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And I'm resistant to ideological society deciding that they know best what is natural for ME better than I myself, and proposing appropriate re-shaping of my sensibilities.

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If you pass laws telling me I *must* wear clothing, you've forced me to comply, at gunpoint, with threat of force. That's what laws are - the threat of force.

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That's a lot of feel-good crap that's really nothing more than your opinion and say-so. They "FEEL right" - to who?

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I guess war just "FEELS right", huh? War must be good,

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Living in a state of order and cleanliness doesn't FEEL right to you? If not I've hit a nerve, and I apologise.

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You can say your freedoms are being restricted by the law, and your ideology thwarted; but what sensibilities are being re-shaped? Would some fat guy covering up his nudity with an apron to fry bacon and eggs offend your nudist sensibilities? Like, "Ah take that clothing off for the love of God! My eyes!!"? What you said makes no sense.

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The sensibilities you're trying to re-shape are MINE; you're trying to convince me that a natural state of nudity is evil and shameful, and I disagree.

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I mean, you seem to think that killing animals and hunting is natural enough.

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Some cultures still view cannibalism as "natural" and healthy, and I'm sure it "just FEELS right" to them once it's learned.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
HK

Not just parents. Kids engage in them without provocation. My mom actively fought these gender roles, and her kids just resented it, and then did it anyway.

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The thing is, Frances has a tea set. Yes, the badger. There's nothing you can do about that, short of banning Frances books.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Societal norms are societal norms because they are societal norms. That is, nobody needs to make a law to "protect" 'em. If laws against nudity were repealed, ya know what? Most people would continue to wear clothes. Because it's a societal norm.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Stop outlawing nudity and you'll just have one less pointless, hateful law on the books. If that makes you uncomfortable, if you're only comfortable when there's a law forcing everyone to keep you nice and comfy, then you're not a libertarian, you're a conformist and authoritarian.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
HKC: That's beautiful. Thank you.

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Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
Harm can take a lot of forms, but all those forms can be measured, most of them can be easily seen and empathized with by most human beings, and none of them are okay.
So, yeah, ownership itself? Cool with me. Up to and including explosives, so long as there is not harmful intent or harm caused with such ownership.
That extends to demonstrable harm of an animal that's within someone's care or ownership. If said animals are meant to be eaten, they should be treated well and killed cleanly. Failure to do so causes demonstrable harm not only to the animals, but probably to the people eating them. Healthy animals and feces-free meat is just the way to go.

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Originally posted by Malachite:
Frem has already touched on this, but I wanted to add to this. Your pointing out that societal norms don't need laws to protect them. Frem's point was that some societal norms are wrong and therefore need to be addressed (I don't know if he would advocate the use of laws to address wrong societal norms, but I would. He'd probably say they needed to be addressed through a different kind of educational system reaching the next generation, but I don't want to put words in his mouth ).

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Originally posted by PhoenixRose:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
HKC: That's beautiful. Thank you.

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Ditto that. I'm very glad you said it, because I'm getting tired of saying it again and hoping me meaning won't be twisted out of all context. This whole discussion has become kind of circular. Many things I say are being turned into bizarre absolutes, like that I'm for the banning of clothing.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

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Originally posted by Malachite:
Frem has already touched on this, but I wanted to add to this. Your pointing out that societal norms don't need laws to protect them. Frem's point was that some societal norms are wrong and therefore need to be addressed (I don't know if he would advocate the use of laws to address wrong societal norms, but I would. He'd probably say they needed to be addressed through a different kind of educational system reaching the next generation, but I don't want to put words in his mouth ).

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Very astute, yeah, that's prettymuch it.

I don't honestly think laws have quite the same impact people think they do - fundamentally, the american highway system is a mutual cooperative anarchy, people don't follow "the rules" out of fear, but out of the common sense knowledge that it just won't work any other way, and because once you slice through all of the bullshit leaders use to set folk against each other to obtain power, they're all just folk, and naturally cooperative to begin with, cause if we *were* the ravening reavers those who make laws (and plan to use for their own benefit) keep telling us, then why don't grocery stores need uniformed thugs to keep order in the lines ?

Cause it's all bullshit, that's why - but there's times when society is wrong, when the social norms are harmful and destructive, that I will admit - however Government is usually the perpetrator of that rather than a solution, although not always.

Problem with it most of the time is that those in Government power tend to favor the all or nothing sledgehammer approach, when a subtle hand works best - bad law ? don't enforce it, and if you wind up having to, halfass the prosecution, to where there's no point to it being on the books in the first place.

Conversely, using the law to try and enforce a moral standard is idiotic, counterproductive, and downright dangerous, as a general rule - did we learn nothing from prohibition ?

HKCav is just sayin, if you ditched all of the related law codes, the world as a whole would barely friggin notice, there would no more be an explosion of nudity than legalizing personal firearms sparks a war - it just doesn't happen, people go on like they always do.

I don't think he meant to say the law was malicious, so much as that it is pointless, of zero effect on 90% or more of the population, or at least that's what I got from it.

-Frem

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
1) Yes
2) Yes
3) Yes
4) Yes
5) Yes
6) Yes
7) Yes
8) Yes
9) Depends what aid we're talking about.
10) Yes

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Originally posted by Malachite:
I also agree that most people aren't going to become reavers if we ban certain protective laws.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I don't fancy rocking up to work and finding my collegues or clients in the buff. But I don't necessarily want them taken away at gunpoint if they do. I'm not against nakedness per se, quite like it actually, but I do see that there is a difference between public and private behaviour.

Not all laws are enforced 'by the gun' or at least they aren't here.

What's wrong with having cultrural norms and taboos that people are expected to follow? All societies have them, even the naked or near naked ones would have those that they expect everyone to follow. Mostly they'd be based on tradition rather than sense or 'do no harm'.

In some cultures eating in public is considered shameful, but public intercourse is not. Our rules are what we mostly agree they should be, aren't they?

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

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Originally posted by Malachite:
I also agree that most people aren't going to become reavers if we ban certain protective laws.

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Aye, but there's the rub - MOST people.

In theory, the laws exist to protect them from those who would!


*Revolt vs Protest.

You see, protest marches evolved from revolts, the peasants would eventually get sick of the nobles shit, and when they did, they meant *business* and the nobles know it - comply or die, just that simple.
Eventually the peasants and nobles came to a sort of accomodation about that, cause the SMART nobles realized pretty quick that ENOUGH people can kill any damn body, royal guard notwithstanding, and they'd respond to the threat of violence with concessions.
This became the whole carrying signs and shouting instead of marching down the row with pitchforks, torches and a heavy grudge, since it was easier to squeeze the one you have than deal with the chaos of throwing him down, you see ?
And this is where protestors fuck it up - the thing that makes a protest work, makes it credible and effective, *IS* the threat of violence, no bones about it, cause that's the whole damned point of em, or at least was - do or die, and without that threat, what do you have ?

Do or we whine some more ?
Yeah, that's real persuasive.

So the whole idea of asking "permission" for a "peaceful" protest is throwing in the towel before you even stand up, you're NOT any kind of threat, you will NOT be taken seriously, and you will NOT be effective - all it does is collect the damn fools in one place for an easy smackdown by the royal gaurd, in this case, the blue suit mafia.

You really wanna mess someones day up in the modern area, flashmob strikes on specific targets, monkeywrenching, propaganda, muckraking, all of these and more can be devastating, and are far more effective against the average politician, who is after all, just a man, and constant personal "attention" of that nature will wear them down a hell of a lot quicker.

Just thinkin out loud to ya...

And that's all I got time for, alas.

-Frem

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Originally posted by Malachite:

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Societal norms are societal norms because they are societal norms. That is, nobody needs to make a law to "protect" 'em. If laws against nudity were repealed, ya know what? Most people would continue to wear clothes. Because it's a societal norm.

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Frem has already touched on this, but I wanted to add to this. Your pointing out that societal norms don't need laws to protect them. Frem's point was that some societal norms are wrong and therefore need to be addressed (I don't know if he would advocate the use of laws to address wrong societal norms, but I would. He'd probably say they needed to be addressed through a different kind of educational system reaching the next generation, but I don't want to put words in his mouth ).

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What I want to add is that some societal norms still need laws to protect them because they are "good". For example, I would argue that it is pretty normal for us living in society not to steal others' possessions or kill other people. Even though it is a societal norm not to kill or steal, we still have to have laws to protect them such as, "Don't murder" or "Don't steal". If we didn't, I imagine things would get worse, because non violent people would have no recourse when the predators come stalking, and because fear of negative consequences can be a strong motivator against committing a crime (I've heard this latter sentiment expressed over and over from people who are trying to straighten their lives out).

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Another societal norm for us is that we drive on the right side of the street. We need a law that says, "Drive on the right, don't drive on the left" in this society to protect those who are trying to be safe drivers. It isn't that driving on the right is inherently good, it is that the order it creates is good.

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Where does nudity fall into all of this?

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I guess some are going to argue that repealing the current laws would be morally wrong/cause more problems than it solves and others are going to say it is fine. It is grayer than the societal norm of murdering on one end of the spectrum and the societal norm of driving lane choice on the other end. When society decides to vote for it, it will be interesting to see what will happen. Will it be like voting for switching to driving on the left side of the lane (probably some initial confusion and accidents, but we'd get used to it) or will it be like voting to make murder acceptable or will it be like something in between? I'm not sure.

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I'm content with how things are, don't see clothing rules as particularly restrictive/harmful, and don't see any evidence that the benefits of revamping society in that way outweigh the risks -- but if the population votes otherwise, that is fine. Who knows, I might even end up moving to a "clothing colony"?

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Stop outlawing nudity and you'll just have one less pointless, hateful law on the books. If that makes you uncomfortable, if you're only comfortable when there's a law forcing everyone to keep you nice and comfy, then you're not a libertarian, you're a conformist and authoritarian.

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I'm going to have to disagree with some of your assumptions. For starters, I don't think we have conclusively demonstrated that the law is "pointless" (though it is true that of the fireflyfan posters on this thread, more seem to be on the side that it is unnecessary, but this is probably not a representative sample of the active firefly fans on this site let alone the general population . Sad to say, people who like Firefly aren't even representative samples of the population -- otherwise we'd be in our 8th season by now.) I also don't think we have demonstrated that our current policy regarding public nudity is "hateful" or that it even causes more harm than good.

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When you make laws against nudity to "protect society," you are blaming the individual naked person for your problem with their being naked. You are blaming another human being's mere presence for your reaction to that human being's mere presence. This is precisely the logic that makes women responsible for being abused sexually based on what they wear; it's "inciteful" for a woman to dress in a particular way and mitigates the culpability of any who abuse her.

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Hmmm, you are saying that if someone isn't a libertarian, they are automatically a conformist and authoritarian.

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What do you mean by conformist and authoritarian? I'm assuming by calling a person a conformist you mean they are "a person who blindly follows the prevailing standards without thinking" (I couldn't find it on m-w.com so I made up a definition. The word "conform" just means , "to be in harmony with or to follow the accepted standards," which I assume most Libertarians do, since they are trying to influence public policy through getting elected and trying to stay out of jail for breaking laws). You really think that thinking out one's belief system and deciding where one best fits in on the political spectrum is something exclusive to libertarians?

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As far as the word "authoritarian", I don't know what you mean. Its meaning in relation to governing bodies is "of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people ". I don't think any of us are advocating that, so I'm not sure what you are getting at here and I don't think your statement "if not libertarian, then authoritarian" really makes logical sense.

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whether, even in an anarchist society, there are certain principles that everyone agrees are in their best interest.

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You have probably answered these questions before in other threads, so it would be fine to post the links.

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Perhaps someone else can argue that subcommittees actually can be useful

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Again, I might not have really understood what you were saying, though.

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Originally posted by Malachite:
Are you referring to me?

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I think you mean that we are having to say the same thing over and over

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I agree the arguments have gotten repetetive.

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Thankfully, HK Cav's introduction of the societal norm argument kind of gave us something new to talk about...

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if you want to convince people to change, you probably need to demonstrate that our current society's clothing/nudity standard is excessively harmful.

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It is not enough to say that it doesn't cause harm.

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I'm going to make a comparison to medicine here.

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I understand that you don't count emotional constructs as evidence.

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But, I think societal norms may be based on some of these "emotional constructs", too

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so it is not surprising that you will face resistance.

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there are reports of accidents caused by drivers being distracted when they drive by a topless woman -- but would there really be any point in my providing a link for you to review?

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Traffic won't fit into your "must cause demonstrable physical harm" scheme, so you'll just dismiss that

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Unfortunately, you have changed your argument, though.

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you were arguing that you could determine something was wrong if it could cause "demonstrable, physical harm".

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I brought up those other examples to show you that demonstrable, measurable harm isn't the only kind of harm out there for determining whether something was "wrong" or whether we should make laws addressing it. (In other words, the "demonstrable physical harm" principle only has limited application).

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I'm glad we are on the same page, here.

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It can be used against you to justify making abortion illegal or prayer in school legal -- something you don't want.

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My point there was that if you are going to use an argument, it needs to be consistently applicable

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it demonstrates your underlying "emotional" biases when you choose to selectively use it in one instance for something you are a proponent of, but reject using it another instance when it justifies something you are against.

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I hope I am making more sense to you now.

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I'm not trying to be adversarial or "stubborn" but I am trying to test your arguments to see whether they seem sound and persuasive to me.

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if we can't demonstrate that that law is broken, why fix it in the first place?

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Also, you have provided so much to discuss, so I've been trying to address that.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
How Authoritarian Followers Think. He's talking about folks who get their truth from "authority," (you know, like "God" is an authority) rather than from reasoning it out or figuring it out on their own, using logic. It tends to weaken the follower's interest in reasoning because most of what the follower does is back-engineer from forgone conclusions; authoritarians and religious people tend to start with the conclusion and then rationalize that, but since they already know the answer, their rationalizing doesn't have to be particularly rigorous--rather than starting from observation and logic and accepting the conclusion that results from such a process, authoritarian thinkers start with the conclusion and fudge or ignore any data that does not support that conclusion.
...
Logic inevitably interferes with articles of faith--the two just aren't compatible, one or the other has to win out. At some point, all religious children have to stop asking "why" and accept: because God said so, or find themselves less and less comfortable within the fold.

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Neither threaten the lives or property of other people.

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You've made absolutely no effort to refute mine--only discount my conclusions and associate them with bizarre irrational proposals like legalizing murder and conclude that I have no case because my case hasn't already been proven?!

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human nudity is the starting point, the most basic state of human existence. It is what we all share and what we all start with. As the starting point of our very existence, the threshold of all human experience, it is tautologically neutral, neutrality embodied.

Like criminalizing skin color or gender, it is fundamentally unjust to lock someone up for merely being naked.
ou see, the folks that need to criminalize our bodies can't imagine the neutrality I'm talking about--to them, the naked human body is fundamentally suspect, dangerous, corrupting. Nakedness is never simply nakedness to these folks, it's provocative, intentful.

So I say that laws against nakedness are hateful, because the basis of any such law is mistrust of the body, the deep-seated belief that the body is itself a corrupting force.

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there are reports of accidents caused by drivers being distracted when they drive by a topless woman

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It may be arguable that, in the absence of evidence of harm, something should be allowed by law.

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Originally posted by kpo:
Kaneman, kindly keep your nasty personal vendettas to yourself.

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It may be arguable that, in the absence of evidence of harm, something should be allowed by law.

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But the law might be the only thing preventing that harm from becoming evident. It surely makes more sense to have an open discussion to try to imagine what changes (if any) to society might occur. But that's not for everyone it seems.

If we were talking about establishing a new law, I would agree that evidence of harm would be necessary. But removing a law without certainty that society would not be adversely affected is just reckless. And for you pro-nudism folk that 'certainty' means being able to answer and reassure all fears/predictions of how society might suffer, and preferrably provide demonstrable proof of where society would benefit.

Heads should roll

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Originally posted by kpo:
Kaneman, kindly keep your nasty personal vendettas to yourself.

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It may be arguable that, in the absence of evidence of harm, something should be allowed by law.

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But the law might be the only thing preventing that harm from becoming evident. It surely makes more sense to have an open discussion to try to imagine what changes (if any) to society might occur. But that's not for everyone it seems.

If we were talking about establishing a new law, I would agree that evidence of harm would be necessary. But removing a law without certainty that society would not be adversely affected is just reckless. And for you pro-nudism folk that 'certainty' means being able to answer and reassure all fears/predictions of how society might suffer, and preferrably provide demonstrable proof of where society would benefit.

Heads should roll

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The majority said someone has a right to be insulting.

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As for my post to PR, aren't you agreeing with me and essentially saying the same thing? Just saying it in your fuzzy way...See KPO, I think we are an awful lot alike.....Well, it's true........

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If a law exists, and no evidence for its purpose can be found, it should be repealed. Every law should have evidence for its purpose.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Mala - I wouldn't say pointless, by such meandering you also explain the thought process you used to "get here from there" and this helps tremendously in understanding your arguments and what you mean by them in a specific sense, which helps avoid misunderstanding.

It also explains why you feel the way you do towards or about a topic, allowing a fuller exploration of the subject itself and it's effect on people.

Of course, folks who want feelgood soundbites and nothing else might get a bit miffed, but those folk ain't HERE to discuss, they just want their opinions validated, or to ram em down on everyone else.

So don't apologise for discussing in detail, not when it has the potential to avoid an even longer "what DID you mean by that ?" back and forth which'd be a lot less informative.

-Frem

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Originally posted by Malachite:
"There are clothing-optional communities. They can be studied"

Anthony-- yes, they can be studied, but the main problem in using it as evidence is going to be selection bias. What I mean is, because the people chose to live in the clothing -optional community, they already demonstrate personality characteristics that are not characteristic of the population at large, and therefore, the results of the study won't be applicable to the general population. The results would only be generalizable to other people who wanted to live in a clothing-optional community (aka "college students..." j/k ).

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See KPO, I think we are an awful lot alike.....Well, it's true........

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if I am understanding correctly, the harm can be other things, like angst, guilt, regret, a loss of happiness, loss of property, loss of self esteem, etc

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I'm still wondering if revulsion at seeing something can be considered a harm. Perhaps if someone could demonstrate that it is traumitizing?

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