>>7931

Society is not an entity, it is merely a conceptual grouping of individuals, and the act of conceptualizing those individuals as members of a society has no effect whatsoever on the properties of those individuals, specifically, it has no effect on their moral properties. To borrow a metaphor, conceptually grouping a tree into a larger group of trees called a “forest” does not alter the molecular structure of the tree, similarly, conceptually grouping people with each other does not change the permissible behavior of those individuals. Justice occurs at an individual level. The classification of “society” does not alter the permissible behavior of the individuals comprising society. At an individual level, no man is entitled to infringe upon the property rights of others.

Would an advocate for “social justice” maintain that it is a grave injustice for an individual living in isolation to be compelled, by circumstance, to survive off of his own labor? Logically, the aforementioned advocate would have to concede that the subsisting individual is not the victim of a third party- no third party exists in that case. If we must accept the above case is morally acceptable, how is it an injustice if the subsistor must subsist in proximity to one other man who had, by his own efforts, accumulated a sustainable ranch of cattle? How many cows can this relatively wealthy rancher own without overstepping the bounds of acceptable inequality, thereby committing an injustice and becoming a legitimate target of the subsistor’s coercion; in layman’s terms, how much is the rancher permitted to own before the poorer individual is justified in stealing from him? It is unlikely that a social justice advocate, as they typically exist in the modern world, would suggest that the poor man is justified in stealing the wealthier man’s cattle if the wealthier man did not even have enough cattle to sustain himself for the next 6 months. What is the exact amount of cattle that a man is morally permitted to own on his property, adjacent to a man who has not endeavored to acquire any? If I have a relatively large stock of cattle, is any man entitled to steal from me? No matter how evil he has been, no matter how undeserving he is of any help? Would a serial rapist be justified in stealing my cattle even if he has had previous opportunities to acquire his own, but thought better of spending months building his own ranch? What do all these questions have in common? They demonstrate the fundamentally arbitrary nature of social justice, there is no inherent distintion between having more than your fellow man and having too much more, which is a dangerous notion to promulgate if you happen to exist in any proximity to someone who is significantly poorer than you. If one advocates the threat of violence to take from the rich (and taxation is backed by the threat of violence,) then how could such advocates possibly argue that a hobo would not be justified in threatening them with violence to expropriate their property? From a hobo’s perspective, even a woman who works a minimum wage job is “super-rich;” logically, all advocates of social justice must graciously surrender their property if the thief- the victim of society threatening them with a knife- is poorer than them. It might be objected that this situation is fundamentally different if the theft is committed by a bureacrat under the guise of taxation- stamps and uniforms (no matter how official) can not alter the fundamental moral permissibility of an action. If an act is morally permissible for one person, it is morally permissible for another. If it is morally permissible for an agent of the IRS to redistribute wealth, there is no reason why a homeless man should have to be backed up by an inefficient bureaucracy to redistribute your wealth to himself. The reality that moral acts can not have their permissibility altered by uniforms or ceremonies is why it is absolutely acceptable for a vigilante to punish a man he is certain is a wanton murderer (instead of waiting for a jury, specifically if none is available), and why it is 105 absolutely acceptable for a hobo to mug anyone with an income (if the concept of social justice is valid).

The idea of social justice is really that every individual who has more than his fellow man, is incessantly committing a moral crime by doing so; this so-called injustice is a result of the man’s virtues (his productivity and determination), yet the result is that he is committing a moral crime if he refuses to surrender the products of his virtue. When does having more than your fellow man become a crime? In practical terms, when it becomes politically expedient for the liberals to expropriate your property (which is, in and of itself, an injustice.) In moral terms, there is no non-arbitrary distinction between having more than your fellow man and having too much more than your fellow man

Inequality is made out to be a grave moral crime, in principle, it is not. To borrow another metaphor, it can be said that a society wherein the average man owns 5 yachts and the richest 1% owns 5000 yachts suffers from gross inequality, yet it can hardly be said that those doing so well as to own 5 yachts have the moral right to steal from those wealthier than them. What liberals see as the true injustice is poverty, yet poverty has existed throughout history. When poverty was an unavoidable reality for hunter gatherers was it a great crime for the youngest and best hunters to live relatively comfortably while the old and sick, particularly those outside of their tribe, did not? Apparently, poverty is only an injustice if others around the poor are capable of easing the pain of the poor without significantly increasing their own burden. Yet how significantly is the government allowed to increase the pain of the relatively wealthy to benefit the relatively poor? It’s possible that a wealth transfer from a rich man to a poor man could result in a net reduction of happiness, because value is subjective, and that rich man might value the additional income far more than the poor man; there is no objective way to determine this, yet liberals often take it for granted that wealth taken from the rich and given to the poor has a positive net effect on human happiness. The other great myth is that it is noble for middle-class liberals to force those more successful than they to give to the poor, even when the majority of those same liberals are perfectly capable of helping the poor and are making little effort to do so; understanding the problems of needy individuals at an individual level and providing help based on that information would require true compassion and effort, it is far easier for liberals to throw other peoples’ money at the problem. For the past eighty years, liberals have provided the poor other peoples’ money, nearly four trillion dollars in the last five years alone, and although poverty has stagnated (by government figures) since the 1960s they are content to blame the rich, not the government or the poor, with the lack of progress.