I understand that in RL there is a "trade off between freedom and security".
The problem for me is that I believe there shouldn't be such a trade off. I've yet to demonstrate a way such a system could be feasible though.
I suppose I support a Permissive Society.
Permissive in what sense? Here in Mexico, the age of consent is 12 (though you have to be 18 to vote, go figure). Is that really a good idea? Is that
logical? I suppose if you're a child molester it's wonderful, but if you're on the other end of the equation, it could be somewhat dangerous. How would you like to be married off to a fifty year old before you're out of primary school?
But let's examine something simpler, like rights to use the streets. In my city, there are both traffic laws and police organizations that are tasked with enforcing them. It is technically illegal to double park, as it should be. So why is my daily 5 kilometer commute an arduous 30-45 minute process of dodging double-parked cars?
No enforcement (ie: permissiveness). Example: From 1 to 1:30 every weekday, every street within a 1 square kilometer radius of a school is reduced to gridlock. Why? Parents picking up their kids from school won't just double or triple park; if there's no space to pull out of traffic, they'll stop their car in THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET, run into the school, grab their kid(s), load them into the car, and take off. This all happens to the tune of horns blaring in protest behind. It's not like they don't realize that what they're doing is causing major problems for everyone else.
So why do they do it? Because they know they can without consequences. The other day, and I exaggerate not in the least, I witnessed a mother, parked in the middle of the street, with her kid already in the car, standing there with her car door open CHATTING with another lady as if the line of traffic she was blocking didn't even exist. After about 30 seconds of this, the driver of the pickup truck directly behind her rolled forward and started nudging her rear bumper. Of course, that was all the excuse the bitch needed to start yelling at the guy about how her child was in the car, how aggressively the guy was acting, how she had as much right to use (block) the street as everyone else, blah blah before she finally got in her car and drove away.
I won't even mention the protesting teachers, campaigning politicians, and other holier than thou organizations that frequently block the streets on a whim to hold their marches, rallies, or whatever the fuck.
In front of our house are posted two bright, shiny, city-erected 'no parking' signs. They're bright and shiny because we asked the transit office to replace the old, faded ones in the hope that they simply weren't visible enough to the people who were constantly parking in front of our house and blocking our driveway. Well, the transit office was just as kind as could be and came right out to replace the signs, but yet the line of perpetually-parked cars remained. "What can we do about this?" we asked the transitos. "There's not much we can do about the cars parked at the curb, but call us about the ones blocking your driveway and we'll zip right over to cite them. "Cite" means they remove the license plates and the owner has to go to the transit office to pay to get them back, not that it matters much as every 5th car here has no license plates. Every day I park next to a two-year old Mercedes Benz that still has the dealer advertisement plates ("Nuevo 2011 de BONN MERCEDES Oaxaca!). A two-year old, 60,000 dollar car that the owner can't be arsed to license and register! WTF! Must be a high-ranking politician to get away with that, right?
No. Anyway, we called the transitos as instructed. When they showed up 45 minutes later, the offending vehicle was long gone.
Our solution was to erect our own barriers to force an end to the problem. Now there are two metal signs out in front of our house, bolted to the street, protecting our driveway from being blocked.
This is only one example of the perils of permissiveness. The moral is that permissiveness rapidly decomposes into rampant abuse. No doubt you yourself have a very disciplined, ordered, textbook idea of how a 'Permissive Society' should function, but the reality is that the average human animal is not willing or able to function in a permissive environment with awareness of 'respecting other people's rights'.
Actually, I believe people are fully aware, but just don't give a shit.
Trust me, you would not be happy living in what passes for a 'permissive society'.
SU
