Stossel argues why what we think we know may be wrong

It is. But consider that the person who has the information about your misdeeds cannot gain anything by simply revealing the information (other than, obviously, damaging you). If blackmail is lawful, then the person who has the information can profit from the desire to keep the information secret.

Let's look at it this way:

Suppose I commit some misdeed and you know about it. Here are the two obvious possibilities:

(1) If blackmail is illegal, then you can't blackmail me with it (at least, not without fear of prosecution). But, you don't have incentive to reveal the information, either.

(2) If blackmail is legal, then you have a financial motivation to keep the information secret. I must pay you to keep it so.

In (1), I manage to keep my misdeed a secret and I lose nothing.

In (2), I manage to keep my misdeed secret but at a cost.

With blackmail legal, there winds up being more potential for a cost to be incurred keeping the information secret. Since concealing the truth is consistent with dishonesty and deception, this means that I have a bigger disincentive to be dishonest or deceptive. (Or, in positive terms, I have more incentive to be honest and forthright.)

The more I think of it, the more I'm in agreement: having blackmail illegal means protecting those who are trying to hide the truth.

Where the hell did that come from?

What conversation are you having?

There is no child labor here. We're talking about the options open to children in other countries.

And often those options are (1) child labor or (2) crime and/or prostitution. Nothing we can really do about that, except some people would eliminate option (1) and think they're doing the children a favor.

I think I get it. By making it legal you're fighting slimy dishonesty with slimy opportunism. There's more of an incentive to stick it to the wrongdoer one way (through exposure) or the other (through money).

Well, as a matter of fact, no. The American public is the most charitable group of people on the face of the Earth.

Through such organizations as the Christian Children's Fund, even YOU could help improve this situation for poor children in other countries!

My evil telemarketing company takes calls for CCF.

Pretty much.

I'm a big fan of the Scottish Enlightenment, and once of its themes is: harness human nature (whatever you think of it, and regardless of how you think it should be) for positive, productive purposes. That's why capitalism works: a capitalist's desire for wealth results in his supplying the things most needed/desired by society.

How so?
Would you like pictures of you sitting on the can with a straining expression on your face spread around?

You didn't do anything wrong, but it would be embarrassing.

Louie Anderson got blackmailed for hitting on a guy too clumsily.
No fuckin' real crime there, but it was dumb.

The David Letterman thing, I could give a fuck who he was fucking, and that blackmailer was a piece of shit.

Hey, y'know, these pedophiles that also kill the kids, it's oftentimes because they know the rest of the world hates them, and would like to kill them, so, they have to get rid of the evidence of fucking a kid, by killing the kid.

So, if we just hated pedophiles less, we'd get more kids back alive.

Hey, don't get self-righteous, I'm just telling you things you don't want to hear.

And y'know, if we just all left our doors unlocked, burglars wouldn't have to work so hard at breaking in, and wouldn't get hot under the collar, and prone to violence.

It's really you're own fault if you get killed.

Fuckin' pussy liberal goddamned doorlocks.

Hey, if anyone really wants to see that...

However, that's not likely to occur except in private, so for someone to have such pictures of me, they would probably have to be committing another crime, invasion of privacy or somesuch...

I imagine the real issue there was not that he hit on someone too clumsily, but that it was a guy. Dunno what the circumstances were, but I'd invite the blackmailer to tell everyone he wanted and see who would listen. (And, in any event, the truth about the situation did come out, since you're telling me about it.)

I agree. But that takes us to the second part of the argument...


...why should it be illegal for a person to ask for money in order to keep information secret? Like sex, doing it for free is fine, but bring commerce into it...

Hey, at least the hooker has the pussy to sell.

What did the blackmailer earn?

If you could substantiate either of those claims, wouldn't they be worth considering?

Initially, the blackmailee's trust.

Nah.

So, this Stossel article is what I like to call Intellectual Masturbation. I usually engage in this sort of fuckwittery when I've had one too many glasses of wine and am amongst friends. Sure you can play logic tricks to make damn near anything seem reasonable but that doesn't make it so.

So, we're back to "a sucker born every minute", as our moral compass.

Yeah, that's lovely.

Tch, who I'm I kidding? That's how this country of sharks runs...

Point out the flaw(s) in the reasoning.

Human nature is what it is, don't you agree? You can try to make it better, but that doesn't really work, because, despite several might attempts, no one has been able to "fix" people. We've evolved to be what we are and that's that.

So, knowing that, you can either wish it was better, lament that it's not, or simply accept it as it is and go from there. As I said upthread, I agree with the Scottish philosophers: the best you can do is organize things so that human nature will exert itself in ways that are beneficial and productive. Any system that denies human nature--especially one that expects people to act like altruistic angels--is going to fail.

I didn't say Paladin said that. It is, however, what Stossel seems to be implying.

No one I know is against children doing chores around the house or getting a part time job at an appropriate age - 12 year olds is generally the age of most paperboys, right? So, he must be talking about the reasons we have child labor laws in the first place. And those reasons stem from dangerous work in factories.

As if anyone believes that you weren't responding to Paladin when you said that.

Hey, we put corrective optics over eyes, why not correct brains?

Bad eyes will just make you walk into an I-beam, a bad brain will make you eat a fuggin' baby.

Chips in the head, says I.
Chips in the goddamned head.

Compress Wikipedia in there, and you can abolish the teacher's union too.

We'll get there eventually. But yes we will see chips in brains one day to "fix" deviant people like pedos, crazy people, leftists, criminals, brain damaged people and others.

Sure. What template shall we use for "correcting" them?

Who decides whose brain gets corrected and how?

What is "correct?"

Would you accept your brain being "corrected" if it's not YOUR standard for correctness? Why would you expect anyone to accept yours?

But most people would CHOOSE to fix their own eyes. How many people would CHOOSE to fix their brain?

Damn you for making me think of Johnny Mnemonic.

At last: a realistic plan I can get behind!

We don't live in other countries and neither does Stossel.

He's attempting to justify atrocities by pointing out that worse things can and do happen.

Fortunately, anyone with a brain and a couple ounces of compassion can see through this moronic dribble.

All I'm seeing is a lot of straw men in service of the usual nonsense about how nothing should be done to protect the vulnerable.

Nobody (or very few) say that the US should step in and abolish child labor in other countries.
And child labor cannot be said to have been abolished if children turn to prostitution "instead". Prostitution is just labor of a different sort - outside the law of course, but then so is much of what happens in sweatshops in the first place.

"Fixing" people implies having a correct model to follow. Since you may only decide what is "correct" for yourself, you may only attempt to "fix" yourself.

Disagree. Post 56 is a perfect example of someone who needs to be fixed balls wise and brain wise.

No. The point is that the kids are in a bad way, and that what might seem unthinkable to us is much better than the unthinkable that results if we attempt to apply our solutions to their problem.

What you perceive as "fuck the children" in "the richest country in the world" is much better than children literally taking it up the ass in third-world countries because well-intentioned liberal nitwits have made it illegal for them to work in relative safety.

nm