Propaganda
Last night I was watching my favorite show Hell’s Kitchen on Hulu when an advertisement by the state played. It was a commercial telling me to put my seat belt on because its the law.
Let me get this straight. The state forcibly takes my money and then uses it to create moral segments, which it plays during my favorite show. Effectively, I’m paying to be moralized to. Its like giving money to the church expect for the giving part. Because when it comes to the state you are compelled to pay.
Hey I have an idea. Let me keep my money and since I’m a big boy, I will decide whether I should wear my belt or not. I honestly can’t believe some people think a massive federal government is the solution to people not wearing their belts. News Flash: Its not.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
It’s not moralizing, it’s law enforcement. If we KILL PEOPLE as a ‘preventative measure’ to scare off other potential criminals, why shouldn’t we show commercials for the same reason? Now, if your actual problem is with seatbelt laws, then I agree, I don’t think we need that law.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I would resent the state for forcibly using my money to advertise not to murder just as much as I resent it for telling me to use my seat belt.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Even if we got empirical results that convinced you that every $10 of tax money spent on these types of ads saved taxpayers $100 in terms of enforcement and prison (I’m not saying they’re actually effective, just checking the rational for your objection)?
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Actually Darwin has a good point. If $10 of prevention saves us $100 of clean up after words its a good financial move. If by making common sense a law we can save the taxpayer from doling out hundreds of thousands for supporting emergency response, cleanup crews and law enforcement then I’m all for it. However, if we are paying money to support a government that makes common sense law because the average IQ of the population is not high enough to consider these things independently, I say screw them - they will weed themselves out of the population rather effectively on their own - problem solved. And by the way, if you don’t want to be “moralized to” don’t ever move to Pennsylvania. They have these big white circles on the highway with corresponding signs saying “Please leave two circles in between you and the car ahead of you. Don’t tailgate - be kind, save a life”. They also have all sorts of signs with cute plays on words that I just want to set fire to. “Drive hammered, get nailed” was a personal favorite of mine not to mention the sign that told me “Obey the speed limit, its the nice thing to do”.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:42 am
So, we’re allowed to have the government pay for this kind of propaganda, but not propaganda for the iraq war? Imagine a world where spending some money on propaganda for the US military would help reduce violence against soldiers. Would it be wrong to propagandize then?
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 am
Um, we spend billions of dollars on propanganda for the US military? For god’s sake, they released a VIDEO GAME a a recruitment tool a few years ago.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:56 am
And you support that spending so long as it saves lives.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:15 am
Of course. I’m all for the Nanny State dude. I’d have to see some probaly classified reports to be sure i’m understanding how it work, but I imagine we could save even more lives by moving a few billions dollars out of no-bid contracts to military contractors who used to employ the people giving them teh contraact and into domestic recruiting campaigns and foreign good-will campaigns for the military. I’d be all for it.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
This brings up what I think is arguably the most important question in all of our arguments. What amount of noise are you willing to accept in the system just to maintain a principle.
For example, let’s say you support the principle of freedom. People should be able to do what they want when they want, provided they don’t directly harm others.
Such a principle will lead to what I would call noise. Noise here is to be defined as an undesirable outcome when people enjoy the principle you support. So you say you support the principle of freedom but don’t like the noise it generates when people exercise that principle by choosing to not wear a seat belt and die in a crash.
The question becomes to what extent are you willing to accept noise to maintain your principle. I think its fair to say when we look over you comments and compare them to mine we can conclude that you are much more willing to compromise your principles to reduce noise than I am.
You support the principle of gun ownership but wish to regulate the noise of accidental death and overall murder rate. You support the principle of freedom of speech but wish to regulate the noise of speech that is hateful towards minorities. You support the principle of free markets but wish to regulate the noise wealth inequity.
I on the other hand am much more willing to accept that noise because i see man’s attempts at controlling such noise to be foolish. There is hubris in believing man can control all the noise of a principle. Beyond a basic set of obvious regulations such attempts almost always expand the power of the state but fail to control the noise.
If you care about poor people you keep markets as free as possible and accept the noise that some people will be poor. If you care about freedom of speech you accept the noise that some people will express nasty and hateful things. If you care about self protection you accept the noise that children will accidentally shoot themselves with the gun parents own for defense.
In a sense I’m talking about personal responsibility. I take the responsibility of my principles. I accept the unpleasant outcomes that the result from these principles. You are less responsible. You want to have these principles but control for outcomes you find unpleasant.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Steve, make your last comment a blog post. It’s good.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Well, to be clear, you don’t accept the unpleasant outcome yourself, you accept that they’ll happen to other people. WHen you say we should get rid of welfare, nothing bad happens to you- you get a tax break. The people who suffer for your principles are the poor and the disenfranchised. That’s why my liberal guilt makes me compromise my principles more often- I’m aware that I live an easy life, and that the people who pay for my principles are those who have a harder lot in life. That makes me feel guilty and makes me want to trake care of them. As someone who grew up a lot less privileged than me and took a lot more responsibility for their own advancement, it makes sense that you’d be less sympathetic to those who are poor or discriminated against and don’t solve their own problems. But I’m not yet convinced that that makes you right.
Your characterization of accepting noise in the system is accurate though- you’re more willing than me to accept bad things happening to people in the short term in exchange for longterm benefits to everyone. That may actually be a more pragmatically ethical stance, if more people are helped overall, but I’m not as convinced as you of our ability to predict the long term effects of principles, whereas I can see the people being hurt right now.