China, Sweden and you

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Police use stun grenades to subdue mother who refused to hand over her five-month-old child to Swedish social services. "an attachment to his mother which is rare to see today."
Lev D. Bronshtein Nasty.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Fucking outrageous.
Lev D. Bronshtein "The grenades, also known as flash grenades, go off at up to 180 decibels temporarily paralysing the person they are fired at." I don't get that though. It's so loud it paralyzes you?!

Vladimir I. Ulyanov I doubt that actually works, but who knows.
Lev D. Bronshtein And moreover, wtf is it they think the mother is doing that's worse than throwing stun grenades at five month olds? Being in and out of jobs?

Vladimir I. Ulyanov "The flash produced momentarily activates all photoreceptor cells in the eye, making vision impossible for approximately five seconds, until the eye restores itself to its normal, unstimulated state. The loud blast is meant to cause temporary loss of hearing, and also disturbs the fluid in the ear, causing loss of balance." apparently.
Lev D. Bronshtein Way to terrorize a baby.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Yea.
Lev D. Bronshtein Wtf sense does this make, target won't cooperate so you 1. piss it off, 2. make it blind, 3. make it deaf. NOW it's going to play along? How?!

Vladimir I. Ulyanov It's not whether it plays along or doesn't, it's whether it presents opposition or not. The happiness-maximizing regime is strictly concerned with not hearing complaints, as these things usually work out. The insulting part here is that the parent is the complete and indisputable owner of the child. There's no way the state may intervene. Ever.
Lev D. Bronshtein I think in Sweden the state pays for it. I mean, focus on consistency rather than sanity for a sec: state pays for healthcare, pays for housing, pays so mother gets few years off while pregnant/newly mother, pays for all schooling, etc etc. Now, the mother has a history of not doing the one thing she's supposed to in this system, which is show a 100% devoted work ethic.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov That's not how charity works. If I give a bum ten dollars and he goes and uses those ten dollars to become the emperor of China, I can't go there to get "my" chinese throne from him.
Lev D. Bronshtein It's not charity, it's socialism. Kid belongs to the state.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Does not. Irrespective how many idiots can be gathered to affirm their feeling and belief to the contrary.
Lev D. Bronshtein Look, in that system, that's what it is. I'm not saying it's right or sane or good or anything other than what it is.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Except that's not a system. See, the issue here is this : you could have a philosophical system which holds on its own, and then people can follow it or not. However, a retarded teen taking some random poetry and declaring it "his system" does not get the same benefit. Before you may consider how things are "in that system", the thing must actually be a system.
Lev D. Bronshtein Describe this "holds on its own".

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Is constructed out of a finite set of definite propositions that do not contradict either themselves or nature.
Lev D. Bronshtein Lol okay. So a bunch of idiots are and have been following, obeying and paying some retarded teen and his random "system" poetry. During the course of which he stun grenaded one of the idiots following him and took its baby.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Indeed. And it's quite outrageous. Exactly zero difference of kind between this particular Swedish outrage, or the numerous US, Canadian etc similar outrages, and the Jim James Jonestown thing.ⁱ
Lev D. Bronshtein Sure. I don't know what you're trying to convince me of, but I think you've got the wrong person.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov I'm not trying to convince you. I'm stating the thing.
Lev D. Bronshtein Ah. So: yeah! Do you think much of it happens without even making it to news outlets? "News outlets".

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Tons. I would guess this has happened about one hudred times today, and one or two degrees of magnitude more families were silently terrorised by the possibility.
Lev D. Bronshtein That seems unbelievable.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov I think it a conservative estimate.
Lev D. Bronshtein What's your guess based on?

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Some demographic considerations. Unemployment at 10% officially, more like 20-30% in the age range. Most of those women have children.
Lev D. Bronshtein Aha.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov That's easily a hundred million potential victims in the ex-civilised, now socialist world. What is there to keep it from happening ? Social workers that are competent and conscionable somewhere ?
Lev D. Bronshtein Yes.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov That's not ever going to work, they got their three ring binders and their economic incentives. Even should they try to behave like sane fucking human beings, they're getting overruled. A highschoolful of reasonable teenagers still behaves like insane fuckwits on a stick because of exactly one or two local political commissars. So they don't kiss and they don't go to the prom with their undies in their pocket and a beer in their hand.
Lev D. Bronshtein IMO you overestimate the ability of people who got into the job because they have feelings to submit against them.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Really ? So how many teenagers show up to school with their beer anyway ? I mean sure, we smoked in school. 'Cause we felt like it and 'cause we ran the show. But what we're discussing here is 2013, not 1993 or 1963.
Lev D. Bronshtein I went to school in 2000. You smoked in the 90s, I smoked in the 2000s, and I'm sure kids still smoke in the 2010s today.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov I bet you they don't.
Lev D. Bronshtein And we verify this how?

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Ask a bunch of kids...
Lev D. Bronshtein Because they always tell the truth, and "a bunch" is quantifiable.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Well what do you propose, we go back to highschool ?
Lev D. Bronshtein I don't propose, otherwise I would.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Ok, looky : suppose cop pulled you over, wanted to stick finger in your vagina. Would that happen ?
Lev D. Bronshtein Nope.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Compliance. It did happen. So there you have it : it wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. It happens now.
Lev D. Bronshtein You asked me. You didn't ask me if a cop pulled over some clueless halfwit, what am I, the bottom of the idiot pile?

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Show me this happening before 2001.
Lev D. Bronshtein United States vs Montoya de Hernandez.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Foreign citizen at customs tho.
Lev D. Bronshtein Danny Joe McGee vs Texas. Grep for body cavity.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov I yield.
Lev D. Bronshtein I don't actually think it's the case that it's always been done as cavalierly as it is now. I just don't think it's a black|white deal for then vs now.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov So what can be salvaged of this argument ?
Lev D. Bronshtein In some parts of the world, formerly the more important parts, state agencies are becoming more aggressive in the practice of objectifying and abusing people. The degree to which this "more aggressive" is being practiced isn't precisely known. How about that?

Vladimir I. Ulyanov So what would you need to agree the respective governments are criminal in the Nuremberg sense of that term, and collaboration exposes individuals to hanging ?
Lev D. Bronshtein For the former, nothing. For the latter (exposes individuals to hanging), I'd need to see a worthy and functional dispensing authority if different than "individual citizens".

Vladimir I. Ulyanov The Republic of Bitcoin ? China ? Iran ?
Lev D. Bronshtein What's this Republic of Bitcoin? And since when do China or Iran have authority over Sweden/The US/wherever else?

Vladimir I. Ulyanov But would you agree that on the basis of the Swedish government having violently stolen the child of one woman, China is now morally justified and ethically compelled to invade Sweden and depose its government, and try with a view to hanging everyone involved ?
Lev D. Bronshtein Morally justified, yes. Ethically compelled, no.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Why not ?
Lev D. Bronshtein I don't see any convincing argument for this world police stuff, whether it's the US doing it or anyone else. The day some state conquers the entire world it may be compelled to care for the entire world. Until then, it can work on itself.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov If China is morally justified but not ethically compelled to so treat the Swedish government, could we say the Swedish government is not in fact ethically compelled to intervene should a mother mistreat her child ? Mistreat to the degree of, throwing flash grenades at him for fun.
Lev D. Bronshtein Absolutely.

Vladimir I. Ulyanov Now this is a system. Well done.

1. The various fascism-inspired socialists will of course argue that a state is fundamentally and by its very nature qualitatively different from a person. This view is false - states are nothing more than corporations and corporations are nothing else than persons. [↩]