tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5187043.post6943933062731684818..comments2024-03-27T21:30:35.824+00:00Comments on UK Commentators: "Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we've become"Labanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031578024191117985noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5187043.post-44420390568667897212009-05-01T09:40:00.000+00:002009-05-01T09:40:00.000+00:00"Policemen and laws can never replace customs, tra..."Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society."<br /><br />Superb, and the complete antithesis of progressive liberal belief.Robnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5187043.post-5575027785326385962009-04-30T13:53:00.000+00:002009-04-30T13:53:00.000+00:00As I keep asking libertarians - how do you prevent...As I keep asking libertarians - how do you prevent libertarianism descending into libertinism?<br /><br />As I keep asking everyone - how can the rule of law be expected to work when there isn't the expectation that you will be caught and punished for your crime?<br /><br />As I like to put it - in the absence of an omnipresent God, the only alternative to restrain immoral and illegal behaviour is an omnipresent state.<br /><br />That means more laws, more restrictions on what you can and can not do and more intrusive monitoring and surveillance of ordinary people going about their entirely law-abiding business.Stanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15007863347348182876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5187043.post-1076182948829451362009-04-30T12:38:00.000+00:002009-04-30T12:38:00.000+00:00In the words of Edmund Burke:
"men are qualified ...In the words of Edmund Burke:<br /><br /><EM>"men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."</EM>Mercurius Aulicushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05130901970855873480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5187043.post-7177954735953917572009-04-30T10:57:00.000+00:002009-04-30T10:57:00.000+00:00I have a vague memory of once reading someone who ...I have a vague memory of once reading someone who argued that LBJ's welfare state had a much greater demoralising effect on blacks than on whites. I can't remember whether he had an explanation for it.deariemenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5187043.post-18679689201939923792009-04-30T09:55:00.000+00:002009-04-30T09:55:00.000+00:00An illegitimacy rate among black Americans rising ...An illegitimacy rate among black Americans rising from the low twenties (percentage terms) in the 1950s to well over 70 today (more like 99 in the cities) is of course, not worthy of any attention at all from liberal sociologists.staybrytenoreply@blogger.com