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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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how they're bad because they're somewhat like imprisonment according to its dictionary definition, and imprisonment is against human rights as written by libertarians

I mean they are exactly like imprisonment as currently practiced for minor-ish criminals -- enforced house arrest with allowances to leave under limited circumstances. If you think that being against arbitrary imprisonment is on the libertarian end of the spectrum that's fine I guess -- but I wonder where it puts you on the political compass?

I am against arbitrary imprisonment, it's just that we're using different definitions of "arbitrary". The word invokes "literally no correlation with any external reasons other than 'we said so'" to me, and to anti-lockdowners, I guess, "when they didn't ask our opinion"? "When it wasn't in response to anything I personally did"? Maybe you can clarify.

I find this whole rhetoric around it reminiscent of "taxation is theft", to which I respond "well then, I support organized theft that doesn't ruin the targets with redistribution towards societal needs and don't support targeted theft that sometimes ruins targets and only enriches the thief".

and to anti-lockdowners, I guess, "when they didn't ask our opinion"? "When it wasn't in response to anything I personally did"? Maybe you can clarify.

Arbitrary imprisonment is defined by imprisoning people who have not committed or are not suspected of committing a crime. This is because totalitarian regimes can always present a reason to imprison someone that correlates with an external reason. They are a political dissident, they disagree with the government, they are nebulously dangerous etc. The problem is that these reasonings are illegitimate deployments of the state's power, clearly being used only to perpetuate it's power rather than for the purposes we allow the state to imprison people (some combination of protect/rehabilitation/justice for victims).

The word invokes "literally no correlation with any external reasons other than 'we said so'"

Lockdowns are still this to me. There was no correlation with any external reason. There was no evidence base for lockdowns prior to them being carried out. There is still no evidence base for lockdowns. Therefore I do not believe states did lockdowns for the reason they claimed they did so.

The majority of non-libertarian conceptions of the state, and even many libertarian ones, view legitimate states as a transaction. We give up some things in return for an organisation that will, ultimately, serve us in return. Taxes are expected to pay for services from the government, not simply fatten the president's wallet (that we specifically call the latter corruption or embezzlement should hint at that). Police are expected to protect civilians from criminals, not protect the government from disagreement. Prisons are expected to house criminals, not political opponents.

In 2019, someone who doesn't want the government to put everyone under house arrest on a dubious whim was called a person. In 2020, they're called a libertarian.

"When it wasn't in response to anything I personally did"?

This one -- imprisoning people for something that they might do (with no evidence that they will) was the stuff of dystopic movies until 2020. (and not at all the same as traditional quarantines, before you trot that one out)