So basically you say that the children must pay for the crimes of their ancestors far back in the past?
History is far too undocumented to go back for millenia and settle old scores.
What I'm saying is, here's the status quo, here's the rules and structure we inherited from the "shoulders of giants" that came before us.
If this is what we like then we keep it. If this is not what we like then we change it. But I'm not going to reframe society as if everything that was ever created is illegitimate because Hammurabi was mean to other people before he created his Code.
> So basically you say that the children must pay for the crimes of their ancestors far back in the past?
How do you derive this from my words? Children are created by adults who may use peaceful methods to raise them, or use violent methods.
If you support "status quo" you should equally support any status quo in any point in history. Be it slavery in 19th century, or catholic tortures in medieval times. Was slavery "OK" in your view because many people thought it was OK back then? It's just a double standard. If it was morally okay before, it should be morally okay in every time in the history (from the point of view of the same observer, that is you or me).
About status quo: there are two ways to change any status quo. Voluntarily (via mutual agreement) or violently (the strongest wins). Every time you go to work you are changing status quo. You create wealth that did not exist yesterday. Or you fix things that got broken and would remain broken until you fix them. Typically you do it peacefully: by agreeing with everyone whom it might concern that they don't mind doing what you do (and may even pay you for that). Now, imagine we agreed together that I do something useful to you for a payment. Everyone who is really concerned about such change in the universe is participating voluntarily and has no objection. But then comes a guy who calls himself a "government" and brings a thing called "income tax". He now wants to change the status quo violently. Instead of providing us something of value and negotiating, he simply states "since you produced something of value to each other, both of you now must pay me". And shows his gun.
In other words, if you use "status quo" as a moral principle, you create many more problems. You either have no moral stance whatsoever, so your argument self-destructs (e.g. if slavery was okay in 19th century and not okay in 21st, then you have no opinion on slavery per se). Or you have some moral stance, but then you need to come up with a theory why certain status quo is okay and some other is not.
My position: "Why don't we bring down weapons and discuss on equal grounds". Your position: "No, lets keep those weapons as they seemingly solve my problems, and if you have objections you are probably being immoral and against children."
As you can see, if you are pointing government's gun at me, it could never be me who is immoral because I have no power of objection. But it could be that the immoral guy is the one who proclaims what is good and forces people to follow him.
History is far too undocumented to go back for millenia and settle old scores.
What I'm saying is, here's the status quo, here's the rules and structure we inherited from the "shoulders of giants" that came before us.
If this is what we like then we keep it. If this is not what we like then we change it. But I'm not going to reframe society as if everything that was ever created is illegitimate because Hammurabi was mean to other people before he created his Code.