You have removed my words from their context and have misconstrued their meaning. This is a form of deception. If you read my statements again, you will recognize that they are a commentary of the way things are in this country. I am telling you to pick your battles. You will not make the government loosen their grip on the vices by incorporating the eating of fast food into their ranks. This will only tighten that grip around the throat of the people. You will be more successful in disqualifying things as vices than you will in lumping other things in and saying, “therefore, no vice should be prohibited.”

Whether you consider “general consensus” a valid principle does not negate the fact that the only way to achieve anything in a non-tyrannical society is through consensus, convincing others of your point of view. Is that a principle? It sure is. People are assets and exchange creates wealth, let alone other non-enumerated principles that we never talk about. If policy is implemented without consensus, it is called tyranny, even if it is the right policy.

“If you were to define “legitimate” business as one that does not violate individual rights whereas an “illegitimate” business does violate rights, then it would be principled for government to ban “illegitimate” business. However, I have not seen a principled argument for why government should outlaw “illegitimate” businesses for any other definition.”

According to that definition of legitimate, government should ban itself … right? :-p

You stated the following in the previous post -

“Fast food chains are legitimate industries, no matter how bad the food is, no matter how fat they make their customers. A governmental agency has no moral authority to limit/prohibit/ban legitimate businesses. Prostitution is NOT a legitimate business. No matter how much we squawk about government not having the right or authority to limit/regulate/ban vices, government is not going to legitimize prostitution on a wide scale (sure in certain cities in Nevada, etc, but I’m talking about entirely throughout the country). The general consensus about vice, from the founders to today, is that vice should indeed be limited/regulated/banned”.

From this, I ascertain that you believe whereas government is not justified in banning “legitimate” businesses, it may be principled for government to ban businesses that are not “legitimate”. So, based upon the principle “Perspective Determine Action”, I challenge you to define the “necessary & natural” differentiation between a legitimate and illegitimate business. A “general consensus” of the people is not a valid principle.

If you were to define “legitimate” business as one that does not violate individual rights whereas an “illegitimate” business does violate rights, then it would be principled for government to ban “illegitimate” business. However, I have not seen a principled argument for why government should outlaw “illegitimate” businesses for any other definition.

God values certain things because they will, according to principle, lead his children to eternal salvation. The principles which determine how to obtain eternal salvation are eternal truths and therefore, morals are objectively true and unchanging. They are not his whim, but what he desires according to his own rational self-interest.

I think it is very important what you said about collective action. A majority saying something has no bearing on the truth of an issue. It is merely that. A wise man will look at what the majority says, and consider it carefully because, as King Mosiah pointed out in the Book of Mormon, “it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right;”

But this is only as pertaining to his own choices. It does not justified in using government to make anyone else follow the “voice of the people.”

I’ve got more to say on this, but my lunch hour is only so long.

You have said correctly that God is the author of prosperity. He wrote the plan. And a person prospers only according to the adherence to that plan, whether he believes it or not. “Some things are true whether you believe them or not.” I would argue that all things that are true are true whether we believe them or not.

Someone who does not recognize those truths has no excuse for his failure to prosper. The principles do not care and that person is deceiving himself.

Several weeks ago I took the approach in a FCD article to discuss the stewardship levels of home owners who do not cut their grass short enough for the city’s liking. The city wanted to fine these heinous criminals and eventually throw them in jail for their misdeeds. The obvious approach was to discuss the blatant out-of-bounds behavior by the city council. However, what became more apparent to me as I read and prepared this article was the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” I, like you, Ammon, look around at our society and I watch how we are sliding down the slope of wickedness, and I observe how our governments are tightening the grips of tyranny around us. I say to myself, “Is it any wonder we are losing our freedoms? We have given them up as we become more vicious. The governmental manifestation of these tyrannies is but a mere symptom of the real sickness that lies within each human breast.”

You’ve mentioned general consensus and collective action. I will grant that just because the majority of a people wish to take a certain path does not make that path right. However, you have claimed that, “general consensus…is collective action and therefore does not determine the truth about the issue.” It is not by nature of the collective action that makes general consensus right or wrong. A million self-deceived people are wrong regardless of their agreement. However, one self-deceived individual is equally wrong. Furthermore, collective action can often be right on a given topic, if that collective action follows the principle more closely than does one single individual.

Moreover, the use of specific words to convey an idea only holds meaning when it is collective action. One man creating his own meaning for words contrary to the will of a collective is merely a tyrant who wishes to impose his will upon others simply because he refuses to communicate effectively. However, one man who can effectively communicate his ideas regarding the meanings of words will build that consensus and then can move the world in a gently persuasive manner.

Morality is not so easy to define for everyone. Morality is, at the most basic level, a value judgement. Value udgements are by nature subjective, and require an answer to the question, valuable to whom. This is one of the many reasons why Principle 1 is so essential. If God is the author of prosperity, then his value judgments are all that matters, if you want prosperity. However, if someone does not recognize and accept this standard of values, no amount of prohibition will persuade them to change their point of view, which is what we want to accomplish, isn’t it?

I recognize through much experience, that there is a danger in making claims as outlandish and anti-social as saying that prostitution should not be outlawed. I think there are a couple of members of my own family who question whether I support abortion, pornography, polygamy, prostitution, and gay marriage because I don’t think the government should do as much as the collective action of “general consensus” thinks it should to prohibit/limit/regulate them. All of these things, according to my own value judgements, which I strive to keep in line with the value judgements of God, are repulsive and heinous things. The mere fact that the discussion is even relevant to our society is an indictment of our society and the depravity to which it has sunk.

I think the reason the founders didn’t necessarily see a problem with prohibiting vice is because they were so strongly hoping and seeking to create a moral people, according to the morality defined by what God values.

One last thing: “General consensus about vice” is collective action and therefore does not determine the truth about the issue.

Me-too-ism (A=A; therefore B=A) can best be seen in the civil rights movements. It took our nation nearly 200 years to figure out the racial issue (some would say we still haven’t figured it out, but at least officially it seems figured out). Well, today we have a number of different camps that have nothing to do with civil rights trying to claim a similar status as the black civil rights movement in the 50’s and 60’s. I mentioned earlier, for example, the homosexual movement. The current movement is to include this as a civil right and ride the coattails of the “real” civil right of formally recognizing that “all men created equal” means “all men of any race.”

These two, me-too-ism and the destruction of language seem to work in tandem to distort our principles.

So, let’s assume for a moment, that my opposition here also includes the city council and the newspaper reporter. That the concept of here being argued is indeed the inclusion of obesity as a vice. This changes nothing in my previous posting. I still argue that through the destruction of the language and the me-too-ism leads to a distortion of what a vice really is. The city council is dead-flat wrong to assume that obesity is anywhere near the same plane as prostitution, pornography, gambling, drunkenness, and the likes. They have distorted the word vice into a term that means, “these behaviors should be outlawed because society would be better without them.” Vice is not vice because is is bad for society. Vice is vice because it is immoral. It is a character thing. Vice is vice because it destroys the human being, the individual. Obesity, on the other hand does not destroy the individual. Granted a number of different illnesses could accompany obesity, but being a heavy person is not a moral flaw. If I am mistaken in my arguments in the way you have indicated, then all I see is my “battle” goes beyond the people in the discussion on this website, which I intend to do anyway.

Now, there is a danger in allowing these people to distort obesity into a vice. Fast food chains are legitimate industries, no matter how bad the food is, no matter how fat they make their customers. A governmental agency has no moral authority to limit/prohibit/ban legitimate businesses. Prostitution is NOT a legitimate business. No matter how much we squawk about government not having the right or authority to limit/regulate/ban vices, government is not going to legitimize prostitution on a wide scale (sure in certain cities in Nevada, etc, but I’m talking about entirely throughout the country). The general consensus about vice, from the founders to today, is that vice should indeed be limited/regulated/banned.

So, if we allow over-indulgence of fast food eating to be called a vice, we now lose fast-food eating to the realms of prostitution and other legitimate vices. Our nation will become more regulated and less free.

This is why I say it is critical to keep the line hard drawn. Keep our vigilance on keeping “them” from including obesity as a vice and keep a legitimate business idea (fast food) from being banned. Win that battle. Then we can take up other battles like whether legitimate vices should be outlawed. I hope that makes sense.

Look at the reason for the moratorium quoted in Matt’s article : “A proliferation of such eateries and above average rates of obesity.” This implies that those who support the moratorium see the amount of fast food stores, and the rate of obesity in today’s society, as an immorality that should be eliminated by government. In other words, even according to the definition of Noah Webster, they see eating fast food in such a way that, to them, it is a vice, or it “deviate[s] from the rules of moral rectitude.” They also believe erroneously, like many today do, that eliminating vice is a proper role of government.

The definitions of words are judicial arguments, because words have no intrinsic meaning. We get nowhere towards understanding and spreading truth and morality making these arguments and we end up with “Yes it is!”, “No it isn’t!” etc. ad nauseum.

There is no principle which defines vice for us. It gets us nowhere to say that vice cannot be understood differently today than the way it was understood in 1812, or in such a way as to include the eating of fast food. Instead let’s say, “Fine, we’ll call eating fast food a vice for the sake of argument.” Then we can deliberate about whether it is the proper role of government to eliminate vice. That is the argument they are making, let’s address it.

Do I have the right to eliminate vice from anyone else’s life but my own? No. Do I, as an individual, have the right to forcibly keep another individual from [insert any immoral practice here]? No, I would be exercising tyranny, and force destroys freedom and prosperity. If I don’t have the right to do it as an individual, I don’t have the right to do it through government. Both of these arguments are based off of the premise that individual freedom and prosperity are the aim of all individuals. If that becomes a point of contention, then we have more important things to worry about than fast food, or the definition of vice.