I was thinking about starting a thread talking about societal systems bottom-up style. With societal systems i mean government(or lack thereof) and the rest of society, and how those should work. But reading and replying the thread "Socialism in the United States"(need not read link) I was reminded that these systems have purposes, and to discuss how these systems should work requires discussing what their purpose is. So this thread is about the purpose of the systems, not how it should work. Feel free to note if those can not be separated and why. I know that one requirement of a system might be that it can be changed, but that is a purpose, right? If you dont want to separate the purpose and the actual system, please delegate your posts to other threads.

For starters, i will try summarize some of the purposes that systems of society are for: (Being biased and fail miserably in catching them all, of course. Feel free to add, its what the thread is for!)

• Limiting personal some freedoms for people you think can not decide for themselves. For example fundamentalism, but also forcing children to school, and drug-addicts to clinics. I mean, thinking they have reduced ability to judge for themselves. Edit: i mean that there are duties about things that do not aid others.

• Freedom for individuals, as far as non-harming to others, as little or no duties.(often called the right)
  If people have other morals, they should follow it themselves, and not force others to do so too.(So those people are sort right if poor, and left when rich )

• Limited freedom for individuals -individuals having different rights as previous point, more then besides not being harmed. Like the right for shelter, food, water, and education.(often called the left)
  For those rights, people get (admittedly forcibly)duty for those with resources to aid others, (taxes, for instance) this duty does not extend to things that do not aid others.(that would be the first point.)

Of course there are opinions between these, and perhaps utterly different approaches. Perhaps this is much like the earlier threads about the left-right and freedom/authoritarian scales.

Well I think you have added a great requirement. It is a suggestion of a less-than-usual intelligence, or an ability to employ an aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, and meanings directly through the choice of will rather than through a contrived and prescribed system of belief.

This will be discussion of our intention as accountable to our reasoning perceptions in present time as an undivided intelligent system of each human being itself.

And rather than the normally discussed isms needs, or contrived intentions to authorize the human beings possibilities of perception which creates unsolvable barriers and divisions of frictioning, factioning, and unaccountability and insolvency in our conversations with each other.

Be on guard, you will be fighting the devil himself on this one. People need their illusions man. LOL. But this is a smart approach to toning down those subverted wills imo.

People sometimes hate it or us when the conversation is directed to become an examination of their own minds processes rather than a conversation about what their mind wants to project as paradigm of safety or righteousness in a dangerous and uncertain world.

This is where we may end up separating the philosophers from the fanatics. I need time to think about how I would like to address what you offer as subject matter, maybe some days. Sorry, life calls too. But thanks for the smart start Jasper84.

Being left or right has nothing to do with personal freedom, thats just your bias. Left or right is economic freedom (left - highly controlled, right - mostly uncontrolled), that will affect some things like taxes of course.

Personal freedom is more of a libertarian/authoritarian scale. You can get lefties and righties that think drug users should be shot, you can also get the same who think that drugs should be legalised.

I am a left winger (though i have nothing against any policy [even from the right] if i can see it will help), but Im also VERY libertarian (id say im a libertarian foremost and a lefty second). My preferred social system would not fit into any of yours. In that other thread i was the most left and most libertarian there last i checked

I would add purposes such as; building community, caring for others, preserving family, attending to the environment and respecting differences.

@nbound: Does talking about Libertarianism not specify a structural model? What are your underlying values, if not on what i said? I think being on the left point is usually what is called left, means that you want to give people other rights then not to be harmed, like the right to education, shelter food. This must be paid for, that is why IMO the third point requires some duties as well.

>>However, the second one can perhaps also achieve giving people those rights. Voluntary donations to pay for it, of course, you need to have money/resources to spare to do this!(or suffer for them, probably while others sit on their fat) That is why i said "So those people are sort right if poor, and left when rich." Seeing your point of view earlier has been part of why i wrote that line. Also, some people were of the opinion that people with different morals then not harming others should pay for it to be that way themselves, rather then force others to pay against their will.
All-in-all i think you likely are in the left-and-right section.

@rjwood: Are those subsets of what i mentioned already? If those first four are your values, it sounds like you are either for using personal resources for morality, or the third point -forcing everyone too do the same. You probably have noticed I am for that one btw, i am guessing you are too. You could discuss those things you said, but i am trying to get the broader spectrum.
Is "respecting differences" just as "Freedom of speech", part of not being harmed or discriminated against because of differences or what you say? Those are part of the second and third point. Many of these concepts are just consequences of the same thing, that often are talked about like they are separate.

I think it can all be summed up in one purpose: to collectively do the things we would like but are unable to do singly. That would include things such as common defense, crime prevention, education, healthcare, and/or whatever else the population sees necessary or desirable.

If you have nothing to creative to add don't say anything at all.

Ironic

I think it would help bring people closer together and they would become more of a community. If you notice we don't have very many towns that have communities like that.

Ironic indeed.. Then bns and OrangeCrate just made it a little more ironic. Please, next time just ignore it, until you have a real reply, then you can package it along with some content..

@bns: Your pre-previous post sums up your opinion, not the set of possibles.
@seisen,bns: But if you would have to choose between those three points which would you take? I would say sense of community and any other moral can both stem from the imposed(by society) morals of the third point and of the personal morals of the second. (Persons can collaborate voluntarily in that one. This could perhaps even been seen a fourth point.)

I lean heavily to the third option; here is why:

• It seems that historically, rather then help fellow men, people build walls around them so they do not see the suffering. Or more generally, not see the rights violated, they, in their mind, think people should have.(aka being a hypocrit.)

• Quite frankly, if i do not have resources to help others, i will take them.(Preferably peacefully) I will not be rightish when poor and leftish when rich. Edit: Of course, take the resources from those who have a lot of them, not from the poorer. Getting resources to those that dont is the point.

• There is no bounding racism and discrimination by individuals if it is not forced by society.

• Ownership is a concept of man. Not an intrinsic property of things. See no reason why society should not wield it.

That said, there are issues when implementing this, but as in OP, that is not what the thread is about.
But the second one has its merits, and i think it should also be part of society. The three points are not incompatible, you can be between them. The first one, i find unacceptable, except if people clearly can not think for themselves. Like children, mentally disabled. Perhaps i should been clearer about that point, also saying that it is about stuff that do not affect other people.

Alright, I contribute. Your original post is just pseudo intellectual double talk. I responded with this smiley...



If you hover your cursor over the smiley, you will get quite a clear understanding of my response to your post.

Anything else?

@OrangeCrate: Why is it "pseudo intellectual double talk"? How is it doublespeak?
I only constructed language for the communication, not to distort meanings. What you quoted certainly does not seem like that?..(I clearly stated "Feel free to note if those can not be separated and why")
What i am really doing is trying to find the grounds of peoples' political beliefs, not grind into the same old replies. Exactly what OP says: "this thread is about the purpose of the systems, not how it should work", that is the approach i want to take.
Are things like socialism, libertarianism, communism, capitalism not such systems? Would it not be important to find out what their purpose is before trying to find out how such system should work? Of course, you might hope for one purpose but not think it practical, but you can still try keep the construct of how it works out of the discussion, for discussions' sake.

I hope Iammyaspectofus is not correct in his post. (Found his post a bit of a hard read, initially. Dont be fooled if he does not initially make sense.)

"Society" is an abstraction. You can't touch it. It doesn't exist, except as a word. Only the individual exists.

Government should exist for the sole purpose of protecting the rights and property of the individual.

@LordFu: BS you can think about abstractions and we do all the time. And there are abstractions dealing with how society should live. Libertarianism is also an abstraction. Dont throw that in, you have much better arguments for what you believe..
And I guess you mean the rest should be left to the individuals. That is why i called it 'societial systems', because i do not know a better name that covers the whole. I guess the purpose of libertarianism would at least roughly lie in the second point of OP.

What I meant is, we should focus on the real people, not abstract ideas.

Please, stop labeling me. I'm not a Libertarian or Socialist or Democrat or Republican. I'm not Left. I'm not Right. I'm me, just one person.

Ideology is one of the things I think is wrong with the world. We divide ourselves down these imaginary lines, when in reality, most people want the same things. We want what is best for ourselves and our fellow man, but disagree on how to get there. Many feel they can add validity to their opinion by identifying with one particular ideology to the exclusion of everything else. I am not one of those people.

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree with the way in which it is said. Government is not just to protect individual rights, it is to collectively do things. I have every right to defend myself, however I do not have the ability to defend myself against an aggressive nation. Therefore WE establish a common means of defense. I am an intellectual sort, so maybe I could educate my own children, but not everyone could so we orchestrate a means by which those who are capable educate all the children. I am not a doctor, so I can't take care of my own medical needs, so we provide a means to accomplish that. These are all community based mechanisms for providing what people need. And I think they are in the purview of the government.

@Jasper: I was trying to contribute. Maybe I don't understand your original 3 points very well. I see the purpose of societal systems as being simply to do those things we can't do singly. Right off the top of my head I would say that means protecting ourselves from criminals, protecting ourselves from foreign invasion, and building up infrastructure. I would add to that providing for basic needs (although I guess many would disagree), such as education, healthcare, etc.

@LordFu: Is it trying to label you? I see it more as trying to characterize opinions of "societal systems"-proposes.
I guess my question is, who is 'WE', and should people be forced to belong to this 'WE'? I will try explain the three points better; second point thinks no-one should be forced into anything, except not forcing others; so things done in groups, must be voluntary. The third one does think people should be forced to do some things, like pay tax, to do things like you mentioned; health care, defense, education. The first one is about forcing people for things that do not affect others.
Strange, you defend the freedom-ideology quite vocally. I think ideology is not necessarily a bad thing, ideology does not equal drawing imaginary lines. For one it is a continuum of ideas, secondly, imagine i lived what you would think a perfect society(= population + its ways of doing things) I would strongly disagree with that society, but i would not blow it up either. I would not say "if i do not have resources to help others, i will take them". (I meant given someone else is hogging them earlier btw)I might resort to stealing from resource-hoggers if other have way too little, and free others imprisoned. But probably not if there are other ways. I think i would probably try to get out of that society, or change it.(Well in principle, in reality i am a crazy guy that does not do what he should :/) Ok, i guess if it is bad, i might blow it up :/.

OK. 'WE' refers to whoever bands together to do whatever. That is, if you can't find anyone who agrees with your particular views, then you're SOL. I don't think anyone should be 'forced' to be a part of the society. But I do think you should be either in or out. That's all rather theoretical though. The way things work now, things should work based on majority rule. Although I would like to see more options available. I would like to see more power handed back to the states so that each state could make some decisions about healthcare, education, etc. As it is, in America, the states have so little power that we have one big messy federal system. I guess I would prefer a distribution of power that's more like the EU. Where some things are centralized, but there are distinct cultures, and each country is free to make their own decisions about things. Our civil war put paid to that. I would like to see a system where education and healthcare are provided for everyone, and taxes would be mandatory. But whatever system the population decides on, everyone should go along whether they like it or not. Either that or leave. I guess I don't see the government as an entity all its own. The government is the people, so it isn't "coercion by the government", it's like a social club. Join or don't, but if you do you have to follow the rules. The difference is, just by living here you are automatically a part of the society.