What's your alignment in real life?

[Korgoth]

Now that's funny!

Please note that I don't think the state actually promotes virtue, only that I think that is what it would do if it were worth a ****.

 

[kyloss]

I chose Neutral Good, because that is what I like to think I am, and according to all the alignement tests I am. But Any test that test any other than that personalty wise comes up more chaotic or random. I would have to admit to being to lazy as far as good goes to be realy good so either a lazy good or neutral with good tendancies, and as far as law chaos goes I am definatly neutral but with tendancies towards randomness(not chaos) probably to to add and just a generaly strange personality (tendancy to burst into song or dance for a few seconds for no reason etc especialy when alone or around total strangers to self concious to doit around people I know).
As for what God it would definalty be Toth -Magic knowledge science writing - all that and a bag of chips , but morelikly to be archivest instead of cleric. more int than wis or maybe favored soul .

As for the state it is there to ensure that your right to swing your arm stops where my nose starts. And thats as far as I am getting into that.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Lawful Evil, the ultimate villain alignment, with rather annoying chaotic good streaks from time to time. Also, chaotic people tend to irritate me, but the thoughts I have of what I'd like to do to them are far too impure for me to call myself Lawful Neutral.

Bonus question: Hypothetical: You are in a D&D settting. What published deity do you choose to worship? If you become a Cleric, what are your two domains?

I choose agnosticism! Of course, if I lived in a world where there was no doubt the gods existed and they exerted their power into the mortal realm daily, I'd just pay lip service to whichever diety it was most helpful to follow at any particular moment.

 

[Mallus]

Please note that I don't think the state actually promotes virtue, only that I think that is what it would do if it were worth a ****.

No, I got what you meant... that was the funny part.

Or the scary part. My belief is that any state that attempts to promote virtue is by definition terrifying.

Because it would eventually round up all the poets, and really, what's life worth in a state without Dylan? (Bob or Thomas, take your pick...)

 

[Aaron L]

It's heartening to see that Good is prevailing this time... true Good. At other times this pool was done, so many people were declaring themselves Evil that it became disturbing.


Good and Good alone is the morality that I follow. Laws that do no promote Good are inconsequential laws. Laws that promote Evil are to be actively fought against. I have no problem with authority in and of itself, only authority that doesn't work to promote the well being of as many people as possible. I am Neutral Good.

 

[Korgoth]

No, I got what you meant... that was the funny part.

Or the scary part. My belief is that any state that attempts to promote virtue is by definition terrifying.

Because it would eventually round up all the poets, and really, what's life worth in a state without Dylan? (Bob or Thomas, take your pick...)

OK. Well, I'll explain myself very, very briefly because I don't want to violate the "no politics" policy... but this is not really politics, really more like "theory".

My prime example of the state promoting/enforcing virtue, which lots of states (including mine) actually do: enforced almsgiving, otherwise known as taxing you and then spending some of it for giving housing, food and medical care to poor people (i.e. social welfare). This is actually the state enforcing virtue... it is violently confiscating your property and paying alms with it. Don't think it's violent? Oh, but it is. If you don't pay your taxes, you will be forcibly detained... the police will come and arrest you for "tax evasion". If you don't go with those police, they will use violence on you. If you "defend yourself", you will be subject to violence so obvious you won't be able to mistake it for something else. But, even though I'm a dyed-in-the-wool believer in taxation for social welfare, it is nonetheless very clearly a case of the state violently appropriating private wealth for almsgiving, i.e. material aid to the poor. If you try to avoid giving your hard-earned wealth to the poor in this way you will be jailed. If you try to avoid being jailed, you will be beaten. If you try to avoid being beaten, you will probably be gravely injured or killed. Nevertheless, we don't technically say that the state is "robbing" you, though one might say that if angry, because robbery is really the unlawful appropriation of goods by violence, whereas this is a violent but lawful appropriation. And because of this organized violent appropriation, some guy who doesn't have a nickel over a can of beans gets to feed his family tonight using food stamps, and they get to have a roof over their heads. Lawful Good in action, baby.

 

[Satori]

Alright, some of you asked for it...

((I suppose no one picked up on how ridiculously Lawful it was for me to go off on a preachy diatribe, did they?))

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Let's see, what alignment am I anyway? I'll have to review since I don't really use alignment in my games...

In reviewing the descriptions of the nine alignments, I having trouble deciding between Neutral and Chaotic Neutral. I think I'll have to choose Chaotic Neutral since I do have some convictions and biases, and I really don't like evil. I hate it when someone tries to tell me to do something for no good reason, and I am always questioning "tradition."

OK, I'm CN.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I am true neutral. I'm a nice guy, but don't go out of my way to help others often enough to qualify as neutral good.

Hypothetical: I wouldn't be a cleric, but I'd secretly worship the Lady of Pain...and no, I'm not into that kind of worship!

 

[Celebrim]

No, I got what you meant... that was the funny part.

Or the scary part. My belief is that any state that attempts to promote virtue is by definition terrifying.

Because it would eventually round up all the poets, and really, what's life worth in a state without Dylan? (Bob or Thomas, take your pick...)

I feel compelled note that the statement of purpose of the State where the plurality of us dwell is in part, "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...". This is a pretty explicit statement that the state exists to promote virtue, although not necessarily virtue in its members directly as Korgoth seems to mean. Yet still, it's not like Korgoth is far off the mainstream. IMO, only someone from the 18th century could have written a statement which is so Classical and yet Libertarian in values. I shudder to think what we'd write now that we are in the main trained and steeped in neither, but that's for a different forum.

Like Korgoth, I'm a classicist when it comes to my definition of a state, but the purpose of the state which I support begins where Korgoth's abbreviated Classical definition ends. Classically, a state exists to 'Promote virtue, and discourage vice.' I tend to think that promoting virtue is the job of an individual, precisely because anyone that attempts to promote virtue using the tools of a state - which by definition are violent since a state is by definition that entity which monopolizes the use of violence in a society - tends to do more harm than good. Only people which are insane or fanatically lawful really want someone standing over them with a club going, "Eat your vegetables."

But the second clause of the classical definition of purpose, I'm very much for. I do believe that nations exist in order to "bear the sword" so as to be a "terror to evil doers". I don't believe that a nation that tolerates evil or refrains from its responcibility to bear the sword out of a misguided sinse of mercy is not destined to last that long. Institutionalized Virtue is frightening because it is something that is the province of the individual. But equally frightening is institutionalized Mercy, because Mercy does not belong in the hands of the state any more than Justice belongs in the hands of the individual.