What makes a Country Great?

[GE Morton]

Not if those individual rights are defined/determined by majority rule, as you seem to think.

That is not what I think at all, as you should be well aware after our endless discussions. Most rights are "culturally constituted" which differs from "majority rule" in that the fickle whims of the majority are checked by tradition. Your infatuation with "common law" should help you understand this point.

Of course rights are "culturally constituted." All concepts and terms are culturally constituted. But the cultural constituted, traditional understanding of the meaning and scope of "rights" is precisely what you reject, in favor of a politically determined meaning and scope. I.e., "rights" as defined per majority rule.

[Sculptor1]

Q: What makes a Country Great?7

A: Not having a leader like Trump.
A: one in which the government truly serves the wishes of the people.
A: One which accepts that the Will of the people is Law.

Few countries come near these criteria. Iceland is close.

I'll go along with #1, but what if the "wishes of the people" include electing "President Trump"?

That is a poor claim. If you take into account a few basic facts.
1) Trump polled fewer votes than Hilary Clinton, 3 million fewer.
2) The broken system of US elections only offers two people, with very little difference between them as President in such a large population.
3) This is reflected in the shocking turnout for most elections. Trump received the keys to the kingdom with draconian powers yet only around 24% of the people cast their ballots for him.
4) There is a far more fundamental problem here. The entire agenda of the country is run by a tiny minority of media Moghuls who manufacture consent, and control candidacy. One hopes that social media might mitigate against this, but that too now is attracting serious controls.

So nah the will of the people was never to chose any President ever in office.

Or the "will of the people" involves concentration camps and invasions? The will of the people is not reliable. Guarantees of certain individual rights that cannot be denied by the "will (whims?) of the people" are also important criteria.

People are better than you think
But what of it?
Would you prefer a tyrant to build the camps and invoke invasions or allow people to join a war at their own choice?
In a true democracy compulsory conscription would be impossible

The guarantees of liberty in the U.S. Constitution are not perfect, of course. They did not prevent slavery or Jim Crow. The Second Amendment is controversial. Still, Bills of Rights may protect people from a tyranny of the majority. Wasn't Socrates condemned to death by the majority?

Not really.

Individual rights are more important than majority rule (although they do not extend to refusing to pay taxes of which one disapproves, ala GE).

You can list as many failures of decisions of the people as you like. But they pale into insignificance when compared to the horrors of tyranny.
All progress towards individual rights have been achieved at moments when the rule of the elite has been challenged.

[Ecurb]

Of course rights are "culturally constituted." All concepts and terms are culturally constituted. But the cultural constituted, traditional understanding of the meaning and scope of "rights" is precisely what you reject, in favor of a politically determined meaning and scope. I.e., "rights" as defined per majority rule.

That is in correct, and more than a little presumptuous. Who are you to tell me what I reject and what I favor? The truth is that I accept certain traditional understandings of the meaning and scope of rights, and reject others. Property rights, for example, have (as I've tried to explain to you a hundred times) varied dramatically through history and prehistory. So these are precisely those rights I think are determined by law, and are subject to the whims of the majority llike taxes). Slaves, after all, were once "property". That clearly shows that "traditional" property rights need not be respected.

[Ecurb]

You can list as many failures of decisions of the people as you like. But they pale into insignificance when compared to the horrors of tyranny.
All progress towards individual rights have been achieved at moments when the rule of the elite has been challenged.

You are setting up a false dichotomy. Why must constitutional protections of individual rights constitute "tyranny"? Support for constitutional protections is not opposed to democracy, although it limits it. All democracies are elitist: they maintain national borders and prevent undesirables from joining. This is gerrymandering -- like the electoral college of which you disapprove. If a democracy is not a world government, it does not constitute "majority rule". Too many people are excluded.

And if artificial borders are maintained, hypothetically they could be reduced to one governing voter, where democracy and autocracy would be synonymous.

[chewybrian]

How can we say a country is great? What is greatness actually with regard to a country? Is it its history, current status, GDP, people, economy, politics, or something else? Or is this merely a word used to discriminate countries and their people? Or is greatness merely an illusion?

In the positive sense of "that's great!" - intended as praise - I am struggling to think of a single great country, past or present.

But "great" might also mean "powerful", and there, there is no lack of prospective candidates. But not one of those candidates approaches the positivity of "that's great!", I'm afraid.

So it depends on how we mean the word "great".

Did you ever read "Island" by Aldous Huxley? It's a great book. He uses the story as a vehicle to lay out his idea of what an ideal society would look like. It was not about GDP or military power, for sure, but about enabling every citizen to experience the most complete and fulfilling life possible. Children were taught logic and science and math, but also (and more importantly) creativity, kindness, empathy and such. I don't want to spill too much if you haven't read it.

Thank you for mentioning the book, and I this is I must try it. But the problem with such ideas is that they are not norms in the mundane world, but are thoughts and suggestions of a single person. And that may or may not be accepted by others as being great. For those who already experience a prosperous life such a wonderful society may not be a necessity, and their needs can be far more bigger than that, but may not be great in the view of the others.

"Great" seems like a subjective judgement. If we want to make it objective, we would need to insert some measuring stick, which could be GDP or life expectancy or survey results reporting people are happy. I don't know how we could say one measuring stick is better than another with certainty, but I like the way Huxley measures things. I agree with him that helping the most people possible to be as happy as possible should be the real goal. In terms of Maslow's dichotomy of cognition, I choose being cognition over deficiency cognition, and it is not a tough choice.

[GE Morton]

Of course rights are "culturally constituted." All concepts and terms are culturally constituted. But the cultural constituted, traditional understanding of the meaning and scope of "rights" is precisely what you reject, in favor of a politically determined meaning and scope. I.e., "rights" as defined per majority rule.

That is in correct, and more than a little presumptuous. Who are you to tell me what I reject and what I favor?

You have told us what you reject and favor in numerous previous posts --- including this one.

The truth is that I accept certain traditional understandings of the meaning and scope of rights, and reject others.

Ah, yes. So you reject the traditional meaning when it thwarts your political preferences. So does every other ideologue. The "woke" crowd, for example, believes the right to free speech should not extend to bigots, or even Republicans.

Property rights, for example, have (as I've tried to explain to you a hundred times) varied dramatically through history and prehistory.

No, they haven't. What is considered property has varied, but property rights have not. The truth conditions for rights claims --- the empirical basis for rights --- has not changed a whit. It is the same for property rights as for all other (natural and common) rights.

Slaves, after all, were once "property". That clearly shows that "traditional" property rights need not be respected.

It shows no such thing. It only shows an error in regarding persons as property. If something doesn't qualify as property, then there can be no property right to it. Nor was the right to own slaves "traditional." It was a novelty which arose in England (and the west generally) beginning in 17th century. It's lack of a basis in common law was what prompted Lord Mansfield (a Royal Judge) to outlaw it in the UK 1772:

"British merchants were a significant force behind the Atlantic slave trade between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, but no legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery. In the Somerset case of 1772, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly sent to Jamaica for sale, and he was set free."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain

[GE Morton]

It shows no such thing. It only shows an error in regarding persons as property. If something doesn't qualify as property, then there can be no property right to it. Nor was the right to own slaves "traditional." It was a novelty which arose in England (and the west generally) beginning in 17th century. It's lack of a basis in common law was what prompted Lord Mansfield (a Royal Judge) to outlaw it in the UK 1772:

There are similar issues, BTW, with regard to abortion and intellectual property. Is a human fetus a person? If not, then it can be property, and the mother, being its first possessor, has a property right to it. She may dispose of it as she wishes, just as she could a cow or chicken she owns. Is a published novel property? If so, then its author, being its first possessor, has a property right to it.

[Sculptor1]

You can list as many failures of decisions of the people as you like. But they pale into insignificance when compared to the horrors of tyranny.
All progress towards individual rights have been achieved at moments when the rule of the elite has been challenged.

You are setting up a false dichotomy. Why must constitutional protections of individual rights constitute "tyranny"?

Eh?
I do not think I am even so much as implying this.
Did you mistype?

Support for constitutional protections is not opposed to democracy, although it limits it. All democracies are elitist: they maintain national borders and prevent undesirables from joining. This is gerrymandering -- like the electoral college of which you disapprove. If a democracy is not a world government, it does not constitute "majority rule". Too many people are excluded.

And if artificial borders are maintained, hypothetically they could be reduced to one governing voter, where democracy and autocracy would be synonymous.

[GE Morton]

You can list as many failures of decisions of the people as you like. But they pale into insignificance when compared to the horrors of tyranny.
All progress towards individual rights have been achieved at moments when the rule of the elite has been challenged.

It is not democracy which is opposed to tyranny; it is liberalism. Democracies, when they are not constrained by liberalism, can be as oppressive as tyrannies.

[Ecurb]

Ah, yes. So you reject the traditional meaning when it thwarts your political preferences. So does every other ideologue. The "woke" crowd, for example, believes the right to free speech should not extend to bigots, or even Republicans.

Property rights, for example, have (as I've tried to explain to you a hundred times) varied dramatically through history and prehistory.

No, they haven't. What is considered property has varied, but property rights have not. The truth conditions for rights claims --- the empirical basis for rights --- has not changed a whit. It is the same for property rights as for all other (natural and common) rights.

Oh, bunk. I showed you many examples of cultures in which property rights were vastly different from those you advocate. Intellectual property (like those books you mention) did not exist. Land could not be property. Etc., etc., etc. Your "first discovery or possession" nonsense is hardly a human universal.

Slaves, after all, were once "property". That clearly shows that "traditional" property rights need not be respected.

It shows no such thing. It only shows an error in regarding persons as property. If something doesn't qualify as property, then there can be no property right to it. Nor was the right to own slaves "traditional." It was a novelty which arose in England (and the west generally) beginning in 17th century. It's lack of a basis in common law was what prompted Lord Mansfield (a Royal Judge) to outlaw it in the UK 1772:

"British merchants were a significant force behind the Atlantic slave trade between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, but no legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery. In the Somerset case of 1772, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly sent to Jamaica for sale, and he was set free."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain

How does that dem nstrate that there wasn't a "tradition" of considering slaves "property"? It doesn't.

[Ecurb]

There are similar issues, BTW, with regard to abortion and intellectual property. Is a human fetus a person? If not, then it can be property, and the mother, being its first possessor, has a property right to it. She may dispose of it as she wishes, just as she could a cow or chicken she owns. Is a published novel property? If so, then its author, being its first possessor, has a property right to it.

This is nonsense. Fetuses are not "property". The abortion debate rests on other grounds.

[Ecurb]

You can list as many failures of decisions of the people as you like. But they pale into insignificance when compared to the horrors of tyranny.
All progress towards individual rights have been achieved at moments when the rule of the elite has been challenged.

You are setting up a false dichotomy. Why must constitutional protections of individual rights constitute "tyranny"?

Eh?
I do not think I am even so much as implying this.
Did you mistype?

No, I didn't. The failures of decisions of the people suggest that constitutional protections of individual rights are needed to protect against a tyranny of the majority. i agree that in general Democratic societies are better governed than autocratic ones, but that doesn't mitigate this need.

[GE Morton]

No, they haven't. What is considered property has varied, but property rights have not. The truth conditions for rights claims --- the empirical basis for rights --- has not changed a whit. It is the same for property rights as for all other (natural and common) rights.

Oh, bunk. I showed you many examples of cultures in which property rights were vastly different from those you advocate.

Er, no, you haven't. You've only pointed out that different things were counted as property in various times and places, as you continue to do here. You've pointed out no examples where where ownership --- titles to property (whatever qualifies for that status in a given time and place) --- is assigned on any basis other than first possession, or via a title chain anchored in first possession. Until, of course, the advent of "fiat rights" in the early 20th century. You're just ignoring the distinction drawn in my previous post.

"British merchants were a significant force behind the Atlantic slave trade between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, but no legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery. In the Somerset case of 1772, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly sent to Jamaica for sale, and he was set free."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain

How does that demonstrate that there wasn't a "tradition" of considering slaves "property"? It doesn't.

Oh, slaves were considered property, during that period. But there was no tradition in British law authorizing or approving slavery in the first place, as Lord Mansfield observed:

"The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M ... _Mansfield

William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, later became Lord Chief Justice of England.

[Ecurb]

"We must all be foolish at times; it is one of the conditions of liberty." Walt Whitman.

[Sculptor1]

You can list as many failures of decisions of the people as you like. But they pale into insignificance when compared to the horrors of tyranny.
All progress towards individual rights have been achieved at moments when the rule of the elite has been challenged.

It is not democracy which is opposed to tyranny; it is liberalism. Democracies, when they are not constrained by liberalism, can be as oppressive as tyrannies.

You cannot expect me to take you seriously with that sort of statement.