“Law” is Not Determinative of Conduct

[Nick1911]

IMO, if you have as few as two people living in close proximity, there will be law of some type.  It may not be written down, but it will be there.

Laws are essentially codified social or cultural conventions.  Shared sets of values among a group which are codified and enforced such that certain conduct can be expected when we interact with each other.  So you can enter contracts and know there is a way for them to be enforced.  Go to the grocery store and know you're extremely unlikely to be stabbed unless you live in failed city.

People tend to be wary if you don't follow normal social conventions.  Consider if you were to walk up to a group of strangers and immediately start waxing philosophical without so much as introducing yourself first.  They will be very cautious of you and your intentions.

[Bogie]

Well, St. Louis is right now effectively without law - anarchy, thanks to the Really Smart People telling our police that they hate them, and then further demonstrating it.
 
Stay strapped, or get clapped.
 
Bosco, are you the man who killed my father?

[cordex]

Yes, I am saying that I think the entire world accepts law without question, without dispute

This is demonstrably false, as you admit below.  If people regularly violate the law they do not accept it "without question, without dispute."  I admit, tilting at your own strawmen with other strawmen is an interesting technique.

All you described that you saw today simply reinforces my contention that given law is not determinative of conduct. All the mass murder shows the same, i.e., law is not, cannot be, determinative

You excel at stating simple things badly.  Yes, people violate the law, but that clearly shows the absurdity of your contention about universal acceptance of the law.

My ontological freedom is not, cannot, be causally moved to act, or not, by an existing external phenomenon.

Not 100%, but like most people your action can be strongly manipulated by the denial or provision of your basic needs, direction of your emotions, direct force, threats against loved ones, etc.

I am viewing the law through the lens of his view of how a human act arises, and, that view permits me to show that jurisprudence does not actually understand how human action and inaction originate.
I do not understand what you mean when you say I have causality reversed...

The structure we know as law springs from successful human action and social evolution.  Societies and groups which worked together to punish theft, murder, rape, etc. tended to do better than societies which didn't.

Yes, of course, all law ultimately has is violence and infliction of death, and there is a very dire sense wherein that is real.  However, law is the most irreal/artificial state of affairs extant. Pure man made systematical misleadingness.
What I am attempting is to inform others why law is essentially a lie, designed to eat out the substance of persons, all it wants is money, money, money...the lie is that law is determinative of human conduct. The law is quoted while your money is taken...

Granted: law is susceptible to abuse.  However, do you believe (as you seem to be stating) that law is an unalloyed evil?

[Bogie]

It is "against the law" to run red lights, to drive down major streets waving a carbine out your sunroof, and it is against the law to walk into a hardware store, pick something up and walk out without paying.
 
Yet I see stuff like that regularly...
 
Can you prove you did not kill my father?

[Tuco]

Can you prove you did not kill my father?

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

This is easy!
Next!

[cordex]

Can you prove you did not kill my father?

Honestly I would like to see a DNA test to prove he isn’t your father. 

[Bosco1]

This is demonstrably false, as you admit below.  If people regularly violate the law they do not accept it "without question, without dispute."  I admit, tilting at your own strawmen with other strawmen is an interesting technique.
You excel at stating simple things badly.  Yes, people violate the law, but that clearly shows the absurdity of your contention about universal acceptance of the law.
Not 100%, but like most people your action can be strongly manipulated by the denial or provision of your basic needs, direction of your emotions, direct force, threats against loved ones, etc.
The structure we know as law springs from successful human action and social evolution.  Societies and groups which worked together to punish theft, murder, rape, etc. tended to do better than societies which didn't.
Granted: law is susceptible to abuse.  However, do you believe (as you seem to be stating) that law is an unalloyed evil?

When I say "law'' I am referring to that series  of persons who make, mediate, and enforce law; I am not referring to grassroots persons..
Law is currently an institution which totally fails to comprehend the actual structure of how a human act originates, and, in so far as law mistakenly demands persons act by law, it is an ignorant and treacherous ogre.

[cordex]

When I say "law'' I am referring to that series  of persons who make, mediate, and enforce law; I am not referring to grassroots persons..
Law is currently an institution which totally fails to comprehend the actual structure of how a human act originates, and, in so far as law mistakenly demands persons act by law, it is an ignorant and treacherous ogre.

What is your proposed alternative?

[dogmush]

When I say "law'' I am referring to that series  of persons who make, mediate, and enforce law; I am not referring to grassroots persons..
Law is currently an institution which totally fails to comprehend the actual structure of how a human act originates, and, in so far as law mistakenly demands persons act by law, it is an ignorant and treacherous ogre.

Except that that's not what the word "law" means.  You might as well argue "Rutabaga" is not determinative of conduct, and when challenged make up a definition other than starchy tuber.

[Bosco1]

Except that that's not what the word "law" means.  You might as well argue "Rutabaga" is not determinative of conduct, and when challenged make up a definition other than starchy tuber.

So, then, tell us what it means.

Law is a language mediated and enforced by the so-called authorities...

[Bosco1]

What is your proposed alternative?

First we should educate everyone to the point of understanding how human acts actually originate, which is being reflectively free, which will raise everyone's natural dignity/nobility and effect a calm.  The final totalization of what civilization can be can only be the resultant of this type of dialogic interaction...

[Bogie]

I'm going to the grocery now. Should I take the Glock or the Smith & Wesson?

[Perd Hapley]

If I teach a mentally capable 8 year old for 20 consecutive minutes to replace an alphabet letter with a new letter and pronunciation then the mentally capable 8 year old writes and pronounces the new letter and pronunciation that's replacing an alphabet letter in 20 consecutive minutes. I teach a mentally capable 8 year old for 20 consecutive minutes to replace an alphabet letter with a new letter and pronunciation. Thus, the mentally capable 8 year old writes and pronounces the new letter and pronunciation that replaces an alphabet letter in 20 consecutive minutes.

[Tuco]

I'm going to the grocery now. Should I take the Glock or the Smith & Wesson?

Sunny?  SW
Looks like precip? Glock

[cordex]

First we should educate everyone to the point of understanding how human acts actually originate, which is being reflectively free, which will raise everyone's natural dignity/nobility and effect a calm.  The final totalization of what civilization can be can only be the resultant of this type of dialogic interaction...

So after your instruction that human acts originate in “being reflectively free” we can expect a utopia?  No chance of someone being unable or unwilling to control their actions?  No risk that someone might take advantage of others weaker than themselves?  No possibility that someone might fail to live up to their commitments?

[Brad Johnson]

So after your instruction that human acts originate in “being reflectively free” we can expect a utopia?  No chance of someone being unable or unwilling to control their actions?  No risk that someone might take advantage of others weaker than themselves?  No possibility that someone might fail to live up to their commitments?

How dare you say human nature is the ultimate Achille's Heel of utopic envisioning? I bet you also think water is wet.

Peasant.

Brad

[Nick1911]

So after your instruction that human acts originate in “being reflectively free” we can expect a utopia?  No chance of someone being unable or unwilling to control their actions?  No risk that someone might take advantage of others weaker than themselves?  No possibility that someone might fail to live up to their commitments?

It does appear to be an argument for anarchy, and suggests that if everyone just sat down and considered their actions and motivations, well, that'd be "the final totalization of what civilization can be". 

To me - having met actual humans - this seems like a very naive position.  Lawless regions are cesspools of suffering, not a utopia.  Like Syria, Somaliland, East Saint Louis, etc.

[dogmush]

So, then, tell us what it means.

Law is a language mediated and enforced by the so-called authorities...

Off the top of my head a workable common definition would probably be something like "A set of mores and customs generally agreed upon by a community or society and enforced by the civil authority of that group".

You substituted the actual civil authorities charged with enforcing the law with the law, which is unworkable because the people in that system, being people, can and do break the law.

Nor is it a language (although it could be argued one needs to learn a new language to understand modern law). 

First we should educate everyone to the point of understanding how human acts actually originate, which is being reflectively free, which will raise everyone's natural dignity/nobility and effect a calm. 

Notwithstanding the rest of your pseudo-philosophical navel gazing this statement is objectively false.  Human's are not calm when left to their own devices.  "Human acts" when unencumbered by societal or social rules are almost universally predatory and not calm.  Which makes sense if you actually thought about what drives human behavior.  we are basically small pack predators, so stripping away the "law" leaves that animal:  A territorial, tribal predator that is neither calm, nor particularly dignified or noble.

If you or M. Sartre thinks otherwise I would ask for an example of any group in the history of humanity where removing societal strictures on behavior resulted in calm dignified behavior from the group.

[Bosco1]

So after your instruction that human acts originate in “being reflectively free” we can expect a utopia?  No chance of someone being unable or unwilling to control their actions?  No risk that someone might take advantage of others weaker than themselves?  No possibility that someone might fail to live up to their commitments?

I said we should start by rendering all persons as reflectively free. Then all of the negative behaviors could well intensify, and, so would reactions thereto...perhaps erasing the ignoble ones via grassroots violence...However, I think raising all persons up to reflective freedom will ennoble and calm everyone.

[cordex]

I bet you also think water is wet.

No, for by wet I, without question, mean a state of existence separate from the existential, ontological, reflective totalization.  A state of mind not achievable by water, by which I mean your face.

[Nick1911]

No, for by wet I, without question, mean a state of existence separate from the existential, ontological, reflective totalization.  A state of mind not achievable by water, by which I mean your face.

 

[WLJ]

Sunny?  SW
Looks like precip? Glock

Rowdy with a chance of gangs
Take the 10mm

[Brad Johnson]

No, for by wet I, without question, mean a state of existence separate from the existential, ontological, reflective totalization.  A state of mind not achievable by water, by which I mean your face.

I exist primarily as an ugly giant bag of mostly water. However, that existence exemplifies the abhorrent nature of things which might be. Derivations from otherwise tentative norms is, of course, codified by sessions of listless buffoonery, realized by normative affirmations thereof. To lay claim otherwise is a rejection of your reality, with which I substitute my own.

Brad

[cordex]

I said we should start by rendering all persons as reflectively free. Then all of the negative behaviors could well intensify, and, so would reactions thereto...perhaps erasing the ignoble ones via grassroots violence...However, I think raising all persons up to reflective freedom will ennoble and calm everyone.

You have the same trouble Sartre did, only more so.

Grassroots violence on an individual level is simply self-defense.  In your utopia, only those capable of effective self-defense (or proactive self-defense) are likely to prosper in the long term.  Those incapable of mounting an effective self-defense would then be left to be victimized by anyone of a mind to.  And, my friend, there will be plenty who have a mind to.  Ultimately those capable of effective self-defense will band together with some of those less capable and provide them with a level of protection, or at the very least retribution after the fact.  After some retribution goes too far, or is applied where it shouldn't be, someone will get the great idea of codifying the actions that will result in retribution, as well as the extent of force that is acceptable in various situations.  By then your utopia will have rediscovered law.

Or collapsed.

[Bosco1]

Off the top of my head a workable common definition would probably be something like "A set of mores and customs generally agreed upon by a community or society and enforced by the civil authority of that group".

You substituted the actual civil authorities charged with enforcing the law with the law, which is unworkable because the people in that system, being people, can and do break the law.

Nor is it a language (although it could be argued one needs to learn a new language to understand modern law). 


Notwithstanding the rest of your pseudo-philosophical navel gazing this statement is objectively false.  Human's are not calm when left to their own devices.  "Human acts" when unencumbered by societal or social rules are almost universally predatory and not calm.  Which makes sense if you actually thought about what drives human behavior.  we are basically small pack predators, so stripping away the "law" leaves that animal:  A territorial, tribal predator that is neither calm, nor particularly dignified or noble.

If you or M. Sartre thinks otherwise I would ask for an example of any group in the history of humanity where removing societal strictures on behavior resulted in calm dignified behavior from the group.

In America immediately after the 1776 revolution, when there was no governmental structure, everything proceeded calmly and with propriety, due to the need for commerce to transpire.