How do you measure fairness/justice?

In response to the QOTD here;



“How do you measure fairness/justice?”


It’s not terribly complicated.  First, you determine whether someone’s rights have been violated.  If so, you hold the perpetrator accountable, with restitution as a priority.


The statist will attempt to argue over what is and is not a right, and who possess the right (the individual or the collective, or some sub set of the collective).  Ayn Rand has a couple of quotes that nail it;



“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” – Ayn Rand (copied from Kevin’s site)


I’ll paraphrase this next one from memory, because I don’t have the book handy;


“Any proposed ‘right’ that demands the violation of another’s rights is not and cannot be considered a right.” – Ayn Rand.


Next the statist will declare these truths to be too simple, that you’re being too simple-minded seeing the world in such black and white terms, and that only in navigating through complexity can we come to some semblance of economic and social justice, etc., etc.


Eventually it degrades into a contest of push verses shove, as the snarling, hate-filled statist is more than willing to start the pushing (or more likely to have someone else start the pushing for him, the typical statist being a coward as a rule).


There is no reconciling the two visions of society (statism, verses the property rights model on which this country was founded) and any attempt to do so will only delay the inevitable reckoning, prolonging and deepening the pain and destruction along the way (the traditional role of the Republican Party).  Our only sensible plan of action is to defeat the statists at every opportunity, relegating them to the woodwork of society where they belong (along with the cockroaches and spiders).


Our biggest problem is that the statist’s goal is much simpler than ours.  They want destruction and decline of civilization.  The free man wants to create and build over time.  He might spend a lifetime carving out his niche, and building a life for himself and his family, while the statist can wipe the whole thing out in a moment.  Building is difficult and time consuming, and it takes planning and creativity, while destruction is simple and quick, and most any idiot/loser can do it.


With that in mind, a more specific and urgent course of action is presented.  The leftist/statist power infrastructure needs to be dismantled, and the individual statist power brokers (perpetrators) have to be held personally liable.  They have to pay a price or they will not stop.  There’s your “Social Justice”.  Anything less will prolong the problem and deepen the pain.  Investing our hopes and resources in the traditional Republican Party model of going along and trying to run the statist system more responsibly, is nothing but a recipe for disaster.


We’ve too often accepted the leftist premises or their claims to compassion and justice, when their goals are just the opposite.  We’ve reached a radical situation by sitting back for generations, allowing the leftist radicals to have their way.  Closing a few dozen federal departments, including education, and shutting down hundreds of programs might seem radical or extreme to the inattentive.  So what?  The level of government intervention we’ve reached is in itself extreme or radical, compared to the vision of the founders.  The status quo is what’s extreme.  Getting back on track is not, even if means passing out a million pink slips to federal and state employees.

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7 thoughts on “How do you measure fairness/justice?

  1. hey, don’t insult the spiders. they eat bugs. with the cockroaches, fine, but not the spiders.

  2. I don’t. Justice comes from a third party, not from one of the parties involved in any given dispute.

    This is what all the protesters who march in the street yelling “No justice, no peace!” get wrong. They’re not interested in what a disinterested third party has to say about their grievances, they want their idea of a fair and equitable solution imposed on the other side of their dispute.

  3. Joe, this post dovetails with some thoughts I’ve been having. I think part of the reason the Left has been pushing its agenda with such reckless abandon recently is because of the advance that gun rights and self-defense laws have been making recently.

    Many of the black helicopter types think that the government depends on large-scale force for its power, but in reality it often depends on small-scale paragovernmental groups like SEIU and ACORN to do its violence. When unions form a picket line, it is an implied threat of violence: if they were not threatening violence, it would not be necessary to close off entrances to the buildings being targeted. Similarly, when ACORN “protests” a business, they are really threatening arson, battery, and possibly murder.

    This is why the Left for so long pursued draconian gun control: they weren’t planning on sending the Delta Force to put down opposition; they were content to let their thugs do it for them. (Also, the military was less likely to be sympathetic toward leftist tyranny). When the government says it is illegal to use armed force to resist five or more thugs attacking you, the government is effectively appointing those vermin deputy tyrants.

    When, however, you can legally kill those swine for assaulting you, the whole purpose of leftist “demonstrations” ceases to exist. Essentially, when Clinton failed to break the back of the 2A movement in America, he spelled ultimate doom for the Left.

    If I am correct, we will be seeing more and more people defying paragovernmental groups in the next few years, and as a result, less power and money for those groups to contribute to the left wing of the Democrat Party.

  4. Ken,

    Interesting hypothesis. I would like to believe you are right but either you are more far sighted than I or you have fallen into the trap of believing what you want to belief. I don’t think the “ultimate doom for the left” is at hand.

  5. “the statist’s goal is much simpler than ours. They want destruction and decline of civilization.”

    I don’t think there is value in misrepresenting your enemy’s goals. The statist’ goals are a regulated orderly utopia. The unintended consequences of their policies are decline and destruction. Inevitable result, but not the goal.

  6. “Getting back on track is not, even if means passing out a million pink slips to federal and state employees.”

    That number seems a little very low.

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