Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Political experience is useless without a justification

The basic difference between a person who is wrong and a person who is right is the logical justification of a particular action/statement. If person A states that he is right because he has tried action X with success but has no other arguments to offer, and person B says he is right because logic L say so but no experience has been gained, then who is right? My take on it: Person A, if his logic is sound, no matter what action X person A refers to, given he has no sound logic to back up his case.

My point of view can be protested in many ways. One might for example say that relying only on logic shows a lack of reality. If it could be justified that people over 70 years of age should be put to permanent sleep, would I then fight for that point of view? What if it turns out that it is justifiable to kill fat chicks - am I then a spokesmen of such actions? The answer: Yes. However I have no worries of such things being justifiable. In fact, being able to do whatever I want as long as I hurt no others while being under the protection of a minimal state of law-enforcement and a court-system - all sound logic suggest that this is the only permissible political reality.

Relying only on experience is not only unwise, but dangerous. The Leftist could say: "My goal is to fight poverty and unequal distribution of wealth, and I don't care what the logical reasons are against the actions I chose to take, as long as I can reach my goal." He could also say: "My goal is to rid the world free of black people, and I don't care what the logical reasons are against the actions I chose to take, as long as I can reach my goal." In both cases the logical justifications are put to side in order to reach some goal. In both cases the statements could be followed up by: "The actions I took worked well to reach my goal. Those who shared my goal are now happy, and I don't care about any logic and reason pointed against my goal."

Examples of actions which can't be justified, but "work well": Concentration-camps to reduce the number of certain minority groups, public executions of petty-thieves to scare people away from crimes, smoking-ban in private property to reduce (suggested) health-damages, excessive taxation in order to reduce the wealth of the rich and increase the wealth of the poor, state-implemented racial discrimination to give racists a good feeling about their own race, etc.

Most evils of the world origin in minds of individuals who let go of the logical justification of their actions and rely only on their feelings and past experiences regarding various issues. However, having experience to back-up logically sound actions/decisions is nothing but good. At least that's my take on it, being a self-acclaimed libertarian, having both the logic and experience on my side.

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