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Saturday, March 3, 2012

Disease Control, Safety, Fear and Collective Rights

“What should they [the elite] regard as too obscene, since they held that all morality was a mere subjective byproduct of the physical and economic situations of men?… From the point of view which is accepted in hell, the whole history of our earth had led up to this moment.”  ~~  C.S. Lewis
The US and French Revolutions were based on two contradictory views of man. The motto of the French jacobins, Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood (solidarity) stands in sharp contrast to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Property).

In the present dust up in the US, whether religious employers should be mandated to pay for contraception through health care coverage, the two perspectives are colliding head on.

Unintentional pregnancy is presented as a menace to society as a whole, a human tragedy on the personal level (Obama: girls shouldn't be punished with a baby), and perhaps wordt of all, as a burden on the environment (humansRevil). In both philosophies men are born equal, with a clean slate (tabula rasa), but from thereon the two views split irrevocably.

Whereas in individualism man's rights are inherent, based on Natural Law or endowed by God, in collectivism rights are temporarily bestowed by the state (or whatever collective is applicable). While in individualism man himself chooses his standard of morality, in collectivism it is the collective that is the yardstick. It is therefore not absolute, but fluctuates as the mores of society shift with time and under the pressure of activists. In the former it is man who is responsible for his actions made in free choice, in the latter it is the collective that assumes responsibility on his behalf.

We witness this shift of responsibility from personal to the public sphere time and again: in Obama, who is blaming Bush or just about everyone else for the disasters befalling the USA; Muslims are consistently refusing to take responsibility for deadly riots and acts of terrorism; Nazis and communists turned to scapegoating a discredited leader or a group, but never themselves or the ideology.

After birth, collectivism separates man from his actions. Responsibility for crimes, stupidities and/or any deviant behavior, is deemed a form of disease rooted in the collective which set the norm; the public body is accepting the responsibility on the individual's behalf.

This is how the Left is turning such private cases into a public issue, while going roughshod over individual liberty, the freedom of conscience and free speech rights: pregnancy, abortion, contraception, crimes, addiction of all varieties, eating and behavioral disorders, homelessness, poverty, autism, unemployment, depression, vagrancy, everything is disease! Disease paves the way for costs to be foisted on the public purse. Panic and fear emanating from health scares keep a population docile and responsive to white coated, authoritative control.

Once the separation of a person and his actions has been made, it is unclear what precisely constitutes this morally lobotomized non-being, but we have a name for a human without moral compass: we call it a sociopath. N.B. My interlocutor was shocked by this absolutism, but this is exactly what a person without morals is: a perfect moral relativist like Hannibal Lector. And they are surprised their therapies don't work!

Collectivists are proud of their work. Taking the moral high ground, they believe their system is much more humane towards criminals and deviants. The matter becomes acutely visible in the American versus the European criminal justice system. In fact the collectivist system is less humane than the collectivist thinks: in the moral system, once the debt is paid the slate is considered clean and the criminal gets a new lease of life. But in the demoralized, European 'disease' approach to crime, treatment may well be for life among the busy bodies in a mental institution with as huge lawn, a politically correct copper name plate, in a quite corner in the country. Psychotherapy is now known not to make a flipping ass's end of difference

The core of the radical dogma is equality at birth; during life compensation for the 'under privileged' and handicaps for the overachievers; ensuring absolute equality of outcome on the administration 'soft death', now well on it's way in Europe of becoming a 'right'.

While in individualism rights are limited to life, liberty and property rooted in the nature of man, to collectivists rights are bestowed by the collective on the basis of 'consensus' (whatever that may be): their definition of 'universality'. A philosophical irreducible primer is debased to a piece of paper signed by diplomats they call the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Muslim world didn't sign up to this 'consensus': they have endorsed a corrupted offshoot called the Cairo Declaration. So far, no one has woken up to the contradiction yet!

Hat tip: @republiektrien

Update: the Obama has now made cell phones a human right! You get them free with welfare! Hat Tip: @GoldWerewolf
Update: Not to be outdone - and there are probably many more cities and towns that follow in its steps - the northern Dutch city of Groningen is dispensing flat screen TVs to the unemployed. This is to remedy a collectivist disease called social isolation. More likely it's to ensure enhanced indoctrination by the lamestream media LOL Hat tip @VictorSterren

 
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