[aminok]

The interests of 'people as a whole' can be used to justify both (compulsory treatment leads to less drug abuse and fewer homeless, compulsory income redistribution leads to more funding for the homeless, respectively), so really what you're saying is that it's okay to throw rich people in prison, but not poor people.

That's what your 'value system' comes down to. Knee-jerk judgments on moral value and rights based on whether a person is successful.

[vertex-four]

It's very easy to pay taxes. People do it all the time, and it's pretty well documented how to do it. Worst case scenario, you miss something and pay a bit more than you might otherwise have to. I don't know of anyone who's paid taxes properly and been thrown in prison for paying taxes. Hell, if you look like you might be trying to make an honest effort to pay taxes and got it wrong, you can pay them after someone catches you!

It's not very easy not to have a mental illness. It's not something you choose to do. See the difference? One is putting you in prison for something you very easily could've avoided - the other is putting you in prison (because that's what compulsory treatment really is) for being a human being.

[aminok]

Here come the rationalizations for your favored brand of authoritarianism.

Human rights violators always think that their particular authoritarianism is justified.

It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't simultaneously admonish those who support authoritarian laws to force those who are massively abusing drugs to the detriment of themselves and the rest of society into treatment.

[vertex-four]

I think we will disagree forevermore on whether or not property and money are the most important things in the world.

[aminok]

No, we disagree on whether it's okay to throw someone in prison for not handing over their money to you, and whether it's okay to rationalize this form of authoritarianism, while admonishing the much more sensible authoritarian policy of forcing those with severe drug addictions to stop putting themselves and the rest of society in danger by getting treatment.

[vertex-four]

Reasonably sure we don't. We disagree mostly that your specific definition of property is a thing that should be considered a human right at all.

Unlike most other human rights, the only reason that property is considered one is to prop up capitalism and prevent experimenting with alternatives. Property doesn't exist to the extent it does today without Government intervention - the alternative is that nobody owns anything aside from that which they can defend personally by force. Property is thus subsidised by Government - Government says that in return for taxes, they'll keep some concept of property separate from the concept of whether or not you happen to have enough firepower to defend it. This, of course, doesn't actually work unless the Government is powerful enough to take down any group which might want to steal your property.

There are various alternatives to this Government-subsidised definition of property, some of which have been tried out small-scale, some larger scale. I'm not really sure why one specific definition is encoded into your definition of human rights (which, of course, doesn't match any human rights treaty currently in force anywhere).

On the bright side, with enough firepower, you can defend yourself from the Government and essentially become your own country and do whatever you want. Wee!

[aminok]

No we disagree on whether throwing a person in prison for refusing to hand over something they receive in private trade is a human rights violation.

It goes beyond even this. Income and sales tax laws require a person to surrender their privacy rights, and disclose how much currency they received in private trade, and from what sources, or be imprisoned. You don't consider this blatant authoritarian violation of privacy rights to be a human rights violation.

You define actions that are clearly human rights violations as not being so, because your ethics are purely designed to rationalise your political ideology, as opposed to consistently defending people's rights.

You're also not above misconstruing the debate and misframing your correspondent's position in an attempt to disparage them while evading their criticisms of your position.

[spoonie]

So you only drive on toll roads and went to a private school?