was arbitrarily drawn by "us the other people". How to balance the two? What we are supposed to know in the first place? How are we supposed to act and what is our actual control over it?

And if we choose to draw the line, would we owe to the people who paid the ultimate price to show us? In these days, where the commercial aviation is yet again closer and closer pushing into the area of interpretation of the manuals of extending and extending amounts of hardly applicable procedures, as Mr. Dekker has lectured, it remains to be seen where the daily work gets judged unacceptable the next time.





In judging in between the freedom and jurisdiction, I think it boils down to the one of the most ultimate issues of human behavior: the motivation. And there it boils down to the original question: if I wanted to take a risk, like, say Schumacher did, it would be fine by me, even if the results were sad. If I wanted to take a risk for my own interest, where I'd put some other people in danger, the situation flips over - but it is still a difficult one. For many people pay for the taxi to be there on time.

So, who are we to judge? As it have been, we all have our own mind sets and values - and while nothing absolute changes, our views can flip over a text message. ("I could not have believed what happened!")



But we do judge, and that's the ultimate question. We are all confident idiots. It is about defining the idiocy, always done in retrospect mostly by the knowledge of those passed. The hardest part is to acknowledge that we base our knowledge to the idiocy of the others. And as Dr. House implied, they are all idiots.



IMO, I give the responsibility to everyone. I don't condemn one speeding by 10 km/h, but I don't suggest that either. I think we should make our own decisions. In utmost, I believe our future depends on not getting too fixated on the rules: while the lawyers are highly-paid, they only interpret the artificial rules laid by the others. For a physicist to break new ground, I at least hope that he still needs to understand something more fundamental, even if against our current world of view, "for the nature cannot be fooled."

-Esa

[Dogsbody55]

[...] Or even the weather forecaster? There are too many uncontrolled variables in their fields to consider them experts, and yet we give them such credence today? Why, when they're no more reliable and accurate as my daily horoscope!!!!

A bit off topic Mike, but you must have some crummy forecasts Down Under if this is really the case. In the UK I'm often amazed at the accuracy of our short terms weather forecasts: these are the ones that can really preserve the lives of aviators, mariners and others of us who work (or play) out in the elements. In fact, as science goes, I can't think of any more valid or relevant example than meteorology. Just because weather forecasting is difficult, doesn't mean it's not science. [/quote]

To be fair, Nick, the forecasters on the western side of the continent have the biggest area in the world to consider in their predictions, because they cover all of Western Australia and the entire Indian and much of the Southern oceans. There's no land masses in here of any great size like the northern hemisphere so the variables are huge. But that was my point. Yes, it's a science, but weather forecasting is not an exact science like chemistry or maths. If I ask a question, I expect a precise answer. If I don't get that precise answer, then my interlocutor is not an expert, but someone who may know more than me about a subject that is an inexact science so I take his answer with a grain of salt as he can't be dependable. Yet such people are given so much credence today. When I went to school, we were taught that science was about testing hypotheses and observing the result. If you get the same result repeatedly, then you have scientific theory. If that theory remains unchallenged, then you have scientific fact. I'm aware that accepted science may be later disproven, but my point is that there's a difference an exact science and an inexact science. One is worth something, and the other is to be taken lightly.

Cheers,
Mike.

[pjc747]

Benjamin Franklin said that "those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," and he was right.

Except that when he wrote that, he was arguing as a Pennsylvania legislator for the right of the government to tax a private interest (the Penn family) to fund a defense budget (in the French and Indian wars).

So it's actually a statement in support of collective interests, and of balancing public and private needs.

Well, the same quote was used by itself as the motto of the 1759 book An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania, approved by Franklin, so I would say that its standalone use would be in line with its meaning given that fact.

[Alan_A]

Well, the same quote was used by itself as the motto of the 1759 book An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania, approved by Franklin, so I would say that its standalone use would be in line with its meaning given that fact.

Well, if you would say that, then you would be 100 percent wrong.

In 1759, Franklin had gone to England to present to the Speaker of the House of Commons exactly the same argument that he'd advanced in the 1755 letter to the colonial governor - that the legislature should have the right to tax the Penn family in order to raise a militia for the defense of the colony, and that the Penn family's veto of the legislature through the governor the Penns had appointed was a private assault on government (i.e. the legislature) . Immediately after the failure of the mission, he went farther - he wanted the proprietary government of the Penns (a private interest) replaced with a royal government (a governing institution).

In 1757, he was sent to England by the Pennsylvania Assembly as a colonial agent to protest against the political influence of the Penn family, the proprietors of the colony. He remained there for five years, striving to end the proprietors' prerogative to overturn legislation from the elected Assembly, and their exemption from paying taxes on their land. His lack of influential allies in Whitehall led to the failure of this mission.

At this time, many members of the Pennsylvania Assembly were feuding with William Penn's heirs, who controlled the colony as proprietors. After his return to the colony, Franklin led the "anti-proprietary party" in the struggle against the Penn family, and was elected Speaker of the Pennsylvania House in May 1764. His call for a change from proprietary to royal government was a rare political miscalculation, however: Pennsylvanians worried that such a move would endanger their political and religious freedoms. Because of these fears, and because of political attacks on his character, Franklin lost his seat in the October 1764 Assembly elections. The anti-proprietary party dispatched Franklin to England again to continue the struggle against the Penn family proprietorship. During this trip, events drastically changed the nature of his mission.[94]

An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania was the volume presented by Franklin to the Speaker.

The liberty/safety quote does in fact appear on its own on the title page, together with the citation "page 289."

On page 289, you'll find the complete text of Franklin's 1755 letter.

So the context for the quote on the title page of the book is exactly the same as it was in the 1755 letter - it's an argument in favor of, not against, government.

If you want to argue that government is bad - a perfectly legitimate viewpoint with many adherents - there are lots of quotes you can use in support. But this isn't one of them.

Sorry, but in the land of Accu-Sim, the "Accu" part counts, and it applies to things in addition to airplanes.

[pjc747]

Well, the same quote was used by itself as the motto of the 1759 book An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania, approved by Franklin, so I would say that its standalone use would be in line with its meaning given that fact.

Well, if you would say that, then you would be 100 percent wrong.

In 1759, Franklin had gone to England to present to the Speaker of the House of Commons exactly the same argument that he'd advanced in the 1755 letter to the colonial governor - that the legislature should have the right to tax the Penn family in order to raise a militia for the defense of the colony, and that the Penn family's veto of the legislature through the governor the Penns had appointed was a private assault on government (i.e. the legislature) . Immediately after the failure of the mission, he went farther - he wanted the proprietary government of the Penns (a private interest) replaced with a royal government (a governing institution).

In 1757, he was sent to England by the Pennsylvania Assembly as a colonial agent to protest against the political influence of the Penn family, the proprietors of the colony. He remained there for five years, striving to end the proprietors' prerogative to overturn legislation from the elected Assembly, and their exemption from paying taxes on their land. His lack of influential allies in Whitehall led to the failure of this mission.

At this time, many members of the Pennsylvania Assembly were feuding with William Penn's heirs, who controlled the colony as proprietors. After his return to the colony, Franklin led the "anti-proprietary party" in the struggle against the Penn family, and was elected Speaker of the Pennsylvania House in May 1764. His call for a change from proprietary to royal government was a rare political miscalculation, however: Pennsylvanians worried that such a move would endanger their political and religious freedoms. Because of these fears, and because of political attacks on his character, Franklin lost his seat in the October 1764 Assembly elections. The anti-proprietary party dispatched Franklin to England again to continue the struggle against the Penn family proprietorship. During this trip, events drastically changed the nature of his mission.[94]

An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania was the volume presented by Franklin to the Speaker.

The liberty/safety quote does in fact appear on its own on the title page, together with the citation "page 289."

On page 289, you'll find the complete text of Franklin's 1755 letter.

So the context for the quote on the title page of the book is exactly the same as it was in the 1755 letter - it's an argument in favor of, not against, government.

If you want to argue that government is bad - a perfectly legitimate viewpoint with many adherents - there are lots of quotes you can use in support. But this isn't one of them.

Sorry, but in the land of Accu-Sim, the "Accu" part counts, and it applies to things in addition to airplanes.

And your point is...?

Your argument doesn't actually refute the purpose outlined above. Did Franklin not, in creating that quotation, still speak out against the notion of giving up 'essential' liberty as a public representative to receive 'temporary' safety? He certainly did. He did not argue against thoughtful and wise trade-off, but whether in reference to liberties, legislative or private, the principle remains the same. Should the Assembly have, in 1755, ceded the great value of its duties and powers to achieve, in brevity, a reprieve from danger? Not at all. Should we as private citizens, in his time or in our time accept the gradual erosion of liberties, de jure and de facto, for the fleeting and vacuous purposes given? Heavens no. It survives as a wise quote when used as I have because the principle of its application depends not on its circumstance, but its implications. That's what matters.

[William Hughes]

Human ability is distributed across the population in an uneven manner. To paraphrase Carlin, "Imagine how dumb the average person is. Now understand that half of them are dumber than that."

Some of us are capable and have been taught to exercise responsibility. Others are not, and have not. We must admit that small children are in no wise competent to act for themselves or be responsible for their actions. Similarly, some adults with intellectual disabilities are in a similar way incompetent.

Now, these things do not exist in a binary state. An infant is most helpless, and a pilot (just to choose an arbitrary example!) is most competent. The one must have other people responsible him and the latter is entirely responsible for his actions. All people fall on a spectrum between these two examples with most people clustered somewhere between. Governments have proposed that responsibility must be assigned in certain collective manners and I would agree that in many cases this has gone too far and should perhaps be nudged back a wee bit towards individual responsibility.

There is also an urban / rural split here. People who live in a city benefit from specialization. They can call on an expert plumber who is greatly experienced to quickly fix a problem. They depend upon others (food, shelter) all day long for their very existence. Justifiably they insist on regulations and oversight of the people to whom they entrust their loved ones.

Rural people must fix their own damn sewer pump. They are used to being responsible for whatever is needed and relying on themselves. Regulations made by far away people who are not involved are irrelevant and will likely be ignored.

[EightyFiftyFive]

WARNING PROFANITY IN VIDEO, NO CHILDREN, 18 AND OLDER PLEASE

This sums it up! (the TRUTH)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI[/youtube]

[Mikenor]

Carlin always nailed it right on the head. One of a kind for sure.

[billhuntsman]

Don't get me started -

About personal freedom, lawyers have made sure we are now very limited in that respect. Need I say more?

[Alan_A]

And your point is...?

My point is...

1. Accuracy counts. There's a reason A2A isn't, say, Abacus.

2. People are always exhuming the founding fathers - Franklin especially, because he was good at slogans - and dressing them up in whatever contemporary costume suits them. That's bad history and bad argument. Cf. point 1, above.

3. You keep changing the terms of the argument. In your first post, you quoted Franklin, then Coolidge, in a statement about how government action is bad and led to the Depression and it would have been better to just do nothing. The point of quoting Franklin was to add legitimacy - roughly, "see? It' s not just me saying this. It's Benjamin Franklin." Then, when I pointed out that Franklin was actually arguing in favor of government, you said, well, later he used the quote on its own, so he didn't mean it to stay in that original context. So I pointed out that the "stand-alone" use of the quote was actually still in the original context. So now you say, well, never mind about Franklin, the quote is wise and stands on its own independent of Franklin. Which is a completely different argument than the one you started out with. It's not a win if you keep moving the goal posts.

BTW, just to be clear about it, nothing personal going on here from my point of view. A good debate is fun and everybody benefits. Plus it's something I do for a living, so I tend to fall into it naturally. Happy to talk technique if you'd like - probably better via PM, so as not to derail the thread more than I already have. Hope we can continue - I'm sure the founding fathers would approve.

[Alan_A]

This sums it up! (the TRUTH)

YES! NAILED IT!

Bravo, EightyFiftyFive... and Carlin, who should always get the last word!