Amazingly, America decided to relinquish power over gays, and let them be free to be who they are. — Philosophim

Relinquish power over gays? Listen to yourself. Do not talk to me about ego trip while talking nonsense like this, please. Gays were not out to get power from others. They wanted to be treated as equals.

I did, troll. I referenced them just above. — tim wood

Mmm. Name calling. No need to lose your cool. You could file a complaint to the moderators.

I know how hard it is for you to be wrong, but you should be used to it by now. — James Riley

I don't gain anything by pretending to be right. That's bullshit.

Culture is independent of society. — James Riley

News to me.

Then you're making nonsense. Read your own remarks! — tim wood

You go first. Read my own remarks, if you haven't.

When you say that abortion is a crime against society, you clearly do not mean that abortion is a crime against society. What you mean is that abortion is legal, but restricted. I.e., some abortions at some times in some places under some conditions are violations of laws in force at those places. That is exactly not any sort of crime against society. Why did you say it was when apparently you know perfectly well it is not? Lying? Bluffing? Gas-lighting? Or just you do not know what you're talking about? — tim wood

I do mean it.

That sounds rather like a prescription for reactionary authoritarianism. — Wayfarer

Also known as "society". — baker

Arguably.

Gays for example, were able to get others to relinquish their power over them, and not be outlawed or denied state marriages. — Philosophim

Incorrect. The gays got what they wanted because the public outrage of the majority diminished. Careful now.

Nothing needs to "hold society together". Society just exists, or doesn't exist, depending on one's ideological outlook. — baker

Tell that to L'éléphant ... — 180 Proof

See my post above, to @Alkis Piskas.

(There’s a very good article in the Internet on the subject: "Legal Enforcement of Morality" (
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756162.001.0001/acprof-9780199756162-chapter-9). It is quite short and it is worth reading.) — Alkis Piskas

I didn't know that exists. Thanks.

To my opinion, morality cannot be forced. It can only be encouraged, its value and purpose explained, etc. Morality exists only if it comes naturally from or is determined by oneself. If one behaves morally but he is forced to in any way, we say that he does so because he is a moral person. — Alkis Piskas

When morality is a voluntary act, you foster irresponsible members of society. When this happens you get a monster dictator. Evil thrives in chaos, monsters in diplomacy.

Those who engage in your "crimes against society" are also a part of society. So, in truth, what is being proposed here is a far more ruinous crime, namely, a form of slavery: some members of society get to rule over the other members of society. — NOS4A2

Okay, I'm going to break my rule in the OP by mentioning a venn diagram. (Yes, I know I promised no use of other means) But here's the thing -- the majority of the member of society dictate the morality of that society. There are the minority, which include the dissenters, those who engage in crimes against society. And yes they are part of the society. And what did we just accomplish by stating the obvious that they are part of society? We've accomplished saying more words that don't add to this discussion.

3. Bigamy and polygamy - I can see the value in having rules in this regard, but I don't see this as a crime against society. — T Clark

Then why can a bigamist be prosecuted even if the other party is a consenting adult? What's the rational behind the law? You married a married person, that bigamist could be charged with a crime even if you didn't file a complaint.

Disturbance of the peace - Well, ok, it's annoying and worthy of restrictions, but is it really a crime against society? — T Clark

Annoying? Disturbance of the peace can include a rocket-propelled grenade fired towards a peaceful celebration of people having a good time.

Violation of helmet and seat belt laws - Sorry. No. — T Clark

Sorry. Yes.

You seem to have forgotten that society has methods of social control other than legal restrictions. The law should be the enforcement method of last resort. — T Clark

Nice try. Good on paper. Are you saying that laws should only be an option, not the rule? On what undiscovered planet it exists? Please invite us.

The question is, who has power? Is it 1% of the population, and they oppress the other 99%? Is it 50%? 80%? — Philosophim

The majority of the members of society has the power. So long as they don't use logic, but public outcry and outrage. This so-called power has nothing to do with the 1% or the 99%. It's about what morality is being undermined.

1. Abortion - Abortion is a bad thing. We should do what we can reasonably to reduce the numbers, but not by enacting legal restrictions. It is not a crime and it is not the problem. It should be legal. — T Clark

And yet the reasoning behind the penal code is the viability of the fetus. If there's a heartbeat, the doctor can decide not to perform an abortion -- yeah this! even if the life of the mother is clearly at stake. The doctor who refuses to perform an abortion is not prosecuted. The law protects the doctor's psychic pain and liberty to decide not to participate in that decision. Oh wait! Are you really just thinking about the person getting an abortion and no one else? That's immoral.

In what country? — tim wood

Please read this:

Gestational Limits: 43 states prohibit abortions after a specified point in pregnancy, with some exceptions provided. The allowable circumstances are generally when an abortion is necessary to protect the patient's life or health.

-- Guttmacher Institute, An Overview of Abortion Laws

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that Germany lacked society during WWII times? What did they instead have during this time period? — javra

No. This is not what I'm saying at all. You cited Nazi as an example. I said it's not a society.

Or perhaps that people often use their emotions or their personal sense of "what feels right" or even just feels good, more so than what (they know?) logically is best, ie. smoking cigarettes or drinking regularly? — Outlander

"Outrage" is the term. "Outcry" is another. When the majority of the population have expressed an outrage or outcry, they represent the whole of their society. And the society acts to remedy this public outcry by means of creating a law.
Pointy finials killing wild life when they try to jump over the fence? There's a law now
banning pointy finials around your property.
Second hand smoke more poisonous than smoke? There's a law now banning smoking in common use areas.

You are conflating society with culture. Culture is language, tradition, religion, shared experience, etc. Society is glued together by laws. — James Riley

No I'm not. Unless you mean humans are automatons glued together by laws. Apply culture to these automatons and you get society.

How do you define society, exactly? I'm myself thinking of the typical dictionary senses when I use the term. — javra

Loosely, a population or a group of people with structured or ordered existence bound by morality (whether religious or secular or both). Structured in the sense that they perform economic, educational, and social activities.

it means nothing. Laws change, cultures change, societies change. — James Riley

It means the whole world. Look what happened to Detroit, Michigan.

That military arrangement or whatnot was democratically voted into power (this by the majority of the people). So your argument doesn't hold. — javra

I'd like to take a moment to say that, I did cover my ass when I said in my OP that there's an unwritten format adopted by the population. Did the German society die, or the Nazi party died?

A society. — javra

It was a military arrangement, not by the majority of the people, but by the Nazis. So, no it wasn't a society.

you forget that "unwritten format" must be written. Otherwise, it's not worth the paper it's not written on. — James Riley

No society had written a format, like a software program, where it mapped everything according to its needs and wants.

Nazis were law-abiding citizens within their own society, but their society's laws were often criminal … and violations of these criminal laws moral. — javra

The question is, Did the Nazis have a society or something else?

According to whom? — tim wood

According to the penal code, which is designed to protect society.

And society does not have a right to defend itself from nonconformity, especially when society has a Bill of Rights protecting minorities from the tyranny of a majority. — James Riley

And yet, the list of illegal activities is long.

Only if they can't avoid it. — 180 Proof

Who are they? And if they can't avoid it? What does it mean?

How come when @Wayfarer quoted me, I didn't get a notification? I just discovered that he responded to my post 5 hours ago.

This was hoped to be 'the atom' - the changeless point-particles that are the irreducible constituents of the Universe. But, alas.... — Wayfarer

And yes, they were thinking about something like an atom. Indivisible.

Nobody. — 180 Proof

So nobody deserves a punishment?

Nobody deserves anything — 180 Proof

Even criminals who committed heinous crimes?

Reality on the other hand should have something unchangeable, from which we can derive a set of rules. — Mersi

That's why right from the start, the ancient philosophers had lain down rules on talking about the real. Strip it down to bare minimum -- remove complex or composition of the real. After you've reduced it to "stuff" -- in the process called reductionism -- you get the most fundamental block of reality which is unchanging and indivisible.

Or, have we learned that (being human), and looking at our past history of trying to establish colonies, can we justify the effort of trying to establish a colony anywhere in space? — Don Wade

First of all, I don't think you can establish a colony on Mars. Colony is a political and economic move done by a government under one nation. If Mars could be "colonized", all nations should have an equal shot at it. So the entire Earth colonizing Mars.

When you say "our past history", did you have a specific country in mind?

I ask: Under which circumstance could objective reality remain inaccessible to us?
What fundamental properties (or flaws) must we accuse of our cognitive faculties to justify this assumption? — Mersi

The fundamental property that our cognitive faculties have is that we cannot look at an object, for example, without the meaning attached to it. We can't have a blank slate and perception at the same time. It's one or the other. We can't look at a chair without any understanding, whatsoever, what that object is, and even that it is an object.