Auto Insurance analogy for Social Justice

[ManOnFire]

It’s logical that those who are less careful to follow the rules or who drive a riskier lifestyle will have more claims and therefore should pay higher premiums. One would expect Safe drivers who are more anal-retentive about following the rules to avoid more accidents and therefore pay less expensive premiums as a reward for their careful behavior.

So why does the media’s version of social justice seem to be the exact opposite of logic and common sense regarding the analogy to auto insurance premiums?: Those who get jailed don’t pay for their penal system costs, those who don’t delay gratification don’t pay more, some people spend all their money being bad such that they have no more to pay their premiums. So they figuratively drive around with no insurance. Then, in the ultimate irony, they claim that social justice would be served by forcing conscientious insured motorists to pay more for “uninsured motorist” premiums! Where’s the logic and common sense?

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

If I understand you correctly, your definition of “social justice” is “social darwinism”?

 

[ManOnFire]

If I understand you correctly, your definition of “social justice” is “social darwinism”?

So, you believe that free will choices and personal responsibility have zero role in social justice? That’s ironic, because the auto insurance companies sure do believe it.

 

[St_Francis]

ManOnFire,
While I see your point, I think you are frustrated about something.

I agree that our current (US) system is dysfunctional all around, I think it should be changed rather than to simply say to people: OK, you made your bed, now lie in it.

To me, the system should be set up so that people not only can but are encouraged to move out of depending on the government, in a way that actually works.

What it would take to accomplish that? Shew…

But the thing is, what you are doing is just sort of saying the same thing over and over, and there seems to be something underneath it, like something else that is bothering you or something.

 

[ManOnFire]

ManOnFire,
While I see your point, I think you are frustrated about something.

I agree that our current (US) system is dysfunctional all around, I think it should be changed rather than to simply say to people: OK, you made your bed, now lie in it.

To me, the system should be set up so that people not only can but are encouraged to move out of depending on the government, in a way that actually works.

What it would take to accomplish that? Shew…

But the thing is, what you are doing is just sort of saying the same thing over and over, and there seems to be something underneath it, like something else that is bothering you or something.

I guess I’m one of those people who expects progress when so many people are trying so hard. I think we are misguided in our efforts. Human beings are really not that complicated. Add benefits to provoke desirable behaviors and subtract benefits for less desirable behaviors. I’m not unreasonable. I think we should have generous short-term benefits and benefits for first time situations, but rewarding chronic behavior isn’t working. People love to receive something-for-nothing. It’s like winning the lottery. I’m afraid our current system is anti-motivational due to it’s generous nature. It reminds me of the saying “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish and he eats for a lifetime,” but the unelected people have decided that a well defined life is too judgmental, but they have no problem levying financial judgments on innocent people to help pay for it. Plus, some people who want to genuinely help are participating based on a heroic emotional payoff rather than any true hope of societal behavioral change which leads to true upward mobility. It’s not real progress. It’s just another fail. Yes, that’s why I’m frustrated.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I guess I’m one of those people who expects progress when so many people are trying so hard. I think we are misguided in our efforts. Human beings are really not that complicated. Add benefits to provoke desirable behaviors and subtract benefits for less desirable behaviors. I’m not unreasonable. I think we should have generous short-term benefits and benefits for first time situations, but rewarding chronic behavior isn’t working. People love to receive something-for-nothing. It’s like winning the lottery. I’m afraid our current system is anti-motivational due to it’s generous nature. It reminds me of the saying “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish and he eats for a lifetime,” but the unelected people have decided that a well defined life is too judgmental, but they have no problem levying financial judgments on innocent people to help pay for it. Plus, some people who want to genuinely help are participating based on a heroic emotional payoff rather than any true hope of societal behavioral change which leads to true upward mobility. It’s not real progress. It’s just another fail. Yes, that’s why I’m frustrated.

If your point is that the term social justice is applied inappropriately by government programs, that is a reasonable point to make - provided you specify you are not talking about social justice in general. There is still a legitimate concept of social justice as defined by our Church, not by the government. And that concept should not be diminished just because government applies it incorrectly. Remember the parable of the wheat and the weeds. It is tempting to pull up the weeds that were planted by the enemy, but it is more just to let both the weeds and the wheat grow to maturity and leave the judgment between them happen at the harvest.

 

[St_Francis]

I guess I’m one of those people who expects progress when so many people are trying so hard. I think we are misguided in our efforts. Human beings are really not that complicated. Add benefits to provoke desirable behaviors and subtract benefits for less desirable behaviors. I’m not unreasonable. I think we should have generous short-term benefits and benefits for first time situations, but rewarding chronic behavior isn’t working. People love to receive something-for-nothing. It’s like winning the lottery. I’m afraid our current system is anti-motivational due to it’s generous nature. It reminds me of the saying “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish and he eats for a lifetime,” but the unelected people have decided that a well defined life is too judgmental, but they have no problem levying financial judgments on innocent people to help pay for it. Plus, some people who want to genuinely help are participating based on a heroic emotional payoff rather than any true hope of societal behavioral change which leads to true upward mobility. It’s not real progress. It’s just another fail. Yes, that’s why I’m frustrated.

It is very messed up, and it’s hard to see how there could be so many repetitions of unintended consequences.

I myself do not get it and I have been trying to for over 10 years. I think it is spiritual warfare and that is where the explanation as well as the answer can be found: the answer if course being prayer and making sacrifices.

C S Lewis, God in the Dock: “Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the ‘good’ of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

How many of us are distracted by the good we ought to be doing by another good? I remember reading (long ago before I returned to the Church) a criticsm of two parents who went off to be missionaries, putting their own children into a boarding school. How many who want to do good are entranced by the idea of working to get government to do it on a larger scale than they could, while ignoring to personal good they could be doing around them?

 

[SamH]

If your point is that the term social justice is applied inappropriately by government programs, that is a reasonable point to make - provided you specify you are not talking about social justice in general. There is still a legitimate concept of social justice as defined by our Church, not by the government. And that concept should not be diminished just because government applies it incorrectly. Remember the parable of the wheat and the weeds. It is tempting to pull up the weeds that were planted by the enemy, but it is more just to let both the weeds and the wheat grow to maturity and leave the judgment between them happen at the harvest.

Except in this case the wheat is being pulled to allow the weeds to flourish.

Basic economics, if you want more of something you subsidize it, if you want less of something you tax it. We subsidize food and tax alcohol and cigarettes. But socially we subsidize those that choose to have children out of wedlock and pay them more with each additional child they have. Those that choose not to work are rewarded with free housing, free food, and free entertainment. Those that work are rewarded with ever increasing taxes.

 

[ManOnFire]

It is very messed up, and it’s hard to see how there could be so many repetitions of unintended consequences.

I myself do not get it and I have been trying to for over 10 years. I think it is spiritual warfare and that is where the explanation as well as the answer can be found: the answer if course being prayer and making sacrifices.

C S Lewis, God in the Dock: “Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the ‘good’ of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

How many of us are distracted by the good we ought to be doing by another good? I remember reading (long ago before I returned to the Church) a criticsm of two parents who went off to be missionaries, putting their own children into a boarding school. How many who want to do good are entranced by the idea of working to get government to do it on a larger scale than they could, while ignoring to personal good they could be doing around them?

In the philosophy section, I once asked the question: For those who feel good by giving, are they are actually being selfish? This is especially true if the person is not sacrificing anything. Their charitable nature makes them feel good to be serving God, so they benefit from the emotional high they receive, regardless of the failing results.

I believe most of the good intentions come from loving God, which makes the well wisher feel good to serve God. I theorize that the “feel good” from believing one is actually doing good is actually selfish in a way, because although the missionaries are feeling good by serving God, they are wronging their own kids. Most people are apalled at the thought of being labeled as being selfish for the emotional high they receive when trying to do good, in the face of failing results. That’s why it’s time to think differently.

 

[ManOnFire]

Except in this case the wheat is being pulled to allow the weeds to flourish.

Basic economics, if you want more of something you subsidize it, if you want less of something you tax it. We subsidize food and tax alcohol and cigarettes. But socially we subsidize those that choose to have children out of wedlock and pay them more with each additional child they have. Those that choose not to work are rewarded with free housing, free food, and free entertainment. Those that work are rewarded with ever increasing taxes.

That’s why I practically laugh at comments like “social Darwinism.” Darwin would say that we are using Artificial Selection to punish those with higher standards and reward those with lower standards. It’s the opposite of logic and Common Sense. With our growing atheism and its necessary absence of a moral code (unless one wishes to allow the unelected media’s concept of political correctness to determine right from wrong, but that’s a little sketchy to use as a compass for life), Natural selection is far more natural. The left is selling lewd sex, drugs, and violence in the media. People aren’t forced to buy it and become more dependent. Liberalism is almost like a cruel joke: it leads to more dependency. Then people beg for help. Then, the “helpers” vote for more liberal politicians and grow more dependency. Insane.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Basic economics, if you want more of something you subsidize it, if you want less of something you tax it. We subsidize food and tax alcohol and cigarettes. But socially we subsidize those that choose to have children out of wedlock and pay them more with each additional child they have. Those that choose not to work are rewarded with free housing, free food, and free entertainment. Those that work are rewarded with ever increasing taxes.

In the Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II identifies the culture of death as being marked by an excessive preoccupation with efficiency. If we follow your economic reasoning completely we would have to conclude that it is more efficient to kill babies with birth defects rather than let them grow up as a drain on our economy and perhaps passing their defective genes on to another generation. That too is basic economics. No thanks!

 

[St_Francis]

In the philosophy section, I once asked the question: For those who feel good by giving, are they are actually being selfish? This is especially true if the person is not sacrificing anything. Their charitable nature makes them feel good to be serving God, so they benefit from the emotional high they receive, regardless of the failing results.

I believe most of the good intentions come from loving God, which makes the well wisher feel good to serve God. I theorize that the “feel good” from believing one is actually doing good is actually selfish in a way, because although the missionaries are feeling good by serving God, they are wronging their own kids. Most people are apalled at the thought of being labeled as being selfish for the emotional high they receive when trying to do good, in the face of failing results. That’s why it’s time to think differently.

Oh, yeah, there was a discussion on CAF about an article on a study about people giving more after seeing an emotionally-laden request and how religious people were actually less likely to be swayed by those types of ads.

Because we are people rather than animals, we are supposed to be guided mostly by oir wills, and we are supposed to use reason to come to a decision.

On the one hand, we have people who give on an emotional basis, which means the giving is not thought out and may not be done in the most effective way, but more importantly, is not done is a sustained way, only when “the feeling” hits.

OTOH, we have people who imagine they are charitable, because they go to a protest or talk to their senators… if they themselves make no sacrifice, then it is imaginary on their part. And this is very bad. (It gets worse the more one thinks about it!)

And a further problem is that we should be acting out of love, most esp love for God, and for His Glory.

People in general don’t even know about this, and sadly few Catholics seme to know it either, but we are supposed to act for the glory of God. We don’t give out of a desire to avoid the discomfort or guilt of seeing poor people–it should at least be out of empathy–but we should be giving to the poor *to serve God. *And I think a lot of things would be organized better if this were known and kept in mind.

 

[SamH]

In the Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II identifies the culture of death as being marked by an excessive preoccupation with efficiency. If we follow your economic reasoning completely we would have to conclude that it is more efficient to kill babies with birth defects rather than let them grow up as a drain on our economy and perhaps passing their defective genes on to another generation. That too is basic economics. No thanks!

The strawman you built might tip over on top of you.

 

[aux1]

. So they figuratively drive around with no insurance. Then, in the ultimate irony, they claim that social justice would be served by forcing conscientious insured motorists to pay more for “uninsured motorist” premiums! Where’s the logic and common sense?

Why don’t you simply organize things so that everyone is insured?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The strawman you built might tip over on top of you.

It is not a strawman argument. It is an analogy whose point is to illustrate the moral problem of deciding issues solely on the basis of economic efficiency. The arguments put forth in this thread by you and ManOnFire are built on this basis. Neither of you have addressed any doctrines of the Church or items in the Cathecism or moral teachings of any kind. In fact ManOnFire even went so far as to say

I believe most of the good intentions come from loving God, which makes the well wisher feel good to serve God. I theorize that the “feel good” from believing one is actually doing good is actually selfish in a way, because although the missionaries are feeling good by serving God, they are wronging their own kids. Most people are apalled at the thought of being labeled as being selfish for the emotional high they receive when trying to do good, in the face of failing results. That’s why it’s time to think differently.

which denigrates mission work (a major work of the Church) and encourages us to distrust our joy in serving God. What kind of a position is that for a Catholic to take?

 

[St_Francis]

It is not a strawman argument. It is an analogy whose point is to illustrate the moral problem of deciding issues solely on the basis of economic efficiency. The arguments put forth in this thread by you and ManOnFire are built on this basis. Neither of you have addressed any doctrines of the Church or items in the Cathecism or moral teachings of any kind. In fact ManOnFire even went so far as to say

which denigrates mission work (a major work of the Church) and encourages us to distrust our joy in serving God. What kind of a position is that for a Catholic to take?

ManOnFire seems to be criticizing people take joy in certain activities *not *because they are seeving God but because they are doing something which makes them feel good for some other reason.

 

[ManOnFire]

In the Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II identifies the culture of death as being marked by an excessive preoccupation with efficiency. If we follow your economic reasoning completely we would have to conclude that it is more efficient to kill babies with birth defects rather than let them grow up as a drain on our economy and perhaps passing their defective genes on to another generation. That too is basic economics. No thanks!

No one is saying that. The point is the free will choice of risky driving (life) vs the free will choice of more conservative driving (life), which is more aligned with a responsible Christian moral compass.

 

[ManOnFire]

OTOH, we have people who imagine they are charitable, because they go to a protest or talk to their senators… if they themselves make no sacrifice, then it is imaginary on their part. And this is very bad. (It gets worse the more one thinks about it!)

And a further problem is that we should be acting out of love, most esp love for God, and for His Glory.

People in general don’t even know about this, and sadly few Catholics seme to know it either, but we are supposed to act for the glory of God. We don’t give out of a desire to avoid the discomfort or guilt of seeing poor people–it should at least be out of empathy–but we should be giving to the poor *to serve God. *And I think a lot of things would be organized better if this were known and kept in mind.

Well said. The poor in Jesus’ day were genuinely struggling for survival. They didn’t have record obesity, a welfare system that pays more money to have more kids, and ring tones back then. There’s a difference between truly trying, making a mistake and feeling repentant, versus making a free will choice to engage in behavior that the chooser knows will tax the system. The present situation is manageable. My point is that charitable people will grow the issue until it is unmanageable and the system collapses, which is just what the atheist progressives want. We’re being drawn in.

 

[ManOnFire]

It is not a strawman argument. It is an analogy whose point is to illustrate the moral problem of deciding issues solely on the basis of economic efficiency. The arguments put forth in this thread by you and ManOnFire are built on this basis. Neither of you have addressed any doctrines of the Church or items in the Cathecism or moral teachings of any kind. In fact ManOnFire even went so far as to say

which denigrates mission work (a major work of the Church) and encourages us to distrust our joy in serving God. What kind of a position is that for a Catholic to take?

The primary argument is not economic efficiency. The primary issue is some people’s twisted sense of “justice” that comes from allowing individual’s free will choice of individual lifestyle, while imposing collectivist financial policies. Economic inefficiency and injustice occur when innocent taxpayers are forced to adapt to pay for the free will choices of others, while said others have unbridled freedom and are not forced to adapt their behaviors to respect innocent taxpayers.

The taxpayer is forced to sacrifice freedom, but the lifestyle chooser isn’t. How is that justice?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The primary argument is not economic efficiency… Economic inefficiency and injustice occur when innocent taxpayers are forced to adapt to pay for the free will choices of others, while said others have unbridled freedom and are not forced to adapt their behaviors to respect innocent taxpayers.

You start out by saying your argument is not about economic efficiency, but then you go right back into making statements about what is or is not economically efficient. Make up your mind. Also, are you commenting on social justice in general, or only particular applications of social justice? If it is the latter then you have not given enough definition of which applications you are talking about, so you can understand why someone would think you are against all instances of social justice. And what has obesity and ring tones got to do with your argument? I don’t follow.