Libertarians and Communists share the same fatal flaw [Archive]

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 05:35 AM

I was a Libertarian activist for many years of my life. I was dedicated, I put many, many hours at county fairs, getting petitions signed for anti-tax initiatives, and signing up voters, as well as putting up signs, etc.

It has only been in the past few months I have come to the realization that Libertarianism is a pipe dream, because it shares the same fatal flaw as communism. It relies on the innate goodness of man, and the supposed reactions of man to situations.

I no longer believe man will act in his best economic interest. If that were the case, then nobody would be obese, or smoke, or drink. The side effects on health are too catastrophic. Man would not gamble, because the odds were against him. Man also is not going to save his money for a rainy day. You stop forcing him to put money away for retirement or injury, and when the day inevitably comes, he will be in a shelter or under some kind of help program for the rest of his life, or on the street. I'd guess maybe 10% of the world actually thinks about and prepares for their future. The rest leave it up to the experts, or don't even give it second thought.

There is only one thing you can rely on man to do, and that is attempt to fulfill his own narcissistic desires. That is it.

I still come here, because this board has great insights on economics and power, and is at least awake to the tremendous evil facing the world right now. But i have to say, I have recently gave up on the idea of a Libertarian utopia, or freedom, or anything else in that vein. I do not believe our political system is any better than any other political system in the world, I do not believe a paper making a game of government with 3's and 5's and 7's and 435's is going to change how people actually treat each other. I love the Bill of rights, but I also recognize there is a portion of the United States that has never even really fallen under its protection.

I will also say, Although I like Peter Schiff, and Ron Paul and Rand Paul, that even if they were to get elected, it would be too little, too late. Downfall of America is inevitable, and I do believe that we will have to go through some serious fascism/socialism/communism/corporatism/totalitarianism/statism before we meet a revolution worthy of the name revolution. Unfortunately, I will be too old by then to physically participate, but I would still do my best to help, because of that little shred of worthless and misguided hope in me that man can be civilized and live in a free society.

I know, for a fact, there will NEVER be a Libertartian utopia. There will never be anything but the corruption of utopian images, because man is innately corrupt.

Communism's flaw was that it thought that people were good, and would work together for the sake of nation and brotherhood. That mutual respect was all that was needed to make men work for a better world. It was a great, optimistic idea, but fatally flawed as well. Men are inherently selfish, ergo evil. The vast majority will always make a moral judgment call that benefits them. They think of themselves first, then their family and friends, then perhaps country, or church, or other confessional loyalty. Communists believed a shorter work week would leave men more time to participate and educate themselves about politics. For the most part, it was spent drinking and looking for love and raising and enjoying their families. But seriously, who can actually say with a straight face that Russia would have been better off under the Tsar? I believe the Bolshevik revolution was a good thing, if not for the same reason the French Revolution was good... because it made those in power understand, if only for a short time, that they only rule through paper and tradition.

Evil men, in a Libertarian society, would be kids in a Candy store. They would abuse every freedom, and use their money every chance they had to keep all competition down. I mean does anyone actually believe we would be better off with the Rockefellers still maintaining their massive monopoly?

Well, I don't care to get involved in defending my ideas. I am putting them out there, so yes, if any of you flame warriors want to try and pin me down, and call me a traitor to the cause, here it is, loud and clear. Don't assume I am with you, just know I am against them.

AbolishTheGovt

08-17-2009, 05:44 AM

The great thing about the unhampered free market, is that it continually punishes man's stupidity and wastefulness, while rewarding his innovativeness and efficiency. The overall natural tendency of human society is always toward liberty. Statism's days are numbered.

Kludge

08-17-2009, 06:18 AM

I have both a principled reason and "pragmatic" reason I find anything except a libertarian society to be unacceptable, but I think they are different from your own.

The only principle I've ever been able to stick with is pacifism. It isn't out of any supernatural morality I've found, but rational self-interest. I have no desire to piss my equals off, because angry people do stupid things. Sure, we're probably always going to have insane or stupidly materialistic "evil" men, but I'd rather focus on avoiding those conflicts rather than trying to fight government wars on drugs, crime, and terror.

As far as my "pragmatic" reasoning... I'm very lazy and don't require many luxuries to be happy. I don't use the vast majority of services government offers. Frankly, much of what government offers is offensively unnecessary. Cultural grants, USPS, public transportation, and national parks/museums come to mind. I'd like to work the least amount of time possible, exerting the least amount of effort possible to live comfortably, which certainly doesn't include any prints of government-subsidized artwork in my living room. I'd like to retire early and eventually become self-sufficient, likely outside of the US (or, at least, off their records away from "untrusted" civilization). I don't give a damn about the Common Good or increasing statistics like the GDP per capita or "standard of living".

As far as claiming people corrupt, I think that's more of people being delusional, often inconsistent, and perhaps dishonest in their stated belief of morality.

acptulsa

08-17-2009, 06:19 AM

Never is a hell of a long time. In 1000 A.D. they thought they'd never stop burning witches.

Pod

08-17-2009, 06:20 AM

Wait, I thought you said you weren`t a Commie??

I`ll eat my boots if you were ever a Libertarian activist. You know jack shit about it.

Conza88

08-17-2009, 06:23 AM

I was a Libertarian activist for many years of my life. I was dedicated, I put many, many hours at county fairs, getting petitions signed for anti-tax initiatives, and signing up voters, as well as putting up signs, etc.

Good for you. Hopefully you converted a lot of folks. It's hard competing against state indoctrination / education and propaganda.

It has only been in the past few months I have come to the realization that Libertarianism is a pipe dream, because it shares the same fatal flaw as communism. It relies on the innate goodness of man, and the supposed reactions of man to situations.

That's a shame, you campaigned for something you didn't fully understand. Otherwise you'd realise Libertarianism has nothing to do with communism, and that Libertarianism requires folks to follow their self interest.

You probably never made it to anarcho-capitalism though, the logical conclusion of Libertarianism... so you have failed to realise that people, the individuals in power, also follow their self interest whilst in power. And maintaining it, increasing it, looting more whilst they can is their goal. This anti-social institution needs to be abolished.

I no longer believe man will act in his best economic interest. If that were the case, then nobody would be obese, or smoke, or drink. The side effects on health are too catastrophic. Man would not gamble, because the odds were against him. Man also is not going to save his money for a rainy day. You stop forcing him to put money away for retirement or injury, and when the day inevitably comes, he will be in a shelter or under some kind of help program for the rest of his life, or on the street. I'd guess maybe 10% of the world actually thinks about and prepares for their future. The rest leave it up to the experts, or don't even give it second thought.

Regarding human action, he will act upon what he values highest. It is always rational. He will choose ends, and use means to achieve them. In hindsight, he can say he was wrong, or it didn't work. But it is not for you to use your personal subjectivity when it comes to values, and criticise his for being "irrational".

What happens when you SUBSIDIZE SOMETHING!? You get more of it. Why do people care less about health? Because they don't have to pay the full costs. Socialized healthcare.. it is subsidized!

Why don't people invest for a rainy day? Inflation! Why all this easy credit? Government intervention in the market! (The federal reserve, and fractional reserve banking!) It creates the BOOM! Then comes the myth of continual prosperity... why save, it's all good!

Again, you are wrong in EVERY single instance.

There is only one thing you can rely on man to do, and that is attempt to fulfill his own narcissistic desires. That is it.

Nope. What you can rely on is individuals pursuing their self interest. And if the state exists, the most evil will generally gravitate towards that. And use this monolithic leviathan to achieve it.

I still come here, because this board has great insights on economics and power, and is at least awake to the tremendous evil facing the world right now. But i have to say, I have recently gave up on the idea of a Libertarian utopia, or freedom, or anything else in that vein. I do not believe our political system is any better than any other political system in the world, I do not believe a paper making a game of government with 3's and 5's and 7's and 435's is going to change how people actually treat each other. I love the Bill of rights, but I also recognize there is a portion of the United States that has never even really fallen under its protection.

You are obviously completely ignorant of Austrian Economics. You never fully understand why you believe in Libertarianism in the first place. The fallacies you now believe are all wrong and idiotic. It is a shame to see you capitulate like a weak minded socialist.

If your beliefs were grounded in logic to start with, then you wouldn't be having this problem.

I will also say, Although I like Peter Schiff, and Ron Paul and Rand Paul, that even if they were to get elected, it would be too little, too late. Downfall of America is inevitable, and I do believe that we will have to go through some serious fascism/socialism/communism/corporatism/totalitarianism/statism before we meet a revolution worthy of the name revolution. Unfortunately, I will be too old by then to physically participate, but I would still do my best to help, because of that little shred of worthless and misguided hope in me that man can be civilized and live in a free society.

The mainstream consensus was that the Soviet Union would rule for a 1,000 years. It collapsed the same year. Socialism and all the variants of every bad idea ever considered will inevitably fail. The human spirit of freedom, and free will - will never be crushed. We have seen this time and time again.

I know, for a fact, there will NEVER be a Libertartian utopia. There will never be anything but the corruption of utopian images, because man is innately corrupt.

You really need to read some books by Austrian Economists. You know, read Human Action by Mises or Man, Economy and State... understand the Action axiom etc. There is nothing utopian about it. The market works.

Communism's flaw was that it thought that people were good, and would work together for the sake of nation and brotherhood. That mutual respect was all that was needed to make men work for a better world. It was a great, optimistic idea, but fatally flawed as well. Men are inherently selfish, ergo evil.

No, it was a terrible idea. Selfish, is not evil. The division of labor is required for civilization, as well as property rights.

"Let us proceed, then, to a critique of the egalitarian ideal itself—should equality be granted its current status as an unquestioned ethical ideal? In the first place, we must challenge the very idea of a radical separation between something that is “true in theory” but “not valid in practice.”

If a theory is correct, then it does work in practice; if it does not work in practice, then it is a bad theory. The common separation between theory and practice is an artificial and fallacious one. But this is true in ethics as well as anything else. If an ethical ideal is inherently “impractical,” that is, if it cannot work in practice, then it is a poor ideal and should be discarded forthwith.

To put it more precisely, if an ethical goal violates the nature of man and/or the universe and, therefore, cannot work in practice, then it is a bad ideal and should be dismissed as a goal. If the goal itself violates the nature of man, then it is also a poor idea to work in the direction of that goal." - Egalitarianism a Revolt Against Nature by Murray N. Rothbard

The vast majority will always make a moral judgment call that benefits them. They think of themselves first, then their family and friends, then perhaps country, or church, or other confessional loyalty. Communists believed a shorter work week would leave men more time to participate and educate themselves about politics. For the most part, it was spent drinking and looking for love and raising and enjoying their families. But seriously, who can actually say with a straight face that Russia would have been better off under the Tsar? I believe the Bolshevik revolution was a good thing, if not for the same reason the French Revolution was good... because it made those in power understand, if only for a short time, that they only rule through paper and tradition.

No, they rule through ideology. The state cannot exist without it. For you I recommend Ettiene De Le Boettie (http://mises.org/rothbard/boetie.asp).

Evil men, in a Libertarian society, would be kids in a Candy store. They would abuse every freedom, and use their money every chance they had to keep all competition down. I mean does anyone actually believe we would be better off with the Rockefellers still maintaining their massive monopoly?

No, evil men in society would be those who break the non aggression axiom and violate property rights. And how exactly would the Rockefellers maintain their monopoly? The state wouldn't exist. They'd have no federal reserve, no printing press, etc etc.

Well, I don't care to get involved in defending my ideas. I am putting them out there, so yes, if any of you flame warriors want to try and pin me down, and call me a traitor to the cause, here it is, loud and clear. Don't assume I am with you, just know I am against them.

Ahhahaha... :rolleyes:

You wouldn't be able to defend your bs capitulation even if you tried. Lies are easy to refute. I stand side by side the truth. You did nothing but erect strawmen. Liberty is still standing, you didn't even land a blow.

jm1776

08-17-2009, 06:28 AM

NewEnd, it sounds like you have given much. Time for a hiatus.

My unsolicited advice is to indulge yourself in some revitalizing self interest. If that pursuit proves destructive for you and those around you then your conclusions are validated. If not, then someone will always be here.

Pod

08-17-2009, 06:33 AM

..., and that Libertarianism requires folks to follow their self interest.

Actually thats not true. Libertarianism only requires folks to understand initiation of violence can never be legitimate. Folks are free to defile, mutilate and suicide themselves all they want.

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 06:34 AM

I have the worlds smallest political quiz poster in my closet somewhere. I personally talked to probably over 800 of the dot-stickers you see on the poster in one week. I did the same the next year. I also still have most of the party's papers, names, records etc, as I was one of the last members in the local party after Sept 11 and the Iraq war, which fractures, at least where I lived the party enough to end it. If you want me to prove it, name the word you want written on the paper, and I'll take a picture of it and show you... although the sticker's glue has deteriorated, and a lot of them are falling off, so I don't like to unroll it anymore.

I am not ashamed of my activism in any way. Just a little sad that overall I believed in the goodness/predictability or even my own knowledge of the desires of mankind.

And I have never been a pacifist. Supporting the 2nd amendment pretty much precludes any real pacifist claims.

Otherwise you'd realise Libertarianism has nothing to do with communism, and that Libertarianism requires folks to follow their self interest.

You misunderstood what I wrote. I didn't say Libertarianism had anything to do with communism. Just that they suffer the same flaw, they trust humans to do whatever their theories believe they will do, but humans are very chaotic creatures.

Pod

08-17-2009, 06:39 AM

:rolleyes:

Six Myths About Libertarianism

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard12.html

....

Myth #5 Libertarians are utopians who believe that all people are good, and that therefore State control is not necessary. Conservatives tend to add that since human nature is either partially or wholly evil, strong State regulation is therefore necessary for society.

This is a very common belief about libertarians, yet it is difficult to know the source of this misconception. Rousseau, the locus classicus of the idea that man is good but is corrupted by his institutions, was scarcely a libertarian. Apart from the romantic writings of a few anarcho-communists, whom I would not consider libertarians in any case, I know of no libertarian or classical liberal writers who have held this view. On the contrary, most libertarian writers hold that man is a mixture of good and evil and therefore that it is important for social institutions to encourage the good and discourage the bad. The State is the only social institution which is able to extract its income and wealth by coercion; all others must obtain revenue either by selling a product or service to customers or by receiving voluntary gifts. And the State is the only institution which can use the revenue from this organized theft to presume to control and regulate people's lives and property. Hence, the institution of the State establishes a socially legitimatized and sanctified channel for bad people to do bad things, to commit regularized theft and to wield dictatorial power. Statism therefore encourages the bad, or at least the criminal elements of human nature. As Frank H. Knight trenchantly put it: "The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender- hearted person would get the job of whipping master in a slave plantation."10 A free society, by not establishing such a legitimated channel for theft and tyranny, discourages the criminal tendencies of human nature and encourages the peaceful and the voluntary. Liberty and the free market discourage aggression and compulsion, and encourage the harmony and mutual benefit of voluntary interpersonal exchanges, economic, social, and cultural.

Since a system of liberty would encourage the voluntary and discourage the criminal, and would remove the only legitimated channel for crime and aggression, we could expect that a free society would indeed suffer less from violent crime and aggression than we do now, though there is no warrant for assuming that they would disappear completely. That is not utopianism, but a common-sense implication of the change in what is considered socially legitimate, and in the reward-and-penalty structure in society.

We can approach our thesis from another angle. If all men were good and none had criminal tendencies, then there would indeed be no need for a State as conservatives concede. But if on the other hand all men were evil, then the case for the State is just as shaky, since why should anyone assume that those men who form the government and obtain all the guns and the power to coerce others, should be magically exempt from the badness of all the other persons outside the government? Tom Paine, a classical libertarian often considered to be naively optimistic about human nature, rebutted the conservative evil-human-nature argument for a strong State as follows: "If all human nature be corrupt, it is needless to strengthen the corruption by establishing a succession of kings, who be they ever so base, are still to be obeyed...." Paine added that "No man since the fall hath ever been equal to the trust of being given power over all."11 And as the libertarian F.A. Harper once wrote:

Still using the same principle that political rulership should be employed to the extent of the evil in man, we would then have a society in which complete political rulership of all the affairs of everybody would be called for.... One man would rule all. But who would serve as the dictator? However he were to be selected and affixed to the political throne, he would surely be a totally evil person, since all men are evil. And this society would then be ruled by a totally evil dictator possessed of total political power. And how, in the name of logic, could anything short of total evil be its consequence? How could it be better than having no political rulership at all in that society?12

Finally, since, as we have seen, men are actually a mixture of good and evil, a regime of liberty serves to encourage the good and discourage the bad, at least in the sense that the voluntary and mutually beneficial are good and the criminal is bad. In no theory of human nature, then, whether it be goodness, badness, or a mixture of the two, can statism be justified. In the course of denying the notion that he is a conservative, the classical liberal F.A. Hayek pointed out: "The main merit of individualism [which Adam Smith and his contemporaries advocated] is that it is a system under which bad men can do least harm. It is a social system which does not depend for its functioning on our finding good men for running it, or on all men becoming better than they now are, but which makes use of men in all their given variety and complexity...."13

It is important to note what differentiates libertarians from utopians in the pejorative sense. Libertarianism does not set out to remould human nature. One of socialism’s major goals is to create, which in practice means by totalitarian methods, a New Socialist Man, an individual whose major goal will be to work diligently and altruistically for the collective. Libertarianism is a political philosophy which says: Given any existent human nature, liberty is the only moral and the most effective political system. Obviously, libertarianism – as well as any other social system – will work better the more individuals are peaceful and the less they are criminal or aggressive. And libertarians, along with most other people, would like to attain a world where more individuals are "good" and fewer are criminals. But this is not the doctrine of libertarianism per se, which says that whatever the mix of man's nature may be at any given time, liberty is best.

Myth #6 Libertarians believe that every person knows his own interests best. Just as the preceding charge holds that libertarians believe all men to be perfectly good, so this myth charges them with believing that everyone is perfectly wise. Yet, it is then maintained, this is not true of many people, and therefore the State must intervene.

But the libertarian no more assumes perfect wisdom than he postulates perfect goodness. There is a certain common sense in holding that most men are better apprised of their own needs and goals then is anyone else. But there is no assumption that everyone always knows his own interest best. Libertarianism rather asserts that everyone should have the right to pursue his own interest as he deems best. What is being asserted is the right to act with one's own person and property, and not the necessary wisdom of such action.

It is also true, however, that the free market – in contrast to government – has built-in mechanisms to enable people to turn freely to experts who can give sound advice on how to pursue one’s interests best. As we have seen earlier, free individuals are not hermetically sealed from one another. For on the free market, any individual, if in doubt about what his own true interests may be, is free to hire or consult experts to give him advice based on their possibly superior knowledge. The individual may hire such experts and, on the free market, can continuously test their soundness and helpfulness. Individuals on the market, therefore, tend to patronize those experts whose advice will prove most successful. Good doctors, lawyers, or architects will reap rewards on the free market, while poor ones will tend to fare badly. But when government intervenes, the government expert acquires his revenue by compulsory levy upon the taxpayers. There is no market test of his success in advising people of their own true interests. He only need have ability in acquiring the political support of the State’s machinery of coercion.

Thus, the privately hired expert will tend to flourish in proportion to his ability, whereas the government expert will flourish in proportion to his success in currying political favor. Moreover, the government expert will be no more virtuous than the private one; his only superiority will be in gaining the favor of those who wield political force. But a crucial difference between the two is that the privately hired expert has every pecuniary incentive to care about his clients or patients, and to do his best by them. But the government expert has no such incentive; he obtains his revenue in any case. Hence, the individual consumer will tend to fare better on the free market.

I hope that this essay has contributed to clearing away the rubble of myth and misconception about libertarianism. Conservatives and everyone else should politely be put on notice that libertarians do not believe that everyone is good, nor that everyone is an all-wise expert on his own interest, nor that every individual is an isolated and hermetically sealed atom. Libertarians are not necessarily libertines or hedonists, nor are they necessarily atheists; and libertarians emphatically do believe in moral principles. Let each of us now proceed to an examination of libertarianism as it really is, unencumbered by myth or legend. Let us look at liberty plain, without fear or favor. I am confident that, were this to he done, libertarianism would enjoy an impressive rise in the number of its followers.

evilfunnystuff

08-17-2009, 06:47 AM

fail

libertarianism acknowledges the world would not be a utopia whereas communism promises utopia

if your not just trollin i suggest you do some more reading on the subject

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 06:49 AM

On the contrary, most libertarian writers hold that man is a mixture of good and evil and therefore that it is important for social institutions to encourage the good and discourage the bad.

How simple... now exactly what is good, and what is bad? The face/fist thing, OK fine, I agree. But if a man owns a mountain, should he be allowed to crumble it to dust to get gold out of it?

NYgs23

08-17-2009, 06:49 AM

NYgs23

08-17-2009, 06:52 AM

In 1000 A.D. they thought they'd never stop burning witches.

This is beside the point, but the first burning of heretics occurred in 1022 in Orleans and witch burnings didn't start till much later. The Middle Ages grew more and more statist and authoritarian as time went on, until you had the absolute monarchs of the Renaissance period, when witch burnings were at their height.

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 06:56 AM

The idea that a free and voluntary society relies on any particular assumptions about man's goodness is fallacious. Any quality that applies humans generally also applies to human who rule the State. So, indeed, if man is innately good, you don't need the State. On the other hand, if he's innately evil, the statist rulers will be innately evil, and even more dangerous than the average man.

But even in a Libertarian society, the evil will rise to the top. I just don't buy in any way that good always triumphs. I have been in college... and God have I been shocked by how many people cheat! It is a pandemic, and this is a major University.

Even if the society were wholesale Libertarian, you will quickly get the first guy to offer an easy solution in a hard time. And because people are in pain, they will take it. It erodes so quickly, it is indeed a pipe dream. It would literally take a revolution every 10 years for a Libertarian society to function. That is the reality I am talking about. People throw away their freedom all the time. They simply don't love it like Libertarians do. They don't even understand it. Most of the time, they don't even want it. They want a house, car wife kids, a lazy boy and a beer. How those things come to them, they really don't care, as long as they have them. In fact, as long as they have them, they most of the time certainly don't care if somebody else doesn't.

acptulsa

08-17-2009, 07:00 AM

Well, I don't know if I agree with the thread title or not. What exactly is liebrtarianism, anyway? Have something to do with Joe Lieberman? If so, I wholeheartedly agree that it's a flawed and doomed philosophy.

If that's a typo, someone's coming out of left field. Libertarianism is among the few if not the only political philosophy that genuinely embraces diversity of every kind.

Trimbeaux

08-17-2009, 07:29 AM

Yikes

Why I can't take your argument seriously.

The Russian Revolution was a good thing? Are you kidding me?

Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatx.htm

Deaths:
# Russian Civil War (1917-22): 9, 000, 000

* Eckhardt: 500,000 civ. + 300,000 mil. = 800,000
* Readers Companion to Military History, Cowley and Parker, eds. (1996) [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/mil/html/mh_045400_russiancivil.htm]:
o Combat deaths: 825,000
o Ancillary deaths: 2,000,000
o TOTAL: 2,825,000
* Davies, Norman (Europe A History, 1998)
o Civil War and Volga Famine (1918-22): 3,000,000 to 5,000,000
* Brzezinski, Z:
o 6 to 8 million people died under Lenin from war, famine etc.
* Mastering Twentieth Century Russian History by Norman Lowe (2002)
o TOTAL: 7,000,000 to 10,000,000
o Red Army
+ Battle: 632,000
+ Disease: 581,000
o Whites: 1,290,000 battle + disease
o White Terror: "tens of thousands"
o Red Terror
+ Executed: 50-200,000
+ Died in prison or killed in revolts: 400,000
o Typhoid + typhus
+ 1919: 890,000
+ 1920: >1M
* Urlanis:
o Military deaths: 800,000
+ Battle deaths, all sides: 300,000
+ Dead of wounds: 50,000
+ Disease: 450,000
o Civilians: 8,000,000
o TOTAL: 8,800,000
* Dyadkin, I.G. (cited in Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993)
o 9 million unnatural deaths from terror, famine and disease, 1918-23
* Richard Pipes, A concise history of the Russian Revolution (1995): 9 million deaths, 1917-1922
o Famine: 5M
o Combat: 2M
+ Reds: 1M
+ Whites: 127,000
o Epidemics: 2M
o not incl.
+ Emigration: 2M
+ Birth deficit: 14M
* Rummel:
o Civil War (1917-22)
+ War: 1,410,000 (includes 500,000 civilian)
+ Famine: 5,000,000 (50% democidal)
+ Other democide: 784,000
+ Epidemics: 2,300,000
+ Total: 9,494,000
o Lenin's Regime (1917-24)
+ Rummel blames Lenin for a lifetime total of 4,017,000 democides.
* Figes, Orlando (A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution, 1997)
o 10 million deaths from war, terror, famine and disease.
+ Including...
# Famine (1921-22): 5 million
# Killed in fighting, both military and civilian: 1M
# Jews killed in pogroms: 150,000
+ Not including...
# Demographic effects of a hugely reduced birth-rate: 10M
# Emmigration: 2M
* McEvedy, Colin (Atlas of World Population History, 1978)
o War deaths: 2M
o Other excess deaths: 14M
o Reduced births: 10M
o Emmigration: 2M
* MEDIAN: Of these ten estimates that claim to be complete, the median is 8.8M-9.0M.
* PARTIALS:
o Small & Singer (battle deaths, 1917-21)
+ Russian Civil War (Dec.1917-Oct.1920)
# Russians: 500,000
# Allied Intervention:
* Japan: 1,500
* UK: 350
* USA: 275
* France: 50
* Finland: 50
+ Russian Nationalities War (Dec.1917-Mar.1921)
# USSR: 50,000
o Bruce Lincoln, Red Victory: a History of the Russian Civil War 1918-1921
+ Death sentences by the Cheka: ca. 100,000
+ Pogroms: as many as one in 13 Jews k. out of 1.5M in Ukraine [i.e. ca. 115,000] (citing Heifetz)
o Nevins, citing Heifetz and the Red Cross: 120,000 Jews killed in 1919 pogroms [http://www.west.net/~jazz/felshtin/redcross.html]
o Richard Overy, Russia's War (1997): Cheka responsible for maybe 250,000+ violent deaths.
o Paul Johnson
+ 50,000 death sentences imposed by the Cheka by 12/20
+ 100,000 Jews killed in 1919
o Green, Barbara (in Rosenbaum, Is the Holocaust Unique?)
+ 4 to 5 million deaths in the famine of 1921-23
o Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace
+ North Russia: 244 USAns d. incl. 144 k.battle
+ Siberia: 160 USAns KIA + 168 other d.
+ [US Total: 304 KIA + 268 other = 572 d.]
+ Czech Legion: 13,000 dead.

# Soviet Union, Stalin's regime (1924-53): 20 000 000 [make link]

* There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the number who died at Stalin's hands. There's the "Why doesn't anyone realize that communism is the absolutely worst thing ever to hit the human race, without exception, even worse than both world wars, the slave trade and bubonic plague all put together?" school, and there's the "Come on, stop exaggerating. The truth is horrifying enough without you pulling numbers out of thin air" school. The two schools are generally associated with the right and left wings of the political spectrum, and they often accuse each other of being blinded by prejudice, stubbornly refusing to admit the truth, and maybe even having a hidden agenda. Also, both sides claim that recent access to former Soviet archives has proven that their side is right.
* Here are a few illustrative estimates from the Big Numbers school:
o Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993 cites these:
+ Chistyakovoy, V. (Neva, no.10): 20 million killed during the 1930s.
+ Dyadkin, I.G. (Demograficheskaya statistika neyestestvennoy smertnosti v SSSR 1918-1956 ): 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" for the USSR overall, with 34 to 49 million under Stalin.
+ Gold, John.: 50-60 million.
o Davies, Norman (Europe A History, 1998): c. 50 million killed 1924-53, excluding WW2 war losses. This would divide (more or less) into 33M pre-war and 17M after 1939.
o Rummel, 1990: 61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:
+ 1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)
+ 1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)
+ 1939-45: 18,157,000
+ 1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)
+ TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine
o William Cockerham, Health and Social Change in Russia and Eastern Europe: 50M+
o Wallechinsky: 13M (1930-32) + 7M (1934-38)
+ Cited by Wallechinsky:
# Medvedev, Roy (Let History Judge): 40 million.
# Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: 60 million.
o MEDIAN: 51 million for the entire Stalin Era; 20M during the 1930s.
* And from the Lower Numbers school:
o Nove, Alec ("Victims of Stalinism: How Many?" in J. Arch Getty (ed.) Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, 1993): 9,500,000 "surplus deaths" during the 1930s.
o Cited in Nove:
+ Maksudov, S. (Poteri naseleniya SSSR, 1989): 9.8 million abnormal deaths between 1926 and 1937.
+ Tsaplin, V.V. ("Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody" 1989): 6,600,000 deaths (hunger, camps and prisons) between the 1926 and 1937 censuses.
+ Dugin, A. ("Stalinizm: legendy i fakty" 1989): 642,980 counterrevolutionaries shot 1921-53.
+ Muskovsky Novosti (4 March 1990): 786,098 state prisoners shot, 1931-53.
o Gordon, A. (What Happened in That Time?, 1989, cited in Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993): 8-9 million during the 1930s.
o Ponton, G. (The Soviet Era, 1994): cites an 1990 article by Milne, et al., that excess deaths 1926-39 were likely 3.5 million and at most 8 million.
o MEDIAN: 8.5 Million during the 1930s.
* As you can see, there's no easy compromise between the two schools. The Big Numbers are so high that picking the midpoint between the two schools would still give us a Big Number. It may appear to be a rather pointless argument -- whether it's fifteen or fifty million, it's still a huge number of killings -- but keep in mind that the population of the Soviet Union was 164 million in 1937, so the upper estimates accuse Stalin of killing nearly 1 out of every 3 of his people, an extremely Polpotian level of savagery. The lower numbers, on the other hand, leave Stalin with plenty of people still alive to fight off the German invasion.
* [Letter]
* Although it's too early to be taking sides with absolute certainty, a consensus seems to be forming around a death toll of 20 million. This would adequately account for all documented nastiness without straining credulity:
o In The Great Terror (1969), Robert Conquest suggested that the overall death toll was 20 million at minimum -- and very likely 50% higher, or 30 million. This would divide roughly as follows: 7M in 1930-36; 3M in 1937-38; 10M in 1939-53. By the time he wrote The Great Terror: A Re-assessment (1992), Conquest was much more confident that 20 million was the likeliest death toll.
o Britannica, "Stalinism": 20M died in camps, of famine, executions, etc., citing Medvedev
o Brzezinski: 20-25 million, dividing roughly as follows: 7M destroying the peasantry; 12M in labor camps; 1M excuted during and after WW2.
o Daniel Chirot:
+ "Lowest credible" estimate: 20M
+ "Highest": 40M
+ Citing:
# Conquest: 20M
# Antonov-Ovseyenko: 30M
# Medvedev: 40M
o Courtois, Stephane, Black Book of Communism (Le Livre Noir du Communism): 20M for the whole history of Soviet Union, 1917-91.
+ Essay by Nicolas Werth: 15M
+ [Ironic observation: The Black Book of Communism seems to vote for Hitler as the answer to the question of who's worse, Hitler (25M) or Stalin (20M).]
o John Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen (2001): 20M, incl.
+ Kulaks: 7M
+ Gulag: 12M
+ Purge: 1.2M (minus 50,000 survivors)
o Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin: directly responsible for 20 million deaths.
o Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europes Ghosts After Communism (1995): upwards of 25M
o Time Magazine (13 April 1998): 15-20 million.
* AVERAGE: Of the 17 estimates of the total number of victims of Stalin, the median is 30 million.
* Individual Gulags etc.
o Kolyma
o Kuropaty
o Vorkuta
o Bykivnia
* Famine, 1926-38
o Richard Overy, Russia's War (1997): 4.2M in Ukraine + 1.7M in Kazakhstan
o Green, Barbara ("Stalinist Terror and the Question of Genocide: the Great Famine" in Rosenbaum, Is the Holocaust Unique?) cites these sources for the number who died in the famine:
+ Nove: 3.1-3.2M in Ukraine, 1933
+ Maksudov: 4.4M in Ukraine, 1927-38
+ Mace: 5-7M in Ukraine
+ Osokin: 3.35M in USSR, 1933
+ Wheatcraft: 4-5M in USSR, 1932-33
+ Conquest:
# Total, USSR, 1926-37: 11M
# 1932-33: 7M
# Ukraine: 5M

Wow seems like it was worth it :eek:

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 07:36 AM

Yikes

Why I can't take your argument seriously.

The Russian Revolution was a good thing? Are you kidding me?

Stalin =/= Russian revolution, Napoleon =/= french revolution, although both were aftereffects. If you think Russia would have been better off under the tsars, I can't help you with that.

Conza88

08-17-2009, 07:39 AM

Actually thats not true. Libertarianism only requires folks to understand initiation of violence can never be legitimate. Folks are free to defile, mutilate and suicide themselves all they want.

Nah, it is actually true. They value the action of defiling, and mutilating themselves more than not doing so. For what ever reason, the intent I can not comment on, for that would move into psychology, not praxeology (the science of human action)... but they are are actually following their self interest. They may get pleasure from it, they may want to end all the pain and suffering they feel, they may want attention.

All ends, and they are using means in an attempt to attain them. :)

But I guess "requires" is probably the wrong word. It implies an obligation. I see self interest as linked to the human action axiom. If you give someone money, you aren't being selfless. You are being selfish. You value the feeling that comes from Autistic exchange.

Conza88

08-17-2009, 07:50 AM

I
You misunderstood what I wrote. I didn't say Libertarianism had anything to do with communism. Just that they suffer the same flaw, they trust humans to do whatever their theories believe they will do, but humans are very chaotic creatures.

No, I completely understood what you wrote. You just don't actually understand what Libertarianism is. Nor the Austrian School of Economics obviously.

Otherwise you'd realise what you now belief is false. And a strawman.

Conza88

08-17-2009, 07:53 AM

But even in a Libertarian society, the evil will rise to the top. I just don't buy in any way that good always triumphs. I have been in college... and God have I been shocked by how many people cheat! It is a pandemic, and this is a major University.

Even if the society were wholesale Libertarian, you will quickly get the first guy to offer an easy solution in a hard time. And because people are in pain, they will take it. It erodes so quickly, it is indeed a pipe dream. It would literally take a revolution every 10 years for a Libertarian society to function. That is the reality I am talking about. People throw away their freedom all the time. They simply don't love it like Libertarians do. They don't even understand it. Most of the time, they don't even want it. They want a house, car wife kids, a lazy boy and a beer. How those things come to them, they really don't care, as long as they have them. In fact, as long as they have them, they most of the time certainly don't care if somebody else doesn't.

Did you even read my response? Bar the first para? :rolleyes:

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 07:58 AM

Did you even read my response? Bar the first para? :rolleyes:

yes. And I agreed with some of it ,disagreed with other parts. I just didn't want to get into it.

And I never tried to understand "Austrian economics", nor was "Austrian Economics" really a part of the Libertarian platform. I look at economics through my own lens, and life perceptions and thoughts. I don't think money has to be precious metal based. It's better than debt based, yes of course, but gold isn't everything anymore, and money should represent what you can buy with it.

Jason T

08-17-2009, 08:06 AM

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 08:08 AM

That's funny, I was about to say the same thing, except meaner. Libertarians don't handle dissent well, at all. Even over the small things.

Conza88

08-17-2009, 08:20 AM

yes. And I agreed with some of it ,disagreed with other parts. I just didn't want to get into it.

Would love to know what and why. You are going into "it" with everyone else, yet conveniently ignoring my whole post.

And I never tried to understand "Austrian economics", nor was "Austrian Economics" really a part of the Libertarian platform. I look at economics through my own lens, and life perceptions and thoughts. I don't think money has to be precious metal based. It's better than debt based, yes of course, but gold isn't everything anymore, and money should represent what you can buy with it.

This much as obvious. Oh, so you only were advertising and campaigning for a political PARTY? Not a philosophy? You do realise a gold standard is a free market in money? It's just that over thousands of years, gold has generally one out and been chosen by the market... that is open to change.

Furthermore, your objections are all addressed within basic and fundamental books. "What has Government Done to our Money?" By Murray N. Rothbard. Free pdf's, audiobook etc at mises.org.

Maybe you should understand the philosophy you were advocating... and not the one you THOUGHT you were advocating... aye?

Conza88

08-17-2009, 08:27 AM

Here's something I find odd about libertarians:

No matter whether or not if someone is e a moderate or pure libertarian, they feel they have to defend the purist view. For example, Milton Friedman was a moderate libertarian, yet often defended the purist view. I guess this was for a intellectual consistency.

Hahah and what purist view was that? He wasn't anything near "purist". And by "purist" I mean logical and consistent and principled. He was a positivist. A utilitarian. And he made things worse, i.e making the state more efficient.

The problem is, this makes the message more confusing. Ron Paul, for example, would talk about eliminating every program that isn't allowed by the constitution, while also talking about the need of a transition state between the current system and his desired system. The problem is, critics would only rely his desired system to make him sound more extreme.

Maybe confusing for you.

I personally think that in politics, saying less is more. I personally feel that libertarian minded people shouldn't publicly defend the purist view, and only pick out a few libertarian minded goals that would actually be politically realistic. We aren't going to go from 40% government to 3% government overnight, no reason to talk like we are.

You need to read up on strategy for Liberty. Sorry, but no-one is going to the barricades for a 3% reduction in the income tax, adjusted annually for inflation over a 10year period making sure tax brackets are not altered.

The only reason there is a "rEVOLution" is because Ron Paul talks radically. The only reason anyone is essentially here on this forum, is because of it.

If you want the liberty strategy sources, just ask.

That's funny, I was about to say the same thing, except meaner. Libertarians don't handle dissent well, at all. Even over the small things.

Oh I am fine with dissent, we're not all robots here, we're individuals. I just don't handle willful ignorance and fallacies / lies very well.

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 08:28 AM

Would love to know what and why. You are going into "it" with everyone else, yet conveniently ignoring my whole post.

Meh. I guess I just don't like the way you jibe. Telling me I don't understand Libertarianism and all. I simply don't appreciate it. You can either talk to me like somebody that has indeed spent a good portion of his life as a Libertarian activist, perhaps even before you were, and show me some fucking respect, or you can be ignored.

Trimbeaux

08-17-2009, 08:28 AM

Try again, Even if the Romanov's where not the best for Russia, Communist Totalitarian Regime was thousand times worse.

Russia (1900-17): 95 000

* Romanov Regime:
o Rummel blames Tsar Nikolai for 1,070,000 democides; however, his evidence is (by his own admission) not as solid as he would like, so take this number with a grain of salt. Also, 975,000 of these would be included among the dead from the First World War (many -- 400T -- being mistreated POWs, along with 75T Turks/Kurds massacred, 83T German deportees dead, etc.) so we only have some 95,000 democides which occurred independently of WW1. Some 2,000 of these were killed in Jewish pogroms.
o Eckhardt, civil conflicts in 1905-06:
+ Pogrom, Russians vs Jews: 2,000
+ Peasants & Workers vs Govt: 1,000
o James Trager, The People's Chronology (1992): Pogroms in Russia kill some 50,000 Jews by 1909 ("1905")
o OnWar.com: Pogroms in Russia (1903) k. 50,000 Jews
o NOTE: I can't find supporting evidence for these high numbers killed in the pogroms. Most individual events seem to have killed dozens, and very occasionally hundreds.
+ "In the famous pogrom of Kishinev in 1903, there were 49 Jewish deaths out of a Jewish population of about 50,000; in Bialystok in 1906, 70 deaths out of about 48,000 Jews." (http://www.west.net/~jazz/felshtin/redcross.html)
+ "During 1903 and 1904, 45 pogroms occurred, 95 Jews and 13 non-Jews were killed, and 4,200 people were severely injured." (http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000418.html)

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 08:29 AM

Conza88

08-17-2009, 08:37 AM

Meh. I guess I just don't like the way you jibe. Telling me I don't understand Libertarianism and all. I simply don't appreciate it.

The reasons for you "quitting" and turning your back on "Libertarianism", are all due to fallacies. Blatant ones at that. Which someone who actually understood the Austrian School of Economics (see: Rothbard for starters, who was known as MR. LIBERTARIAN) then maybe, just maybe you wouldn't be capitulating like you are now. And considering the last few years you spent in activism as a waste.

You can either talk to me like somebody that has indeed spent a good portion of his life as a Libertarian activist, perhaps even before you were, and show me some fucking respect, or you can be ignored.

Good for you. Hopefully you converted a lot of folks. It's hard competing against state indoctrination / education and propaganda.

My lack of respect atm is due to you refusing to engage in my arguments, which imo - destroy yours, as to why you thought you were wrong.

I'm trying to save you, and you ain't listening. You're ignoring my responses as far as I can tell. How about showing me some respect. :rolleyes:

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 08:43 AM

My lack of respect atm is due to you refusing to engage in my arguments, which imo - destroy yours, as to why you thought you were wrong.

Thanks for the compliment, its all the shit after I could do without.

Kludge

08-17-2009, 08:46 AM

Here's something I find odd about libertarians:

No matter whether or not if someone is e a moderate or pure libertarian, they feel they have to defend the purist view. For example, Milton Friedman was a moderate libertarian, yet often defended the purist view. I guess this was for a intellectual consistency.

The problem is, this makes the message more confusing. Ron Paul, for example, would talk about eliminating every program that isn't allowed by the constitution, while also talking about the need of a transition state between the current system and his desired system. The problem is, critics would only rely his desired system to make him sound more extreme.

I personally think that in politics, saying less is more. I personally feel that libertarian minded people shouldn't publicly defend the purist view, and only pick out a few libertarian minded goals that would actually be politically realistic. We aren't going to go from 40% government to 3% government overnight, no reason to talk like we are.

If we only picked a limited number of goals and kept silent about others, we would be unable to discuss philosophy, as the ultimate end of self-ownership (which I imagine the vast majority of libertarians base their ethical beliefs on) is autonomy. That's essentially crippling libertarians, since libertarianism often would not benefit those the government is subsidizing, which is a vast majority and growing number of people. We could argue CATO-style with statistics and projections, and maybe offer compromised alternatives, but how would respond to someone claiming they have a right to healthcare? Why SHOULDN'T government redistribute wealth if it can cut the bureaucracy? Unless we evade or lie outright through inconsistency, I think it would be impossible go through life discussing politics but not philosophy.

torchbearer

08-17-2009, 08:47 AM

This thread reminds of our libertarian central committee meetings.
scheduled for 2 hours, would go on for 8 hours.
Constant debate, constant introduction of facts, harsh words of minute differences.
the anarchist around the table usually getting pissed enough to walk out and smoke a cigarette.

ah, brings back memories.

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 08:50 AM

If we only picked a limited number of goals and kept silent about others, we would be unable to discuss philosophy, as the ultimate end of self-ownership (which I imagine the vast majority of libertarians base their ethical beliefs on) is autonomy. That's essentially crippling libertarians, since libertarianism often would not benefit those the government is subsidizing, which is a vast majority and growing number of people. We could argue CATO-style with statistics and projections, and maybe offer compromised alternatives, but how would respond to someone claiming they have a right to healthcare? Why SHOULDN'T government redistribute wealth if it can cut the bureaucracy? Unless we evade or lie outright through inconsistency, I think it would be impossible go through life discussing politics but not philosophy.

Liberal: Yes, healthcare. And what about police departments... should they be private too?
Sucker Libertarian: OF course.... blah blah blah libertarian philosophy blah blah

Good one guy, you lost another customer. ;)

Kludge

08-17-2009, 08:50 AM

Liberal: Yes, healthcare. And what about police departments... should they be private too?
Sucker Libertarian: OF course.... blah blah blah libertarian philosophy blah blah

Good one guy, you lost another customer. ;)

So what do you believe a libertarian should do in that situation except dishonestly evade or lie outright?

acptulsa

08-17-2009, 08:54 AM

So what do you believe a libertarian should do in that situation except dishonestly evade or lie outright?

'Could be done, but I for one don't exactly consider it an emergency. Health care is the one that is bloated under overregulation and monopolistic insurance actions and bleeding us dry much faster than most other things. The other topic gives time for more debate.'

orafi

08-17-2009, 08:55 AM

How simple... now exactly what is good, and what is bad? The face/fist thing, OK fine, I agree. But if a man owns a mountain, should he be allowed to crumble it to dust to get gold out of it?

If a man is intelligent enough to acquire a mountain, he's going to be intelligent enough to make the most out of it without destroying it.

Kludge

08-17-2009, 08:56 AM

'Could be done, but I for one don't exactly consider it an emergency.

So you do believe police should be privatized? What of the people who can't afford it? You think they should die? What of the right to life? What liberty is there without a right to life?

Aren't you conservatives "pro-life"? I guess I should expect it since you right-wing extremists support capital punishment, too. Fucking hypocrites...

acptulsa

08-17-2009, 08:56 AM

If a man is intelligent enough to acquire a mountain, he's going to be intelligent enough to make the most out of it without destroying it.

Tell it to the companies that specialize in strip mining. They seem not to be quite that bright.

*sigh*

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 08:57 AM

So what do you believe a libertarian should do in that situation except dishonestly evade or lie outright?

I don't think the police departments should be private. Same with fire departments. And really, I think that it is so small, you should be able and willing to fight on that front, and at least recognize that public fire and police do have their advantages, and just go with that. You know, say, "yes, but having public police does not actually encourage abuse..." Instead of trying to explain why private police would be better. That is one of those minutia that trips up Libertarians.

If a man is intelligent enough to acquire a mountain, he's going to be intelligent enough to make the most out of it without destroying it.

You do know I am talking about an actual process called the cyanide drip process that has currently destroyed the tops of quite a few Rocky Mountains in Colorado, no? Bulk private cost, a mountain would not cost much per acre, it has no real economic value, and yet, there is some thing inherently wrong, in my opinion, with destroying a mountain. I am pretty much an urban dude though. A rural guy might think "mountain, fuck there are thousands of 'em out there! Why you in love with a rock?" In which case, we would have different definitions of "right" and "wrong".

Kludge

08-17-2009, 08:59 AM

I don't think the police departments should be private.

So.... "lie outright".

acptulsa

08-17-2009, 09:01 AM

So you do believe police should be privatized? What of the people who can't afford it? You think they should die? What of the right to life? What liberty is there without a right to life?

Aren't you conservatives "pro-life"? I guess I should expect it since you right-wing extremists support capital punishment, too. Fucking hypocrites...

You asked me what a libertarian who believes the cops should be ancapped out to Blackwater should say rather than either lying or going off on a rant, I made a suggestion, and now I'm bombing abortion clinics?

What form of logic is that? If A then WTF?

Trimbeaux

08-17-2009, 09:05 AM

No need to get upset. LoL, I am not pro Tzar and you cannot separate the Bolshevik Revolution from it's effect. Sorry but communism should stay right where it belongs, in the trash bin of history where as Libertarian ideas of liberty and economics have never been allowed or tried. I am just so tired of authoritative government using violence I would never use against my fellow citizen to steal from me every year of my life.

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 09:05 AM

So.... "lie outright".

maybe you missed this from my ninja edit:

be able and willing to fight on that front, and at least recognize that public fire and police do have their advantages, and just go with that. You know, say, "yes, but having public police does not actually encourage abuse..." Instead of trying to explain why private police would be better. That is one of those minutia that trips up Libertarians.

MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2

08-17-2009, 09:06 AM

I was a Libertarian activist for many years of my life. I was dedicated, I put many, many hours at county fairs, getting petitions signed for anti-tax initiatives, and signing up voters, as well as putting up signs, etc.

It has only been in the past few months I have come to the realization that Libertarianism is a pipe dream, because it shares the same fatal flaw as communism. It relies on the innate goodness of man, and the supposed reactions of man to situations.

I no longer believe man will act in his best economic interest. If that were the case, then nobody would be obese, or smoke, or drink. The side effects on health are too catastrophic. Man would not gamble, because the odds were against him.

I think you don't understand "economic interest" as a theoretical economist would.

It's about pleasure and satisfaction. Money gets introduced into it because it is quantifiable and represents a lot of things people would want. (for pleasure or satisfaction, etc.)

Some people like short term pleasure at the expense of long term pleasure. It sounds like you prefer long term pleasure (and will not trade it for short term pleasure), but that doesn't make everyone else wrong. It just makes them different. As for gambling, some pleasure is derived from the uncertainty.

With addictions, I believe you (theoretically) sometimes run into something called a low level equilibrium trap.

The things you mention aren't really inconsistent with self interest, IMO. You just have a longer term outlook and you're probably better at math than the average gambler.

I say let fat people be fat. But let the fat deal with the consequences of their own decisions. Libertarianism does not require that people maintain their health as you would. In fact, it requires that they're left to do as they please, provided they are not infringing on you.

Epic

08-17-2009, 09:11 AM

You asked me what a libertarian who believes the cops should be ancapped out to Blackwater should say rather than either lying or going off on a rant, I made a suggestion, and now I'm bombing abortion clinics?

What form of logic is that? If A then WTF?

Whoa buddy Blackwater derives money from government - so that is not an example of a privatized arrangement.

A complete privatization is voluntary transactions among individuals - not a government taking people's money and paying it to a private company.

privatization != corporatism.

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 09:12 AM

Sorry but communism should stay right where it belongs, in the trash bin of history where as Libertarian ideas of liberty and economics have never been allowed or tried.

Thanks. You reminded me of another funny thing about communists and Libertarians. They say the same thing!

A communist always insists that REAL communism has never had a chance to be tried. I am sure you have debated a communist or two in your life. Pretty soon, they are passing over the REALITIES of communism, of what REALLY happens, and are tellign you Stalin wasn't really communist, he was Stalinist. Pol Pot wasn't communist... and on and on.

Libertarians do the same thing. When people talk about flaws in the free market (flaws that usually are the result of corrupt humans), Libertarians are left saying, "but this isn't a free market, that wasn't a free market, there never really has been a free market!"

And the reason is, there is ideology, then there is the real world. The real world is made of humans, therefore, any ideology, I don't care what it is, once it is implemented by humans, becomes flawed. That is human nature!

Also reminds me of my ultra catholic Uncle. He does the same thing. He is actually a super open minded guy, and every time I ask him about why the Catholic Church sucks/sucked so much, he tells me they aren't/weren't real Catholics.

I say let fat people be fat. But let the fat deal with the consequences of their own decisions. Libertarianism does not require that people maintain their health as you would. In fact, it requires that they're left to do as they please, provided they are not infringing on you.

Yeah, but it's easy to sound cold hearted. Then, you are a doctor, and you got someone that needs a bypass. I mean, it's just not realistic to let people fail catastrophically. What if there is no family? No church? And even if a Libertarian society did form, and did let people become examples of what not to do, eventually, there would just be too many do-gooders that would demand government action. And Libertarianism is weak. It's lack of structure/authority means that the do-gooders would get their way. Quite simply, Libertarianism takes too much awareness and knowledge by the individual. Especially in today's world, where companies get a lion's share of the layman's brain cycles.

acptulsa

08-17-2009, 09:13 AM

Actually, I think people are missing the OP's point. I believe he's trying to say that any attempt to keep authority honest will fail as the people have narcolepsy and will never, ever remain vigilant. And yet, I think the people do sort of remain vigilant, they just don't have enough sense to extend that vigilance to their so-called news and information sources.

Like the computer programmers say, garbage in--garbage out. True of voters, too.

Kludge

08-17-2009, 09:23 AM

You asked me what a libertarian who believes the cops should be ancapped out to Blackwater should say rather than either lying or going off on a rant, I made a suggestion, and now I'm bombing abortion clinics?

What form of logic is that? If A then WTF?

/devil's advocate

maybe you missed this from my ninja edit:

:o Ehhh, actually, I just went too quick and misread it the first time, and I do agree. [retracted]

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 09:24 AM

Actually, I think people are missing the OP's point. I believe he's trying to say that any attempt to keep authority honest will fail as the people have narcolepsy and will never, ever remain vigilant. And yet, I think the people do sort of remain vigilant, they just don't have enough sense to extend that vigilance to their so-called news and information sources.

Yeah, you pretty much wrote that as I was posting it.

Akus

08-17-2009, 10:37 AM

Evil men, in a Libertarian society, would be kids in a Candy store. They would abuse every freedom, and use their money every chance they had to keep all competition down. I mean does anyone actually believe we would be better off with the Rockefellers still maintaining their massive monopoly?

Well, I don't care to get involved in defending my ideas. I am putting them out there, so yes, if any of you flame warriors want to try and pin me down, and call me a traitor to the cause, here it is, loud and clear. Don't assume I am with you, just know I am against them.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=205009

Here is my link on the exact issue of evil men being kids in a candy store. Take a read.

BillyDkid

08-17-2009, 10:43 AM

Yeah, you're right. Liberty is a terrible idea. Guess I'll go shoot myself.

Conza88

08-17-2009, 11:00 AM

Tell it to the companies that specialize in strip mining. They seem not to be quite that bright.

*sigh*

Strip mining is a result of government granted leases. You can have this property for so long and all its resources, after the lease is up, the government gets it back.

What are you going to do? Leave it sitting as a nature reserve for 9 out of the 10 years of the lease? :rolleyes:

And why bother with trying to maintain value of the land if you can just give it back to the government? Where as if you ACTUALLY owned it, the company would take into consideration, trying to preserve it's value, if they intended to re-sell it. Hell they would possibly fill in the mine after the specific minerals have been removed and plant the trees etc to regain its value.

MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2

08-17-2009, 11:06 AM

I say let fat people be fat. But let the fat deal with the consequences of their own decisions. Libertarianism does not require that people maintain their health as you would. In fact, it requires that they're left to do as they please, provided they are not infringing on you.

Yeah, but it's easy to sound cold hearted. Then, you are a doctor, and you got someone that needs a bypass. I mean, it's just not realistic to let people fail catastrophically. What if there is no family? No church? And even if a Libertarian society did form, and did let people become examples of what not to do,

That's really losing the spirit of my post. An overweight guy that dies at 50 may have loved his life. He doesn't need you or anyone else following him around telling him what to eat and when to exercise. There's no reason for you to appoint yourself in that role. I'd say you're honestly (and appropriately) concerned, but that stems from how you feel about what is best for you. There's no reason for that to translate to everyone else.

Now... if you want to start talking about trans fats and some other things food companies use that I truly believe to be poisons, then we've approached another subject. Libertarianism doesn't allow people to sell poisons to others and call them foods.

And Libertarianism is weak. It's lack of structure/authority means that the do-gooders would get their way. Quite simply, Libertarianism takes too much awareness and knowledge by the individual. Especially in today's world, where companies get a lion's share of the layman's brain cycles.

It's hard to argue with that. But part of the whole deal is accepting more responsibility for your own defense.

Actually, I think people are missing the OP's point. I believe he's trying to say that any attempt to keep authority honest will fail as the people have narcolepsy and will never, ever remain vigilant. And yet, I think the people do sort of remain vigilant, they just don't have enough sense to extend that vigilance to their so-called news and information sources.

Yeah, you pretty much wrote that as I was posting it.

That's the whole point of limiting authority. I don't believe libertarianism is ignorant regarding the nature of men. Some are shysters, and some are humanitarians. None of them should have too much authority, because it's too hard to tell the difference.

Maybe you can say that libertarians can't remove shysters that are already embedded and controlling the system, and I might agree, but that's a whole different subject.

Young Paleocon

08-17-2009, 11:07 AM

I value libertarianism (and am becoming increasingly ancap) because it is the closest thing to the truth that I know of. On utilitarian, historical, statistical, and moralistic grounds freedom trumps all and that is the TRUTH. So whether or not we will ever be able to live completely voluntarily, I think, is a moot point because we know on all fronts that libertarianism trumps the archaic monopoly of force that is government/the state.

Feenix566

08-17-2009, 11:08 AM

Libertarianism isn't a push for a utopian society. It's a general set of principles, on which to base one's practical viewpoints. I believe the bank bailouts were a bad idea. I didn't just pull that belief out of thin air. It's based on the fundamental principle that it's wrong to use the power of the state to redistribute wealth.

Furthermore, everyone who opposed the bank bailouts, auto industry bailouts, housing industry bailouts, government health care, and every other big-state plan, are libertarians, too. They just don't realize it. Every single decision is based on principles. Just because those principles usually go unexamined, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Principles form the bases of all our beliefs. We would be unable to think without them.

We have hundreds of millions of libertarians in this country. They're not utopian dreamers. They're people who oppose big government programs because they've realized that big government is a bad idea, not because they're trying to reconstruct society.

The communist revolution brought us this idea of rebuilding society into a utopia. That doesn't mean that every subsequent ideological movement must share the same goal. The communists also proved it doesn't work.

Conza88

08-17-2009, 11:13 AM

Thanks for the compliment, its all the shit after I could do without.

:rolleyes: Define Libertarianism.

This should be good. :rolleyes:

mczerone

08-17-2009, 11:24 AM

I know, for a fact, there will NEVER be a Libertartian utopia. There will never be anything but the corruption of utopian images, because man is innately corrupt.

Libertarianism doesn't promise utopia - it merely suggests that force should not be tolerated, whether extortion by highwaymen, pirates, or governments. In a "free world" there wouldn't be taxes, there would be expenses: bills for services you choose to support. Without the forced geographically based association that is government there would be no legitimate place for corruption to take place - cops making deals with criminals would be subject to the investigation of other agencies, justice agencies that favor certain groups of litigants or simply apply the law incorrectly would be brought to justice by a "second opinion" justice agency, and regulators themselves would be subject to competing regulation agencies that more reliably protect the values of their willing customers.

"[M]an is innately corrupt," is a collectivist statement that assigns specific attributes to all humans whereas it is necessarily the case that only few specific corruptions can be found in few specific individuals: there will always be cult leaders, serial killers and snake oil salesmen, a free world would take away the apparatus of government that legitimizes these things as, respectively, 'established' religions, war heroes, and Federal agency czars. Instead they would be punished by those consumers who are selective, and would fail to gain support, would be sought after for retribution, and would lose money and social status even while still pulling the wool over some sheeps' eyes.

I choose a path of freedom, and should I infringe (recklessly, accidentally, reactionarily, or intentionally) upon the freedom of others I shall be responsible for those consequences - but only as much as the victim as his sympathizers wish to seek justice, and only to the extent that competing justice agencies will allow.

Utopia? No, not by any means - you would still have to seek security and bad things will always happen around you. But establishing any government is antithetical to the core concept of liberty, self ownership, and is a specific harm upon real people in a realistic world.

I doubt I'll change your (the OP's) mind that true total freedom really would work, but I wanted to exhibit for those on the fence that you made too broad of conclusions upon faulty and fearful reasoning.

Be yourself, Be responsible, and Be free. Of course other people will continue to do harm, but that doesn't excuse you do to "preventative" harm to all men within your politically drawn lines that resemble property borders.

mczerone

08-17-2009, 11:31 AM

BoogerSnax

08-17-2009, 11:38 AM

In scrolling down the first page of responses, I see where the original poster is correct.

The Libertarian movement is personified by persons whom the general public view as laughable.

ARealConservative

08-17-2009, 11:44 AM

Good for you. Hopefully you converted a lot of folks. It's hard competing against state indoctrination / education and propaganda.

That's a shame, you campaigned for something you didn't fully understand. Otherwise you'd realise Libertarianism has nothing to do with communism, and that Libertarianism requires folks to follow their self interest.

The op is a smarter man then most of the posters on this board, especially the one I am quoting.

I share his pessimistic views of mankind.

Libertarianism would be great if man were ever to evolve enough to embrace it. We won't though. Individuals have certainly evolved a great deal, but we need to stop looking at the doers when we measure social evolution. We need to concern ourselves with the "great unwashed" aka the looters. the masses have not evolved at all, the opposite is true. As a society we are devolving. The ranks of the looters are growing.

mczerone

08-17-2009, 12:01 PM

The op is a smarter man then most of the posters on this board, especially the one I am quoting.

I share his pessimistic views of mankind.

Libertarianism would be great if man were ever to evolve enough to embrace it. We won't though. Individuals have certainly evolved a great deal, but we need to stop looking at the doers when we measure social evolution. We need to concern ourselves with the "great unwashed" aka the looters. the masses have not evolved at all, the opposite is true. As a society we are devolving. The ranks of the looters are growing.

"Those looters are horrible therefore we need a monopolistic government."

I fail to see why the failures of other humans should be a burden on my shoulders apart from freely choosing how to address my security needs - you address a real problem, but your solution would be ludicrous if governments were not the norm.

"We won't evolve enough for liberty" is a collectivist self-fulfilling prophecy that restricts any possibility that some people actually are able to live responsibly and kills any chances that liberty will be allowed to evolve in the future from some small segment of the population that gets it right and spreads it around in fits and starts over time.

Let the looters live by looting - they will die by looting. Refuse to join the crowd and secure your own legacy, or give up and watch Idol on your stolen 48" plasma with the rest of the looters. Just don't force me to join them with you.

Brian4Liberty

08-17-2009, 12:13 PM

The State is the only social institution which is able to extract its income and wealth by coercion; all others must obtain revenue either by selling a product or service to customers or by receiving voluntary gifts. And the State is the only institution which can use the revenue from this organized theft to presume to control and regulate people's lives and property. Hence, the institution of the State establishes a socially legitimatized and sanctified channel for bad people to do bad things, to commit regularized theft and to wield dictatorial power...

While we can all agree on the abuses that the State creates, the State is not the root of all evil. Perhaps it is the other way around. Government is the most advanced (and some would say civilized or mature) form of gangsterism. Yet gangsterism in it's youth is just as bad as the "State", even if it is not as refined. If we want to define all gangsterism (no matter how geographically small) as the "State" and vice versa, then maybe it makes sense.

Since a system of liberty would encourage the voluntary and discourage the criminal, and would remove the only legitimated channel for crime and aggression, we could expect that a free society would indeed suffer less from violent crime and aggression than we do now, though there is no warrant for assuming that they would disappear completely.

Why would it "encourage the voluntary and discourage the criminal"? Yes, we can all agree it won't "disappear completely".

...the classical liberal F.A. Hayek pointed out: "The main merit of individualism [which Adam Smith and his contemporaries advocated] is that it is a system under which bad men can do least harm. It is a social system which does not depend for its functioning on our finding good men for running it, or on all men becoming better than they now are, but which makes use of men in all their given variety and complexity...."13

You will probably get 100% agreement on that quote.

Myth #6 Libertarians believe that every person knows his own interests best.

Amen to that. Our current system and the desires of our socialist leadership are to further reward bad decisions. We must bail-out every single person who has been living beyond their means. From the top of Goldman-Sachs right down to the person laying the gutter.

For on the free market, any individual, if in doubt about what his own true interests may be, is free to hire or consult experts to give him advice based on their possibly superior knowledge. The individual may hire such experts and, on the free market, can continuously test their soundness and helpfulness. Individuals on the market, therefore, tend to patronize those experts whose advice will prove most successful. Good doctors, lawyers, or architects will reap rewards on the free market, while poor ones will tend to fare badly.

In the free market, Merrill Lynch has long been "considered" the best financial advisers and managers. They ripped people off just like a government does, but the customers were very happy. They did not know what was in their best interest, and the free market "expert" was no better. Luckily we aren't all forced to use Merrill Lynch, which is the big benefit of them not being a State mandated service. Can't say they were any better though.

ARealConservative

08-17-2009, 12:27 PM

"Those looters are horrible therefore we need a monopolistic government."

Since we are speaking of libertarianism and not anarchy, you don’t need to reiterate that government has a monopoly.

I fail to see why the failures of other humans should be a burden on my shoulders apart from freely choosing how to address my security needs - you address a real problem, but your solution would be ludicrous if governments were not the norm.

You fail to see how a mob seeking power over you should be a burden? I’m not arguing they should, I‘m arguing they always will.

That’s the thing. Libertarians are hypocrites because they too seek to hold power over others while renouncing it on the other side of their face.

I’ve used the example before, but nobody in their right mind wants an insane person, or a young child walking around with a loaded weapon. Nobody wants a parent to have the freedom to molest their children.

So now libertarians, claiming to not initiate force, are required to reconcile exactly that. They have to come up with arbitrary ages that allow people to be bound to contracts, sexual relationships etc, etc.

dr. hfn

08-17-2009, 12:44 PM

Join the Free State Project or Die!

Flash

08-17-2009, 12:55 PM

Stalin =/= Russian revolution, Napoleon =/= french revolution, although both were aftereffects. If you think Russia would have been better off under the tsars, I can't help you with that.

Yes they would've been, the tsars were no worse than the British or any other European nation at the time. After the Socialists took over, millions of Orthodox Russians were killed, 7 million Ukrainians starved, etc.. now Putin is finally leading Russia into the future, and many would like to call him the new tsar.

And I fail to see how the French revolution was a mistake even if Napoleon did eventually rise, he managed to conquer most of Europe, which was in French interest to do so. If you were expecting France to all of a sudden turn into an American-like country after the revolution, then you should realize Europe & America are two different places. ;)

ARealConservative

08-17-2009, 01:09 PM

Join the Free State Project or Die!

maybe if I was a 20 year old college kid...and they didn't pick such an easterly coast region.

I simply don't like the area.

Back before they picked the location, I signed up. I was a young 29 back then though. If they would of went with a west coast area, I'm pretty sure I would be a FSP'er right this second.

TinCanToNA

08-17-2009, 01:38 PM

In scrolling down the first page of responses, I see where the original poster is correct.

The Libertarian movement is personified by persons whom the general public view as laughable.

Exactly. The OP's point, whether academically correct or not, was proven by the replies given in the thread.

That being said, it is the direction that matters most. I support all liberty candidates because they are heading the right way.

tonesforjonesbones

08-17-2009, 02:00 PM

I have to agree with End...even Thomas Paine said there must be a moral society to have true freedom and liberty. Every time some wanker screws up we get another law..so..humans perpetuate the government they dispise. I am coming to the conclusion that I don't like political parties at all...but I like ideas. I will probably end up being a No Part Affiliation person. I agree with End...there can be NO free markets without moral people...and that has never in history happened. He's right..the rotten eggs float to the top. tones

tonesforjonesbones

08-17-2009, 02:08 PM

MGreen

08-17-2009, 02:19 PM

Exactly. The OP's point, whether academically correct or not, was proven by the replies given in the thread.
...The replies prove that man is evil and won't follow his self-interest? As for BoogerSnax's comment you quoted, what does it matter if the general public views libertarianism as laughable? That doesn't discredit its truthfulness.

Any system that purports to be altruistic and in the service of the individual relies on the people being sufficiently wise. Democracy requires the people be wise enough to choose the right policies. Republicanism requires the people to be wise enough to choose the right representatives. Anarcho-capitalism/libertarianism requires people be wise enough to realize that violence is a costly way to settle disputes.

I'd say anarcho-capitalism asks the least of the masses, and that there are mechanisms in the free market to promote information distribution and encourage the people to learn, whereas the state is likely to discourage such things. To claim that libertarianism is fatally flawed because, well shucks, people might not be wise enough to choose the best means to attain their ends, is to admit that all political systems are fatally flawed. Everyone on this forum obviously realizes that republicanism is fatally flawed in this way, as the masses pick representatives that either don't intend or don't know how to serve their individual welfare.

Sayzak

08-17-2009, 03:41 PM

I was a Libertarian activist for many years of my life. I was dedicated, I put many, many hours at county fairs, getting petitions signed for anti-tax initiatives, and signing up voters, as well as putting up signs, etc.

It has only been in the past few months I have come to the realization that Libertarianism is a pipe dream, because it shares the same fatal flaw as communism. It relies on the innate goodness of man, and the supposed reactions of man to situations.

I no longer believe man will act in his best economic interest. If that were the case, then nobody would be obese, or smoke, or drink. The side effects on health are too catastrophic. Man would not gamble, because the odds were against him. Man also is not going to save his money for a rainy day. You stop forcing him to put money away for retirement or injury, and when the day inevitably comes, he will be in a shelter or under some kind of help program for the rest of his life, or on the street. I'd guess maybe 10% of the world actually thinks about and prepares for their future. The rest leave it up to the experts, or don't even give it second thought.

There is only one thing you can rely on man to do, and that is attempt to fulfill his own narcissistic desires. That is it.

I still come here, because this board has great insights on economics and power, and is at least awake to the tremendous evil facing the world right now. But i have to say, I have recently gave up on the idea of a Libertarian utopia, or freedom, or anything else in that vein. I do not believe our political system is any better than any other political system in the world, I do not believe a paper making a game of government with 3's and 5's and 7's and 435's is going to change how people actually treat each other. I love the Bill of rights, but I also recognize there is a portion of the United States that has never even really fallen under its protection.

I will also say, Although I like Peter Schiff, and Ron Paul and Rand Paul, that even if they were to get elected, it would be too little, too late. Downfall of America is inevitable, and I do believe that we will have to go through some serious fascism/socialism/communism/corporatism/totalitarianism/statism before we meet a revolution worthy of the name revolution. Unfortunately, I will be too old by then to physically participate, but I would still do my best to help, because of that little shred of worthless and misguided hope in me that man can be civilized and live in a free society.

I know, for a fact, there will NEVER be a Libertartian utopia. There will never be anything but the corruption of utopian images, because man is innately corrupt.

Communism's flaw was that it thought that people were good, and would work together for the sake of nation and brotherhood. That mutual respect was all that was needed to make men work for a better world. It was a great, optimistic idea, but fatally flawed as well. Men are inherently selfish, ergo evil. The vast majority will always make a moral judgment call that benefits them. They think of themselves first, then their family and friends, then perhaps country, or church, or other confessional loyalty. Communists believed a shorter work week would leave men more time to participate and educate themselves about politics. For the most part, it was spent drinking and looking for love and raising and enjoying their families. But seriously, who can actually say with a straight face that Russia would have been better off under the Tsar? I believe the Bolshevik revolution was a good thing, if not for the same reason the French Revolution was good... because it made those in power understand, if only for a short time, that they only rule through paper and tradition.

Evil men, in a Libertarian society, would be kids in a Candy store. They would abuse every freedom, and use their money every chance they had to keep all competition down. I mean does anyone actually believe we would be better off with the Rockefellers still maintaining their massive monopoly?

Well, I don't care to get involved in defending my ideas. I am putting them out there, so yes, if any of you flame warriors want to try and pin me down, and call me a traitor to the cause, here it is, loud and clear. Don't assume I am with you, just know I am against them.

Someone took a bath in apathy this morning... :rolleyes:

torchbearer

08-17-2009, 03:42 PM

Flash

08-17-2009, 03:53 PM

Exactly. The OP's point, whether academically correct or not, was proven by the replies given in the thread.

That being said, it is the direction that matters most. I support all liberty candidates because they are heading the right way.

Not really. Conza made some great points andt he original poster ignored all of it.

BoogerSnax

08-17-2009, 04:29 PM

BoogerSnax? person who would be viewed as laughable?
The parody is noted.
Have you tried the Obamaforum yet?

Why would I do that?
I've lived the life of a "Libertarian" all my life.

The Libertarian "movement" is personified by "crazy" guys that paint whole sheets of plywood with messages and put them in their yards. And by kids who post whole manifestos as a reply to "set the record straight about Libertarianism". And by a squeaky voiced guy from Texas who said "they bombed us because we are bombing them".

The public at large doesn't want "liberty", they want to gov't to make their personal liberty "safe" for them with guarantees, safety nets, and slogans.

torchbearer

08-17-2009, 04:37 PM

Why would I do that?

check out the site: http://theobamaforum.com/
then get back with me on why you would do that.

I've lived the life of a "Libertarian" all my life.

and?

The public at large doesn't want "liberty", they want to gov't to make their personal liberty "safe" for them with guarantees, safety nets, and slogans.

as ben franklin stated- "the government will reflect the virtues of its people"
I guess you have a lot of work ahead of you. get busy.

Conza88

08-17-2009, 06:13 PM

The op is a smarter man then most of the posters on this board, especially the one I am quoting.

Except the OP has failed miserably in addressing my arguments, and has such decided to ignore them. It's hard refuting the truth.

I share his pessimistic views of mankind.

That's great, pity you have no basis for it. You cannot suppress the human spirit for long periods of time. The history of man makes this clear.

Libertarianism would be great if man were ever to evolve enough to embrace it. We won't though. Individuals have certainly evolved a great deal, but we need to stop looking at the doers when we measure social evolution. We need to concern ourselves with the "great unwashed" aka the looters. the masses have not evolved at all, the opposite is true. As a society we are devolving. The ranks of the looters are growing.

Social Darwinism, if that is what you are getting at - is fundamentally retarded. No power elite in the history of the world has ever given up their power voluntarily. The ranks of looters are growing, until the state will collapse. See: Soviet Union. And every other socialist experiment. :rolleyes:

"Those looters are horrible therefore we need a monopolistic government."

I fail to see why the failures of other humans should be a burden on my shoulders apart from freely choosing how to address my security needs - you address a real problem, but your solution would be ludicrous if governments were not the norm.

"We won't evolve enough for liberty" is a collectivist self-fulfilling prophecy that restricts any possibility that some people actually are able to live responsibly and kills any chances that liberty will be allowed to evolve in the future from some small segment of the population that gets it right and spreads it around in fits and starts over time.

Let the looters live by looting - they will die by looting. Refuse to join the crowd and secure your own legacy, or give up and watch Idol on your stolen 48" plasma with the rest of the looters. Just don't force me to join them with you.

:D

Conza88

08-17-2009, 06:23 PM

That’s the thing. Libertarians are hypocrites because they too seek to hold power over others while renouncing it on the other side of their face.

No they don't. Not the logically consistent principled Libertarians.

I’ve used the example before, but nobody in their right mind wants an insane person, or a young child walking around with a loaded weapon. Nobody wants a parent to have the freedom to molest their children.

Property owners can legitimately bar insane people and young children, in fact whoever they want from walking around with whatever they want on their property.

Freedom to molest their child? Sorry we're not all Josh_la / Optatrons. The Libertines mistake freedom from, with the power to. They believe they should be free to do anything, but really what they want is the power to violate other peoples natural rand inalienable rights. They are scum.

Nobody is advocating the freedom to molest anyone... so take down your strawman, it just failed.

Parents don't "own" their children. They have guardianship rights. They violate them, when they violate the child's free will. Furthermore the child can run away from home legitimately at any point if they don't like the house rules.

So now libertarians, claiming to not initiate force, are required to reconcile exactly that. They have to come up with arbitrary ages that allow people to be bound to contracts, sexual relationships etc, etc.

Not the principled and logically consistent one. Ala followers of the Austrian School of Economics.

But you wouldn't know jack shit about that would you? :rolleyes: Would love to know what you've read on the subject. i.e explicitly related to those topics you just mentioned.

thasre

08-17-2009, 07:48 PM

My two cents:

Libertarianism, here and now, is not about any utopian ideas about transforming society into some perfect stateless realm where everything is lollipops and giggles. It's about stopping useless wars, lowering taxes, protecting people's civil liberties, educating people about the economy, etc. It's highly pragmatic, goal-oriented, realistic, and it produces valuable real-world outcomes.

Sure it'd be great to create some Rothbardian society, and I suppose that's some hypothetical ultimate goal, but I think the comparison to Communism is WHOLLY undeserved. Communist regimes have always begun by violent insurrections that make immediate promises about how the world is going to be a better place under their totalitarianism. Such regimes have always resorted to propaganda to placate the citizens who don't understand how awful their government is, and they've always resorted to police-state law enforcement to punish the ones who DO understand the enormity of the government's actions. Libertarianism is inherently incremental, since we don't believe in using force to make other people live the way we want them to. Communism is inherently tyrannical, since a Communist society HAS TO BEGIN through force, violence, and coercion.

Libertarianism is not about creating a world in which there are no problems (like Communism claims to do), it's about protecting people from the problems that arise specifically from imposition of tyrannical social and economic policies.

In short, I hardly think that being a libertarian makes me the moral equivalent of a communist, sorry.

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 07:58 PM

In short, I hardly think that being a libertarian makes me the moral equivalent of a communist, sorry.

I didn't even say that. I didn't say communism and libertarianism are the same thing, I said they suffer from the same flaw, should I clarify... same ideological flaw.

Also note, the closest thing to a Libertarian government took violent revolution to form. ;)

I also didn't say they rely on the goodness of mankind, I said goodness AND the supposed reactions of man to situations. The second part of my statement was completely ignored from the beginning.

TinCanToNA

08-17-2009, 08:36 PM

Not really. Conza made some great points andt he original poster ignored all of it.

I disagree. Conza failed to refute most of the points, instead choosing to make vague references to entire books and liberally apply ad hominem attacks; Conza did what most failed rhetoricians do.
I wish Conza had made better arguments, but that is just not the case.

Regarding human action, he will act upon what he values highest. It is always rational. He will choose ends, and use means to achieve them. In hindsight, he can say he was wrong, or it didn't work. But it is not for you to use your personal subjectivity when it comes to values, and criticise his for being "irrational".(Emphasis is mine.)
On one hand, it can be plainly seen how wrong that statement is. It is demonstrably false. Some, even most human action is rational; to say that no human action is irrational is to defy history. Alternatively, I can make an ad hominem attack against Conza by saying that the quoted statement is true, and therefore Conza does not value his/her philosophical advocacy more than his/her ego. Concern for ego is itself not entirely rational, as narcissism tends to involve other emotions.

Meanwhile, the OP's concern that the same fatal flaw of assuming an uncontrolled condition to be a certain way was demonstrated in the defense of libertarianism in subsequent posts. That is why I said that it is not important that the argument is academically correct if it is demonstrated to be true by those supposedly in opposition to it. Words have meaning because we agree on them. If the common perception among supporters of libertarianism is that it presupposes a condition of humans to have some innate decency, then does it really matter if the academic supporters of it do not see it as such? If the academics of libertarianism do not see it in this way, then they have failed in their argument and the philosophy has been "hijacked" like, say, every single other philosophy in history.

Bucjason

08-17-2009, 08:50 PM

I don't give a shit about Utopia ...I just want to be free....

so, as eloquent and well thought out as your take on libertariansim is , the premise is completely wrong.

MGreen

08-17-2009, 09:10 PM

On one hand, it can be plainly seen how wrong that statement is. It is demonstrably false. Some, even most human action is rational; to say that no human action is irrational is to defy history
Examples?

Conza88

08-17-2009, 09:13 PM

I disagree. Conza failed to refute most of the points, instead choosing to make vague references to entire books and liberally apply ad hominem attacks; Conza did what most failed rhetoricians do.
I wish Conza had made better arguments, but that is just not the case.
(Emphasis is mine.)

What arguments? I'm not seeing any. If you actually read something on the subject, it'd help your understanding. Sorry, I can only show you the door. You have to be the one to walk through it.

On one hand, it can be plainly seen how wrong that statement is. It is demonstrably false. Some, even most human action is rational; to say that no human action is irrational is to defy history. Alternatively, I can make an ad hominem attack against Conza by saying that the quoted statement is true, and therefore Conza does not value his/her philosophical advocacy more than his/her ego. Concern for ego is itself not entirely rational, as narcissism tends to involve other emotions.

"The assertion that there is irrational action is always rooted in an evaluation of a scale of values different from our own. Whoever says that irrationality plays a role in human action is merely saying, that his fellow men behave in a way that he does not consider correct. If we do not wish to pass judgment on the ends and the scales of value of other people and to claim omniscience for ourselves, the statement, "He acts irrationally," is meaningless, because it is not compatible with the concept of action. The "seeking to attain an end" and the "striving after a goal" cannot be eliminated from the concept of action. Whatever does not strive after goals or seek the attainment of ends reacts with absolute passivity to an external stimulus and is without a will of its own, like an automaton or a stone.

To be sure, man too is as far outside the effective range of his action as a reed in the wind. But in so far as he is able to do anything, he always acts: even negligence and passivity are action if another course of conduct could have been chosen. And the conduct that is determined by the unconscious, in the Freudian sense, or by the subconscious, is also action in so far as conscious behavior could prevent it but neglects to do so. Even in the unconscious and apparently senseless behavior of the neurotic and the psychopath there is meaning, i.e., there is striving after ends and goals."[8]"

http://mises.org/epofe/c1p2sec4.asp

4. Rationality and Irrationality; Subjectivism and Objectivity of Praxeological Research
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec4.asp

You've got a lot to learn. Pity you don't seem to know it.

Meanwhile, the OP's concern that the same fatal flaw of assuming an uncontrolled condition to be a certain way was demonstrated in the defense of libertarianism in subsequent posts. That is why I said that it is not important that the argument is academically correct if it is demonstrated to be true by those supposedly in opposition to it. Words have meaning because we agree on them. If the common perception among supporters of libertarianism is that it presupposes a condition of humans to have some innate decency, then does it really matter if the academic supporters of it do not see it as such? If the academics of libertarianism do not see it in this way, then they have failed in their argument and the philosophy has been "hijacked" like, say, every single other philosophy in history.

One retarded fool who suddenly capitulated from truths he didn't quite understand, to start with, in no way follows that the philosophy has been "hijacked".

He has done nothing but erect strawmen. Still waiting on his definition of Libertarianism. OH wait, yeah, he's never given one. He supported the Libertarian PARTY, he went for PLATFORMS not PHILOSOPHY. Shame, shame shame.

Kludge

08-17-2009, 09:16 PM

Examples?

Neighbor mows his two acres of property with a push mower, complains about it, has more than enough money, but says he's too lazy to go get a riding mower, even though he's wasting an hour every other week and exerting an unnecessary amount of effort. Maybe he's being dishonest with me about why he isn't purchasing a riding mower, or maybe he's being irrational. It's difficult to judge.

NewEnd

08-17-2009, 09:17 PM

You've got a lot to learn. Pity you don't seem to know it.

Geeze, why don't people listen to you?

SimpleName

08-17-2009, 09:29 PM

One main point I'd like to give a quick jab at is when you said man won't work in his best economic interest. Who and what determines his best interests? MAN does. Each individual makes those choices for himself. If someone wants to smoke, they can smoke and they will have to come to terms with that later on. It is their responsibility to know what they are getting themselves into. As I believe Rothbard would have replied, people in a free society working in their individual best interests most often benefit the interests of the whole.

Besides that, some great points. I too fall under a this darkness and want to just say the hell with it. It always seems like people are just too damn stupid to figure things out. When you tell them things with any level of complexity, they give up and ignore you. I have had a hard time getting out there and being productive towards the movement because of this. I become so discouraged by the reactions I get when I'm trying to explain libertarian viewpoints to them. It leads to me just coming to these forums and discussing with the like-minded, sharing in everyone's disgust and happiness. But deep down I still have hope and I think, although we'll never reach any sort of "utopia", we can surely compromise with a relatively free society and limited government. My two cents.

Young Paleocon

08-17-2009, 09:37 PM

Bucjason

08-17-2009, 09:39 PM

Maybe he secretly does it because he feels like he's getting a bit of a workout and just complains about it before and after because he wants something to talk about. :D

maybe he is waiting for the "Cash 4 Mowers" legislation ??

MGreen

08-17-2009, 09:42 PM

Neighbor mows his two acres of property with a push mower, complains about it, has more than enough money, but says he's too lazy to go get a riding mower, even though he's wasting an hour every other week and exerting an unnecessary amount of effort. Maybe he's being dishonest with me about why he isn't purchasing a riding mower, or maybe he's being irrational. It's difficult to judge.
Whoa, I didn't think it'd be this easy.

First, rationality is different from wisdom. A man may dance in hopes of making it rain. This action is rational, even though it's obvious to you and I that dancing will not result in rainfall. A man may mow his lawn with a push mower because he believes it the best way to do so (all else being equal, of course).

But you said this man knows of the existence of a riding mower and has the means to purchase it. The fact that he doesn't, even though it causes him stress, does not mean he acts irrationally. Perhaps the uneasiness of using a push mower is less than the cost of buying a riding mower. Perhaps the man likes to use his situation to complain to others. By saying he's too lazy to get a riding mower, this suggests he would rather spend his time doing... whatever, rather than engaging in the disutility of finding, buying and maintaining a riding mower. To bring in time preference (as you point out, a riding mower can save him time to be lazy in the future), this man prefers to be lazy now at the cost of more work later (the next time he has to mow the lawn).

As Mises said and Conza just quoted: "The assertion that there is irrational action is always rooted in an evaluation of a scale of values different from our own. Whoever says that irrationality plays a role in human action is merely saying, that his fellow men behave in a way that he does not consider correct."

TinCanToNA

08-17-2009, 10:20 PM

What arguments? I'm not seeing any. If you actually read something on the subject, it'd help your understanding. Sorry, I can only show you the door. You have to be the one to walk through it.

"The assertion that there is irrational action is always rooted in an evaluation of a scale of values different from our own. Whoever says that irrationality plays a role in human action is merely saying, that his fellow men behave in a way that he does not consider correct. If we do not wish to pass judgment on the ends and the scales of value of other people and to claim omniscience for ourselves, the statement, "He acts irrationally," is meaningless, because it is not compatible with the concept of action. The "seeking to attain an end" and the "striving after a goal" cannot be eliminated from the concept of action. Whatever does not strive after goals or seek the attainment of ends reacts with absolute passivity to an external stimulus and is without a will of its own, like an automaton or a stone.

To be sure, man too is as far outside the effective range of his action as a reed in the wind. But in so far as he is able to do anything, he always acts: even negligence and passivity are action if another course of conduct could have been chosen. And the conduct that is determined by the unconscious, in the Freudian sense, or by the subconscious, is also action in so far as conscious behavior could prevent it but neglects to do so. Even in the unconscious and apparently senseless behavior of the neurotic and the psychopath there is meaning, i.e., there is striving after ends and goals."[8]"

http://mises.org/epofe/c1p2sec4.asp

4. Rationality and Irrationality; Subjectivism and Objectivity of Praxeological Research
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec4.asp

You've got a lot to learn. Pity you don't seem to know it.I'm not sure of the history of the word "irrational" but that quote is certainly not dealing with the modern definition of the word. What I consider "irrational" using the actual definition of the word has nothing to do with whether I think someone is acting "correctly" or not. The fact is that people often do commit acts without reason, without understanding or knowledge, or simply through emotion rather than logic. Perhaps your definition of the word is dated? Regardless, your monopoly on truth is bankrupt, and your advocacy is seriously flawed.

Just let me ask: is a violent outburst, a knuckle sandwich thrown by someone frustrated in a loud argument and with similar rhetorical skills as yourself, an example of a person acting rationally?

One retarded fool who suddenly capitulated from truths he didn't quite understand, to start with, in no way follows that the philosophy has been "hijacked".

He has done nothing but erect strawmen. Still waiting on his definition of Libertarianism. OH wait, yeah, he's never given one. He supported the Libertarian PARTY, he went for PLATFORMS not PHILOSOPHY. Shame, shame shame.You completely misunderstood what I was saying. It was not the OP that is hijacking libertarianism. Using your own standards, your bankrupt monopoly on truth, it is the others who argued against the OP that have hijacked what libertarianism means.

You're right though, I do have a lot to learn. In my opinion, knowledge has an intrinsic positive value. Therefore, everyone has a lot to learn. Unfortunately, you appear to have a monopoly on the truth (even though you are bankrupt intellectually), so you think you can't learn. A sad event for someone so uncivil. :o

Kludge

08-17-2009, 10:47 PM

Whoa, I didn't think it'd be this easy.

First, rationality is different from wisdom. A man may dance in hopes of making it rain. This action is rational, even though it's obvious to you and I that dancing will not result in rainfall. A man may mow his lawn with a push mower because he believes it the best way to do so (all else being equal, of course).

But you said this man knows of the existence of a riding mower and has the means to purchase it. The fact that he doesn't, even though it causes him stress, does not mean he acts irrationally. Perhaps the uneasiness of using a push mower is less than the cost of buying a riding mower. Perhaps the man likes to use his situation to complain to others. By saying he's too lazy to get a riding mower, this suggests he would rather spend his time doing... whatever, rather than engaging in the disutility of finding, buying and maintaining a riding mower. To bring in time preference (as you point out, a riding mower can save him time to be lazy in the future), this man prefers to be lazy now at the cost of more work later (the next time he has to mow the lawn).

As Mises said and Conza just quoted: "The assertion that there is irrational action is always rooted in an evaluation of a scale of values different from our own. Whoever says that irrationality plays a role in human action is merely saying, that his fellow men behave in a way that he does not consider correct."

Sure. I'm not saying I have the means to judge him accurately. I don't know everything that goes into his decisions, and hopefully, I never will. If he is acting irrationally, I'd have to have absolute knowledge of how my neighbor should value. At best, I can guesstimate, like a bureaucrat, what a person should value something at. If I were required to judge him right now, I'd say he were acting irrationality without any hard evidence. Is he, in "reality"? Maybe not. Humans are capable of nothing but theories, though we generally accept that when something is beyond a certain likelihood, we can state it as a fact or a law.

How would you prove an action is rational?

Conza88

08-18-2009, 12:20 AM

Neighbor mows his two acres of property with a push mower

Using praxeology, the science of human action, we can deduce he values mowing his two acre property with a push mower, more than leisure, or working, or anything else. We can only speculate as to the reasons for his actions, which is outside the purposes of praxeology entirely.

His end may be to get exercise, or stop his wife nagging him that the lawn needs mowing, or he likes the pleasure he gets from a clean cut freshly mowed grass which he has accomplished with his own labor.

... complains about it, has more than enough money, but says he's too lazy to go get a riding mower

What ever the case, he values mowing the lawn with his already owned push mower, more than going to the shops and buying a new one.

even though he's wasting an hour every other week and exerting an unnecessary amount of effort.

You say he is wasting it. Not him. You say it is unnecessary, not him.

Maybe he's being dishonest with me about why he isn't purchasing a riding mower, or maybe he's being irrational. It's difficult to judge.

No, he's being rational when he made the decision. He can later contend, that he did not employ the proper means, or his end goal should have been different. That doesn't change anything though.

Geeze, why don't people listen to you?

Because I used to belief the same fallacies as them, yet I managed to shed them. If they are open minded, there is no problem. When someone is closed minded though, there begins the problem of their ignorance.

maybe he is waiting for the "Cash 4 Mowers" legislation ??

Hahah, I lol'd :D

Conza88

08-18-2009, 12:30 AM

I'm not sure of the history of the word "irrational" but that quote is certainly not dealing with the modern definition of the word. What I consider "irrational" using the actual definition of the word has nothing to do with whether I think someone is acting "correctly" or not. The fact is that people often do commit acts without reason, without understanding or knowledge, or simply through emotion rather than logic. Perhaps your definition of the word is dated? Regardless, your monopoly on truth is bankrupt, and your advocacy is seriously flawed.

Human action is an axiom. It is defined as purposeful behavior. Chosen ends, using chosen means. Individuals have different preferences, values etc. They are subjective. They must choose and their action correlates to their values. Which are ordinal.

All action involves an exchange, or a choice: the actor attempts to achieve a more satisfactory state of affairs than what would have occurred had the actor chosen differently. The benefit of an action is its psychic revenue, while its cost is the value the actor places on the next-best alternative. Each actor can arrange various possible ends on a scale of value. This is a purely ordinal ranking, that can only show which end is first-best, second-best, and so forth. There is no sense in saying that one end is eight percent better than another, because there is no cardinal unit of happiness.

Every action involves not only a value judgment concerning different ends, but also a belief on the part of the actor that he possesses adequate means to achieve his desired end. (A person may prefer sunshine to rain, but this preference alone will not lead to any action if the person does not believe he has the power to change the weather.)

Just let me ask: is a violent outburst, a knuckle sandwich thrown by someone frustrated in a loud argument and with similar rhetorical skills as yourself, an example of a person acting rationally?

Yes. But not ethically. You violated my property rights and the non aggression axiom. (Principle)

You completely misunderstood what I was saying. It was not the OP that is hijacking libertarianism. Using your own standards, your bankrupt monopoly on truth, it is the others who argued against the OP that have hijacked what libertarianism means.

Lmao, no I completely understood what you were saying. And you are wrong. ORLY, what are my standards? :rolleyes: Did you just present an argument as to why I was wrong? Nope. Has the OP even defined Libertarianism?

Nope. Have you? Nope.

Do you want me to? I can, it's pretty elementary... I actually understand the philosophy... he understands a political platform based on a political party. RON PAUL has more of a Libertarian platform, than the Libertarian Party does... lol

You're right though, I do have a lot to learn. In my opinion, knowledge has an intrinsic positive value. Therefore, everyone has a lot to learn. Unfortunately, you appear to have a monopoly on the truth (even though you are bankrupt intellectually), so you think you can't learn. A sad event for someone so uncivil. :o

A sad strawman you've just erected. The difference is I KNOW what I am ignorant on. And this ain't one of it. Since I actually held this guys retarded position for quite some time. Who said I have a monopoly on truth? Again, nice strawman.

Have you presented any kind of arguments, whilst "debating" me? Nope. Still waiting.

Stary Hickory

08-18-2009, 07:20 AM

Well I believe that Anarchists are a bit out of touch. They expect a final victory and the end to the struggle for freedom. As long as this struggle persists there will always need to be organized force to oppose those who want to control others. This force is government.

The best we can hope for is the most minimal government possible. But don't be naive and believe the struggle for freedom will just end. The soviets thought socialism could work because they could creat the braindead and obedient "Socialist Man" and Amarchists think they can create the "Enlightened and principled man" neither is feasible. However that does not mean we stop fighting.

We can secure more freedom and hopefully get back to a minimal government. One that only defends our rights and nothing else. People like to be critical of the Founding Fathers, but Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin...etc, they all had the same thoughts Anarchists have these days. They wanted maximum freedom as well. But they needed an apparatus to oppose oppression, which means they created the US government, which was deemed a "necessary evil".

I don't see how anything has changed since then, we still need an organized force to oppose oppression. This is government, and we must control it. Which is why we are in trouble these days.

Michigan11

08-18-2009, 07:46 AM

BoogerSnax

08-18-2009, 08:29 AM

check out the site: http://theobamaforum.com/
then get back with me on why you would do that.

and?

as ben franklin stated- "the government will reflect the virtues of its people"
I guess you have a lot of work ahead of you. get busy.

I've merely stated the facts.
The Juggernaut of Gov't will keep on doing what it does, no matter how many Appleseeds or Tea-Baggers there are.
If I were in your position, I'd spend every minute and dollar available, reconstituting the family farm as a redoubt. Because it's coming, and there's no stopping it.

Conza88

08-18-2009, 08:46 AM

Well I believe that Anarchists are a bit out of touch. They expect a final victory and the end to the struggle for freedom. As long as this struggle persists there will always need to be organized force to oppose those who want to control others.

They may be out of touch, which is why there are no traditional socialists (anarchists) here. Only nonarchists / anarcho-capitalists / anti-monopolists / voluntaryists / Libertarians and the market is self correcting. Private Defense Agencies would be an ultimate check against eachother. Also see Machiavelli on this point. And no, not him The Prince, his The Discourses... the book no-one knows about, but where he actually wrote about Liberty and how to maintain it.

This force is government.

That is a non sequitur. Also use methodological individualism please. "Government" does not exist in objective, physical reality. There are only people in buildings, who live of the backs of productive workers.

So essentially, what you are saying is... There are bad people out there with guns. So to protect us from bad people with guns, we need to take all the guns away from people and give them to one group only. And then pray the bad people, don't gravitate and join the group with the MONOPOLY ON THE USE OF VIOLENCE OVER A GIVEN TERRITORY?

That's the plan for freedom? Ahhhhh-mayyyyy-zinnnnnng. :eek:

The best we can hope for is the most minimal government possible.
Utopian. Name me a government that throughout the history of the world has remained limited... Hahaha! :D

But don't be naive and believe the struggle for freedom will just end.
No naivety here. With a freedom in television and the internet never before seen, and on the radio... with no point in being in Washington to cater to special interests... the fourth estate takes a blow. Citizen journalism reigns. Insurance companies check companies for risks, make reports. Long term investment because there is no inflation. Private defense agencies check eachother out constantly. You know who watches the watchmen paradox? Yeah, the market solves it.

Who watches you? Your competition. And who do you watch? The competition. :cool:

The soviets thought socialism could work because they could creat the braindead and obedient "Socialist Man" and Amarchists think they can create the "Enlightened and principled man" neither is feasible. However that does not mean we stop fighting.

Well anarchists are also traditional socialists. They think the state protects private property! LMFAO! :eek: As for the nonarchists / anarcho-capitalists / libertarians here... they all acknowledge there are good and bad people. That the nature of man is to follow his self interest. And that there would be criminals, you can't alleviate that. It's better than having an institution of criminals though. No? :confused:

We can secure more freedom and hopefully get back to a minimal government. One that only defends our rights and nothing else.

Utopian. And how can you say the state defends our rights, when it must violate them to exist?

People like to be critical of the Founding Fathers, but Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin...etc, they all had the same thoughts Anarchists have these days. They wanted maximum freedom as well. But they needed an apparatus to oppose oppression, which means they created the US government, which was deemed a "necessary evil".

No. They had the Articles of Confederation. And there was a general consensus it needed a few alterations, but it was NOT to be replaced. It was a coup d'etat. See: Albert Jay Nock for starters. The delegates were meant to amend, not create a new Constitution. Wonder why it happened when Thomas Jefferson was out of the country? ;)

I don't see how anything has changed since then, we still need an organized force to oppose oppression. This is government, and we must control it. Which is why we are in trouble these days.

We the people are not the government. The proper class analysis is the RULERS vs the RULED. Parasites vs productive workers. Coercion vs freedom. Tyranny vs Liberty.

torchbearer

08-18-2009, 08:48 AM

I've merely stated the facts.
The Juggernaut of Gov't will keep on doing what it does, no matter how many Appleseeds or Tea-Baggers there are.
If I were in your position, I'd spend every minute and dollar available, reconstituting the family farm as a redoubt. Because it's coming, and there's no stopping it.

oh, well I already know that.
I'm already prepared, now I'm just doing the things that in a long-shot hope may keep this country from going into civil war.

acptulsa

08-18-2009, 08:50 AM

Utopian. Name me a government that throughout the history of the world has remained limited... Hahaha! :D

The remain limited far longer than they remain nothing. Since we're talking historical citations/practical applications here...

Conza88

08-18-2009, 08:54 AM

Nice.

Except when someone tries to chop his ear off and he uses violence to stop them, he is no longer a pacifist.

I believe he is justly allowed to defend his property (himself), yet he doesn't.

The Right to Self Defense (http://mises.org/story/2486)

tremendoustie

08-18-2009, 08:54 AM

You are right that Utoipia is impossible. Improvement, however, is.

Evil men, in a Libertarian society, would be kids in a Candy store. They would abuse every freedom, and use their money every chance they had to keep all competition down. I mean does anyone actually believe we would be better off with the Rockefellers still maintaining their massive monopoly?

This is where you go wrong. Government does not stop evil people, it enables them. The candy store is government, which attracts every power hungry and corrupt individual in the country. And government is, and has pretty much always been, in bed with big business.

Evil men would be thwarted most be true freedom, because they would have no power structures to take over, and no ready made tools to rule over their fellow man.

Conza88

08-18-2009, 08:57 AM

The remain limited far longer than they remain nothing. Since we're talking historical citations/practical applications here...

So they have never remained limited and have always ended up in tyranny? :)

acptulsa

08-18-2009, 09:00 AM

So they have never remained limited and have always ended up in tyranny. Thanks :)

Never and always are dangerous words. If nothing else, there are governments that didn't last long enough to become tyrannical.

To start with a small government in chains and hope the chains hold, or to start with nothing and hope no one can make something out of nothing. Hmmm... Well, either is sure better than the status quo. Isn't it?

Stary Hickory

08-18-2009, 10:33 AM

The remain limited far longer than they remain nothing. Since we're talking historical citations/practical applications here...

Yep, the whole problem resovles around mankind's tendency to resort to violence to get what it wants. We cannot eraddicate this from mankind totally. Man has become more reasonable over the centuries but we still have to account for those that will use force to get what they want.

If left un-opposed they will create a mafia government of their own. You can either try and create a small protective government with as many safeguards as possible or you can let unopposed mafia governments carve up the land. This is just a reality. Government is force....it's purpose is to exert that force for desired aims.

Make sure those aims are always the freedom of men, and we have a good government. The problem of human nature won't go away until their are no humans left ont he planet.

BoogerSnax

08-18-2009, 10:36 AM

oh, well I already know that.
I'm already prepared, now I'm just doing the things that in a long-shot hope may keep this country from going into civil war.

I respect that angle.
It's that I've watched too many friends spin their wheels <including some very active people in the LRP> to no end.

I try to give my advice to younger people that activism is all good and well. But anymore it does nothing more than make you a target, for either a database or a billy club. Telling them that the only real answer to, say, red-light cameras, is a scoped .22 rifle. All else is a dry-hump.

TinCanToNA

08-19-2009, 12:38 PM

Human action is an axiom. It is defined as purposeful behavior. Chosen ends, using chosen means. Individuals have different preferences, values etc. They are subjective. They must choose and their action correlates to their values. Which are ordinal. Well it's plain that you have no interest in intellectual discourse. Rather, you choose to continue to misuse language in a vain attempt to try to define things a certain way which are not what convention has agreed upon. Just this simple schism in the definition of "irrational" proves that point. Imagine, for a second, that you chose to type the word into an online dictionary, or use a modern printed version of a dictionary. You would realize that your causality and value judgment contentions have nothing to do with whether an action is rational or irrational.

Also, take the example I gave, where you get frustrated because you have poor rhetoric skills and choose to resort to violence. This is purely an act of irrationality, by definition. If you do not like the definition of irrational, saying it means something else on RPF will not change it.

Two last things; why are you so sure that you are the only one that knows what you are ignorant of, and why are you so sure that you know exactly what you are ignorant of?

Back to the original point:
"Libertarians" sometimes do fall into the same fatal fallacy of assuming a condition that does not exist. In the broadest sense, you did that as well when you assumed that you knew what the word "irrational" meant. More tightly defined, the assumption that there is some innate goodness has taken root in many arguments presented by people who claim to be libertarians. Whenever they present claims that any sort of altruism will be done under some system resembling an anarchy, they assume it. When you, Conza, assume that the market provides the check of "watching the watchmen" as you put it, you are making that fatal assumption. When people claiming to be libertarians think that there will ever be a sufficient check against the tendency towards violence, they are making that fatal assumption.

Conza88

08-19-2009, 08:25 PM

Well it's plain that you have no interest in intellectual discourse. Rather, you choose to continue to misuse language in a vain attempt to try to define things a certain way which are not what convention has agreed upon. Just this simple schism in the definition of "irrational" proves that point. Imagine, for a second, that you chose to type the word into an online dictionary, or use a modern printed version of a dictionary. You would realize that your causality and value judgment contentions have nothing to do with whether an action is rational or irrational.

Hahaha... when you know anything about Austrian Economics... give us a buzz.

Ron Paul would agree with me. He'd say you are a fool. (much nicer of course) ;)

Also, take the example I gave, where you get frustrated because you have poor rhetoric skills and choose to resort to violence. This is purely an act of irrationality, by definition. If you do not like the definition of irrational, saying it means something else on RPF will not change it.

Two last things; why are you so sure that you are the only one that knows what you are ignorant of, and why are you so sure that you know exactly what you are ignorant of?

Back to the original point:
"Libertarians" sometimes do fall into the same fatal fallacy of assuming a condition that does not exist.

No, they don't. No Austro-Libertarians anyway. If you want to call Milton Friedmanites monetarists, Libertarians etc.. then meh.

In the broadest sense, you did that as well when you assumed that you knew what the word "irrational" meant. More tightly defined, the assumption that there is some innate goodness has taken root in many arguments presented by people who claim to be libertarians.

I don't need to assume what it meant. I know what it means in the context it is being used. You haven't refuted the argument btw... still waiting. WHO IS assuming their is inate goodness? Listen jackass, everyone follows their self interest. Stop strawmanning.

Whenever they present claims that any sort of altruism will be done under some system resembling an anarchy, they assume it. When you, Conza, assume that the market provides the check of "watching the watchmen" as you put it, you are making that fatal assumption. When people claiming to be libertarians think that there will ever be a sufficient check against the tendency towards violence, they are making that fatal assumption.

Strawman. It is in those peoples self interest, to check their competition, to make sure rulers don't arise. Get with the program. :rolleyes:

NewEnd

08-19-2009, 10:48 PM

Make sure those aims are always the freedom of men, and we have a good government.

The problem is, it seems to me, no matter what, man will always find a way to turn a tool towards evil. That includes governments, religions, even charities. It will always be that they do their best to twist it to their own ends. Even the freest of governments eventually succumb to the desire for security and stability, and become police states.

I don't know. There simply is no solution to the evil of mankind, so I agree with you below:

The problem of human nature won't go away until their are no humans left ont he planet.

Volitzer

08-20-2009, 04:06 AM

There are degrees of libertarianism.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-4.62&soc=-4.56

Mini-Me

08-20-2009, 11:21 AM

Thanks. You reminded me of another funny thing about communists and Libertarians. They say the same thing!

A communist always insists that REAL communism has never had a chance to be tried. I am sure you have debated a communist or two in your life. Pretty soon, they are passing over the REALITIES of communism, of what REALLY happens, and are tellign you Stalin wasn't really communist, he was Stalinist. Pol Pot wasn't communist... and on and on.

Libertarians do the same thing. When people talk about flaws in the free market (flaws that usually are the result of corrupt humans), Libertarians are left saying, "but this isn't a free market, that wasn't a free market, there never really has been a free market!"
I think you're misunderstanding real reason why communist ideology fails, and because of that, you're missing an important distinction between the way communists and libertarians think. Communists believe a completely impossible thing: They believe that they can reliably change human nature to turn us all into mindless automatons. They think that with the right authoritarian indoctrination program, the vast majority of people can be made to reject all natural impulses towards self-preservation and act completely selflessly with only the good of the collective in mind.

As a consequence, communists believe they can design an economic and political system with complete disregard for actual human nature. Most importantly, they completely ignore the concept of moral hazard.

To give a small example of what happens when you design a system without regard for moral hazard: Already assuming their indoctrination program will work, communists blithely handwave away every warning about the obvious incentives for individual workers to be lazy and unproductive under communism (since they do not individually benefit from their own productivity or individually suffer for their own sloth). This natural and completely predictable problem of moral hazard drastically reduces the economic output of a communist workforce in practice.

To give a bigger example, communists think they can centralize all political and economic power without the evil ever seeking those positions of power. After all, collective ownership is completely impossible in a group of more than a few thousand (let alone a whole nation) without empowering a bureaucracy to manage it all and dictate how resources will be used. The larger the communist society is, the more distant this bureaucracy becomes and the more it resembles an oligarchy. There is no avoiding this, but communists paper it over with platitudes about everyone working solely for the benefit of the collective (due to their foolproof indoctrination program :rolleyes: ). The communist power structure is completely unable to handle ordinary human beings with ordinary human motives. Moreoever, once you introduce malignant narcissists and psychopaths (or even idiots) to the system, everything predictably falls apart, even on paper. Not only do psychopaths exist, but they don't just "happen" to land in positions of power over others. Rather, they're particularly attracted to positions of power, and they actively seek them in a way nobody else does...and since political power is necessarily totalitarian in a communist society, communism enables psychopaths to their fullest potential for evil. Barring complete revolution, there is no limit to the amount of violence and coercion a totalitarian government can commit.

Communists cry foul and say "true communism" has never been tried, but they're WRONG. When they say this, they really mean "communism with an ideal population of completely mindless drones has never been tried," but in the sense of the concrete power structure of the system, it HAS been tried, over and over and over, and it's failed every time for the same reasons. When you create a state with absolute authority over every person's life, it's an unbelievably stupid pipe dream to think that competent, or even benevolent, people can be perpetually counted on to maintain positions of power in that system and behave responsibly.* Beyond the problem of evil, communism becomes more and more economically unfeasible the larger it gets in scale. It's economically insane to think a cadre of supposed intellectuals can correctly guess at the needs and wants of a large-scale economy and work out the logistics. In contrast, the supply and demand-based price mechanism in the free market provides strong signals about exactly what goods/services are demanded (i.e. needed) and where (and how much/many), in the form of tangible incentives for meeting these needs and wants.

On the other hand, when libertarians say that a free market hasn't been tried, they're actually RIGHT. Unlike the communist power structure - i.e. the actual underlying system - the libertarian power structure has never been implemented. Pretty much every time anything goes "wrong" in the free market, it can be traced directly back to the market's natural - and predictable - reaction to some coercive (non-libertarian) government policy. In general, the closer we get to libertarianism, the better things get. There are exceptions of course, such as when we move towards libertarianism in certain policy areas in the wrong order. For instance:
Deregulating is a libertarian policy...but it would be disastrous to remove regulations on telecom monopolies before getting rid of their government-granted monopoly contracts and allowing time for competition to start up. However, this would be a failure of government-granted monopoly contracts (which the regulations merely "patched up")...NOT a failure of the free market, since those monopoly contracts obviously do not belong in a free market.
Deregulating is a libertarian policy...but it would be disastrous to remove reserve requirements on fractional reserve banks while legal tender laws, capital gains and sales taxes on precious metals, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, federally mandated and protected fractional reserve banking, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, regulations forcing banks to extend credit to bad bets, etc. still exist. However, this would be a failure of one particular libertarian policy mixing poorly with a slew of other coercive policies...NOT a failure of the libertarian policy itself.

Now, is it possible to maintain anarcho-capitalism without the power structure being corrupted and a single monolithic state emerging? Is it possible to maintain a minarchy without the power structure being continually extended in size and scope until it approaches totalitarianism?

Those are important questions, but those questions drive us to build better checks and balances into our power structures and institutions (centralized or not, though decentralization is a check/balance in itself). Whereas communists say that communist power structure would work if only the PEOPLE were different, most libertarians are much more intelligent from a systems design standpoint. Like all other totalitarian power structures, the communist power structure gives psychopaths (or mere idiots, at BEST) complete control over everyone's lives from the get-go. The closer you get to libertarianism and decentralization of power, the harder it is for any central authority to achieve that control.

That is the point. Probably the single most important lesson we can learn from human history is that centralized power - especially centralized coercive power - enables evil and leads to misery and suffering...especially as it becomes more and more centralized. No matter how much of a challenge it would be to maintain a libertarian society and keep a centralized authority from usurping all power for itself, these challenges still pale in comparison to the sheer masochism of trying to keep already-more-centralized systems under control, especially those which already have the complete infrastructure for tyranny from their inception (i.e. fascism, socialism, communism).

Perfect libertarianism may be nothing more than an ideal - an approachable but never reachable asymptote - but libertarians are not wide-eyed utopians. The fatal mistake everyone else makes is refusing the recognize or understand the immense and prohibitive dangers of ceding control over their lives to a centralized power. The derogatory connotations of the word "utopians" belong to people who naively think centralized totalitarian power may turn out okay, "as long as we put it in the right hands." :rolleyes: Libertarians recognize the folly and built-in danger of such power structures and advocate moving as far away from them as possible. If we can get enough people to fully understand the dangers of centralized power and the nature and prevalence of narcissism and psychopathy (and pass on that knowledge to their children, etc.), we MIGHT have a chance at perpetually containing the problem of evil...but without getting people to understand these things, you're pretty much right that we have no hope of ending the cycle of freedom and tyranny. Personally, I'd like to think it's possible to make this stuff "common knowledge," like 2+2=4 and such...human civilization is still pretty young after all, and it's not like history's been repeating for hundreds of millions of years or something (to the best of our knowledge ;)).

There are other institutions which can obtain power over people's lives, as you've mentioned, like religions and corporations (which wouldn't have personhood or limited shareholder liability anyway if not for state mandate, remember). However, nobody recognizes these institutions as legitimately possessing the powers of violence and coercion. Because of that, when evil or incompetent people take over these institutions, the "entry barriers" for competing against them and offering alternatives - in both the market sense and the mindshare sense - are orders of magnitude lower than competing against an out-of-control state...and the more coercive powers you grant to the state, the more they will be abused and the quicker it will spiral out of control.

*This applies to anarcho-communism as well, which is essentially an oxymoron if such a system is meant to be enforced over any area larger than a small community. Barring a direct democracy making literally every decision about everything, a smaller group must manage the communally owned resources in a communist society (and if it's a communist society, everything MUST be "communally owned, or else;" otherwise, people will be free to be non-communists, and most people probably will...and it will no longer be a communist society). In order to force "communal ownership" of every resource [or even every resource of a certain type] within a given spatial area, you cannot permit people to acquire similar private property of their own by any means. This means that you must enforce communism with coercive/violent force. Once the singular authority managing the use and access of resources obtains the power of coercive force and violence, it becomes the state, regardless of euphemisms that say otherwise.

ARealConservative

08-20-2009, 11:45 AM

Property owners can legitimately bar insane people and young children, in fact whoever they want from walking around with whatever they want on their property.

I’m fairly certain I’m wasting my time on you because I don’t believe you have the ability to think deep enough to understand the points I’m raising.

Fortunately, others do. So although this will go right over your head, some others will likely get something from it.

Your entire response to me is based on the ridiculous notion that shared property doesn’t exist. The problem is, it does exist, and it will continue to exist. So your political solutions need to accept this realty.

We have shared roads. We have shared schools. We have laws that prevent insane people from possessing guns in these shared spaces. We ultimately need to come up with arbitrary lines in the sand that determine who is insane and who isn’t. Arbitrary lines to determine what is child abuse and what isn’t. The libertarian position is unable to handle these situations because they have this black and white unrealistic world where nobody initiates force against another person. This is why they always have and always will remain a minority irrelevant position in the political landscape.

When we rule a person is insane and unfit to act on their rights, we are initiating force against them. Plain and simple. And who determines the sanity of people? Other people do. Professionals give their opinion, then judges and jurors weigh in on it.

Freedom to molest their child? Sorry we're not all Josh_la / Optatrons. The Libertines mistake freedom from, with the power to. They believe they should be free to do anything, but really what they want is the power to violate other peoples natural rand inalienable rights. They are scum.

Nobody is advocating the freedom to molest anyone... so take down your strawman, it just failed.

This is not a strawman at all. You clearly don’t even understand the meaning of the term.

There is a fine (arbitrary) line in determining what constitutes a parents freedom to raise their kids in the manner they think is ok, and in child abuse. Libertarians are unable to determine this line in the sand without being complete hypocrites.

An adult can have sexual relations with his 18 year old child, but not his 17 year old child. They can spank a 12 year old, but can’t pistol whip them. In all these cases we are allowing a collective (majority of people) to decide what line is too far. We are drawing a line in the sand and using force to prevent people from crossing that line.

You idiot libertarian puritans have no solution. You go off about how private property must be protected, blablabla. You are a joke conza. A simpleton running around like you have a clue when all you do is parrot idiotic libertarian purist rhetoric that you read elsewhere.

Parents don't "own" their children. They have guardianship rights. They violate them, when they violate the child's free will. Furthermore the child can run away from home legitimately at any point if they don't like the house rules.

Pure idiocy. If a child runs away and is found, he is returned. He can petition the courts to have guardianship removed, but that is a mixed bag.

But you wouldn't know jack shit about that would you? :rolleyes: Would love to know what you've read on the subject. i.e explicitly related to those topics you just mentioned.

And here is the problem. Much of what I think is not being parroted from some website/book/etc dealing with the issue. Your problem is you spend too much time reading what others think and too less using your own reason to determine the merits of it, likely because your capacity is limited to parroting what others think.

Mini-Me

08-20-2009, 12:05 PM

I’m fairly certain I’m wasting my time on you because I don’t believe you have the ability to think deep enough to understand the points I’m raising.

Fortunately, others do. So although this will go right over your head, some others will likely get something from it.

Your entire response to me is based on the ridiculous notion that shared property doesn’t exist. The problem is, it does exist, and it will continue to exist. So your political solutions need to accept this realty.

We have shared roads. We have shared schools. We have laws that prevent insane people from possessing guns in these shared spaces. We ultimately need to come up with arbitrary lines in the sand that determine who is insane and who isn’t. Arbitrary lines to determine what is child abuse and what isn’t. The libertarian position is unable to handle these situations because they have this black and white unrealistic world where nobody initiates force against another person. This is why they always have and always will remain a minority irrelevant position in the political landscape.

When we rule a person is insane and unfit to act on their rights, we are initiating force against them. Plain and simple. And who determines the sanity of people? Other people do. Professionals give their opinion, then judges and jurors weigh in on it.

This is not a strawman at all. You clearly don’t even understand the meaning of the term.

There is a fine (arbitrary) line in determining what constitutes a parents freedom to raise their kids in the manner they think is ok, and in child abuse. Libertarians are unable to determine this line in the sand without being complete hypocrites.

An adult can have sexual relations with his 18 year old child, but not his 17 year old child. They can spank a 12 year old, but can’t pistol whip them. In all these cases we are allowing a collective (majority of people) to decide what line is too far. We are drawing a line in the sand and using force to prevent people from crossing that line.

You idiot libertarian puritans have no solution. You go off about how private property must be protected, blablabla. You are a joke conza. A simpleton running around like you have a clue when all you do is parrot idiotic libertarian purist rhetoric that you read elsewhere.
I just wanted to make a quick comment: I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, but I'm strongly libertarian, and I think you're making a bit of an unfair assumption when you talk about the inability of libertarians to handle arbitrary lines in the sand.

On one hand, I disagree with the idea of some legislative body having the authority to draw these lines, because whenever we give them that authority, they continue to draw more and more ridiculous lines that increase the power of the state.

On the other hand, I totally agree with you that someone needs to draw these lines, or we will be unable to differentiate people exercising their liberty from people inflicting violence on each other. However, you do not have to have arbitrary lines codified by legislators into one-size fits all laws in order to deal with these situations: Just like juries decide guilt or innocence based on the facts (which cannot be guaranteed to deliver perfect justice, but we do our best), they can also differentiate reasonable parenting from abuse. Similarly, juries can differentiate someone pushing someone out of the way of an oncoming car from criminal assault. Anyone should be able to bring such cases to a court...but they should have to put their money where their mouth is. If someone makes a frivolous case against a parent (as determined by the jury), the person who made the frivolous case should pay the price, including court costs, attorney fees, and lost salary.

I recognize that arbitrary lines must be drawn...but I believe that they should be drawn on a case-by-case basis with the non-aggression axiom as the rule-of-thumb. That way, if someone makes a mistake differentiating aggression from non-aggression in the minds of most people, that decision only affects a single case (rather than everyone), and it can still perhaps be appealed. I believe this solution is FAR superior to giving legislators carte blanche to draw all of our lines for us, carve them into stone, and write arbitrary laws detailing these decisions that are ten thousand pages in length...or giving CPS the power to kidnap your children without a trial if one of its social workers disagrees with your parenting style or needs to meet their "quota."

In short: When it comes to distinguishing aggression from non-aggression, I think the "line-drawing power" should belong to individual juries, not a legislature.

Pure idiocy. If a child runs away and is found, he is returned. He can petition the courts to have guardianship removed, but that is a mixed bag.

And here is the problem. Much of what I think is not being parroted from some website/book/etc dealing with the issue. Your problem is you spend too much time reading what others think and too less using your own reason to determine the merits of it, likely because your capacity is limited to parroting what others think.

acptulsa

08-20-2009, 12:11 PM

I just wanted to make a quick comment: I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, but I'm strongly libertarian, and I think you're making a bit of an unfair assumption when you talk about the inability of libertarians to handle arbitrary lines in the sand.

Well, in his defense, eventually he remembered to change that to 'purist libertarian' and did begin to make more sense at that point.

ARealConservative

08-20-2009, 12:24 PM

Well, in his defense, eventually he remembered to change that to 'purist libertarian' and did begin to make more sense at that point.

I didn’t eventually remember it. Everyone here has a strong libertarian lean, some more then others.

I’m responding to what I consider a puritan with a ridiculously misguided ego.

powerofreason

08-20-2009, 12:38 PM

This can't be a serious thread. People who believe in government are utopians. And thats about it.

ARealConservative

08-20-2009, 12:48 PM

This can't be a serious thread. People who believe in government are utopians. And thats about it.

Right.

As opposed to the people that think magical unicorns will sprinkle magic fairy dust on us all and we will all overthrow the government and not replace it with a similar monopoly

Those people aren’t Utopian by nature at all. :rolleyes:

powerofreason

08-20-2009, 12:57 PM

Right.

As opposed to the people that think magical unicorns will sprinkle magic fairy dust on us all and we will all overthrow the government and not replace it with a similar monopoly

Those people aren’t Utopian by nature at all. :rolleyes:

Maybe you should read my sig. The market works government doesn't. It really is as simple as that.

ARealConservative

08-20-2009, 12:59 PM

Maybe you should read my sig. The market works government doesn't. It really is as simple as that.

Maybe you should read the definition of utopia.

Governments have always existed and always will. Human nature would need to seriously evolve for this to change, hence you are seeking a utopia.

acptulsa

08-20-2009, 01:02 PM

Maybe you should read my sig. The market works government doesn't. It really is as simple as that.

Yes it is as simple as that. It's impossible for small governments to remain small, and no government is smaller than none.

So, you try to restrain the psychos by giving them a rule of law that thwarts their attempts to rule you via unjust laws, or you throw any attempt at restraint to the curbs and let the psychos have their way. Simple as that.

Your method of keeping government small is exactly the same as ours, but doesn't go as far. It's just moral standards against tyranny with nothing but public pressure to back it up. Refute if you can.

Governments aren't like kittens. When you kill them, that's no guarantee they'll stay dead. Governments aren't even like weeds. Pulling them up by the roots is no guarantee you won't have another tomorrow.

powerofreason

08-20-2009, 01:14 PM

Maybe you should read the definition of utopia.

Governments have always existed and always will. Human nature would need to seriously evolve for this to change, hence you are seeking a utopia.

Governments have not always existed. Once again, check the sig. There has been peaceful anarchy in America. The Wild West was virtually anarcho-capitalist. Somalia has benefitted from anarchy dramatically in recent years. And there are many historical examples of peaceful, functioning anarchies. Brought down only by foreign powers, not from within.

acptulsa

08-20-2009, 01:17 PM

Brought down only by foreign powers, not from within.

The Wild West wasn't conquered, unless you're talking about the natives. It isn't the same as it was because of free will. The residents could have resisted statehood time and again, and did just the opposite every time.

ARealConservative

08-20-2009, 01:17 PM

Governments have not always existed. Once again, check the sig. There has been peaceful anarchy in America. The Wild West was virtually anarcho-capitalist. Somalia has benefitted from anarchy dramatically in recent years. And there are many historical examples of peaceful, functioning anarchies. Brought down only by foreign powers, not from within.

You point to a small window where either civil war occurs, preventing a monopoly of power to form, or in the case of our history of massive resettlement, where a monopoly of power had not had the opportunity to form.

In all your examples, this was short lived because it is not in human nature to allow such a political climate to survive.

So yes, you are arguing in favor of utopia. Plain and simple.

Bucjason

08-20-2009, 01:18 PM

SOlving disputes by shoot-outs at the OK Corral ( wild west) and having towns run by Warlords and Pirates ( Somalia) is not exactly peaceful Utpoia , IMO.

ARealConservative

08-20-2009, 01:21 PM

SOlving disputes by shoot-outs at the OK Corral ( wild west) and having towns run by Warlords and Pirates ( Somalia) is not exactly peaceful Utpoia , IMO.

the wild west was not wild though. Don't let Hollywood fool you

CCTelander

08-20-2009, 01:48 PM

Right.

As opposed to the people that think magical unicorns will sprinkle magic fairy dust on us all and we will all overthrow the government and not replace it with a similar monopoly

Those people aren’t Utopian by nature at all. :rolleyes:

Personally, I'm getting tired of seeing this flagrantly disingenuous (and that's being charitable. A more accurate description might well be mendacious) characterization (in bold) of an-caps over and over again.

But, rather than waste my time debunking it, since that's been done repeatedly by others, I'll bring the focus back where I think it ought to be, to moral principle.

A person OWNS themselves, their body, and, by extension all the fruits produced by same. Period.

NOBODY has the "right," under any circumstances, to initiate force against that person either personally or by proxy. Period.

Those you condescendingly deride as "purists" or "utopians" are guilty of nothing more controversial than adhering steadfastly to these 2 unarguably moral principles.

Moral principles are meaningless unless they apply universally. Choosing to adhere to them, even when it may be inconvenient, or difficult, or even appear almost impossible has a name. It's called integrity.

Those who choose to do so, in spite of any obstacles placed in their path, have it.

Those who choose not to...

ARealConservative

08-20-2009, 01:55 PM

Personally, I'm getting tired of seeing this flagrantly disingenuous (and that's being charitable. A more accurate description might well be mendacious) characterization (in bold) of an-caps over and over again.

But, rather than waste my time debunking it, since that's been done repeatedly by others, I'll bring the focus back where I think it ought to be, to moral principle.

A person OWNS themselves, their body, and, by extension all the fruits produced by same. Period.

NOBODY has the "right," under any circumstances, to initiate force against that person either personally or by proxy. Period.

Those you condescendingly deride as "purists" or "utopians" are guilty of nothing more controversial than adhering steadfastly to these 2 unarguably moral principles.

Moral principles are meaningless unless they apply universally. Choosing to adhere to them, even when it may be inconvenient, or difficult, or even appear almost impossible has a name. It's called integrity.

Those who choose to do so, in spite of any obstacles placed in their path, have it.

Those who choose not to...

Another utopian purist climbs up on his soap box and trys to preach sophomoric simplicity to those of us with a greater understanding of the nature of man. Oh joy!

I may not have the right to send my child to the corner in a time out, but that is how society is going to remain for the rest of our lives.

You can either try to find a workable solution that sometimes involves the initiation of force, or you can remain an irrelevant wallflower.

acptulsa

08-20-2009, 02:00 PM

Those you condescendingly deride as "purists" or "utopians" are guilty of nothing more controversial than adhering steadfastly to these 2 unarguably moral principles.

Well, I know a few that are also guilty of spamming, but as a general rule I agree wholeheartedly.

Moral principles are meaningless unless they apply universally. Choosing to adhere to them, even when it may be inconvenient, or difficult, or even appear almost impossible has a name. It's called integrity.

Reality dictates that apples are apples and oranges are oranges. Corporations are considered people under the law these days, but they don't use those 'rights' the same way and they don't derive the same benefit as people do.

These attempts to make the lives of millions childishly simple are appealing, but still don't inspire faith in me. If we're going to put this much effort into securing our freedom, we want it to last a minute--and we want something more pleasant than Somalia when we're done.

CCTelander

08-20-2009, 02:00 PM

Another utopian purist climbs up on his soap box and trys to preach sophomoric simplicity to those of us with a greater understanding of the nature of man. Oh joy!

I may not have the right to send my child to the corner in a time out, but that is how society is going to remain for the rest of our lives.

You can either try to find a workable solution that sometimes involves the initiation of force, or you can remain an irrelevant wallflower.

Is that the best you've got?

By all means, enlighten me as to your own proposed "workable solution."

Since I'm clearly such a naive, benighted soul, I'm sure this will prove edifying.

ARealConservative

08-20-2009, 02:05 PM

Is that the best you've got?

By all means, enlighten me as to your own proposed "workable solution."

Since I'm clearly such a naive, benighted soul, I'm sure this will prove edifying.

No, that is not the best I got.

But since you willingly chose to ignore the condescending behavior of conza and target my reply to his smug (and idiotic) schtick, that’s the best you get (and deserve)

powerofreason

08-20-2009, 02:07 PM

The Wild West wasn't conquered, unless you're talking about the natives. It isn't the same as it was because of free will. The residents could have resisted statehood time and again, and did just the opposite every time.

Government agents imposed themselves on the people. The people didn't impose a government. Far away bureaucrats did. It was conquered in a sense. It just took a long time. Slowly but surely.

acptulsa

08-20-2009, 02:11 PM

Government agents imposed themselves on the people. The people didn't impose a government. Far away bureaucrats did. It was conquered in a sense. It just took a long time. Slowly but surely.

When the people of a territory vote themselves statehood, they're volunteering for more government.

NewEnd

08-20-2009, 02:20 PM

Government agents imposed themselves on the people. The people didn't impose a government. Far away bureaucrats did. It was conquered in a sense. It just took a long time. Slowly but surely.

So anarchy, or anarcho-capitalism failed to muster a defense against foreign invasions.

Why?

Because weak forms of government get swallowed up by more forceful forms.

Mini-Me

08-20-2009, 02:41 PM

So anarchy, or anarcho-capitalism failed to muster a defense against foreign invasions.

Why?

Because weak forms of government get swallowed up by more forceful forms.

...or particularly small territories are easily conquered by large empires. You know, it could be that too.

Of course, I'm not necessarily saying the US was a huge empire back when the "Wild West" came under its jurisdiction, but my point is that you're oversimplifying things. The size and power of the conquerers vs. the size and power of the conquered factors into the equation as well...and it's probably a much more significant factor than form of government.

CCTelander

08-20-2009, 03:28 PM

Well, I know a few that are also guilty of spamming, but as a general rule I agree wholeheartedly.

Glad to see we have some common ground.

Reality dictates that apples are apples and oranges are oranges. Corporations are considered people under the law these days, but they don't use those 'rights' the same way and they don't derive the same benefit as people do.

I'm not sure I understand what you're aiming at here. How do you feel that corporations figure in to the general discussion?

You do realize that in a stateless society there wouldn't BE any corporations, at least not as we know them, don't you? Limited liability and artificial personhood exist only by state edict. No state = no limited liability or artificial personhood.

These attempts to make the lives of millions childishly simple are appealing, but still don't inspire faith in me. If we're going to put this much effort into securing our freedom, we want it to last a minute--and we want something more pleasant than Somalia when we're done.

I disagree that anyone is attempting "to make the lives of millions childishly simple." But I do understand where you're coming from. In fact, I used to feel pretty much the same way.

I was basically raised in the so-called "freedom movement." My dad was a chapter leader for the John Birch Society when I was a kid, in the 1960s. Several meetings a month at our house, every month.

Most of my life, due to those kinds of influences, I'd been a strict constitutionalist and advocate of "limited constitutional government."

Over the years I've invested my own time and money in studying such topics as history, law (particularly constitutional law), economics, and more recently, philosophy.

Which is where the "problems" began. When one studies any of those subjects in greater depth than the average liberty advocate seems to have, one finds oneself running into a LOT of contradictions in their own belief system, as long as you're doing it with a relatively open mind, and in the hope of finding something that at least resembles "truth."

Like most people, I steadfastly resisted the implications of those discoveries for years, because to acknowledge them meant that my whole worldview had to change significantly. Recognizing the "truth" would also have meant that most of what I'd been doing so far was pretty much useless, and I didn't see, at the time, what COULD be done other than the usual political activism.

It wasn't until much later that I realized a couple of things that helped change my mind.

The first is that any argument that can be used against the establishment of a stateless society applies equally as well against the establishment of any form of minarchist/constitutionalist/limited government. In fact, in many cases those arguments apply even more so to the latter. After all, you're purposely establishing a power structure that those seeking to do evil can use to accomplish their ends, and you're maximizing their return if they manage to succeed.

It provides a HUGE incentive for EXACTLY what you don't want.

Secondly, the basic challenges that need to be overcome in order to establish a successful stateless society are EXACTLY THE SAME as those you need to overcome to establish a successful minarchist/constitutionalist society.

But, once again, in the case of a "limited" government, even more so.

In both cases you absolutely need to educate a certain percentage of people, and persuade them to change their pre-existing worldviews in accordance with that education. But in the case of "limited" government, they have to continue that education process basically forever, or they'll have no hope at all of keeping it "limited." (Just for the record, I don't believe that government CAN be kept "limited," but for the sake of this discussion I'll assume it's at least possible.)

In both cases you're asking people to accept full responsibility for their own lives and actions, to become self-sufficient to some reasonable extent. But in the case of "limited" government you're also demanding that they accept responsibilty for OTHER PEOPLE as well, namely those they've placed in positions of political power.

Once I realized these two facts (along with others I won't mention now), there was no rational reason to choose the IMMORAL position over the clearly and unarguably moral one.

In spite of the length of this post, this is a very brief and simplified summary of my thinking process at the time. I mention it mainly to show that I'm definitely not some doe eyed idealist kid who just came to this stuff recently. Where I'm at now is the result of a lifetime of study and crtical thinking.

Quite frankly, I don't expect anything I, or anyone else for that matter, say to change your mind. I fully realize that I CAN'T change your mind. Only YOU can do that.

All I ask is that you try to look at things as objectively as is possible for we humans, and try not to let your conclusions be colored by pre-existing belief systems that may not be appropriate.

Lastly, to paraphrase from your post, if we're going to put this much effort into securing our freedom, we certainly don't want our grandchildren, or great grandchildren to have to go through this same Hell again in another 200 years, at least *I* don't. Yet, it's almost a certainty that that IS what will happen if we squander our current opportunity by establishing (or re-establishing) some form of coercive government.

I say take the moral "high road."

CCTelander

08-20-2009, 03:36 PM

No, that is not the best I got.

But since you willingly chose to ignore the condescending behavior of conza and target my reply to his smug (and idiotic) schtick, that’s the best you get (and deserve)

Quite the contray, I'm perfectly willing to agree that conza has a tendency to use a sledgehammer, when in most cases an approach with a little more finesse would be better. I'm even willing to agree that he and other an-caps do tend to be a bit condescending at times, maybe even frequently.

How does that, in any way, render your doing the same legitimate?

In any event, it's totally irrelevant. It does absolutely nothing to address the points at hand.

By all means, respond in kind if you feel it necessary. We all do that from time to time.

But don't kid yourself that you've accomplished anything more than merely defending your own pride.

Now, if you'd actually like to address the moral issues involved in some way other than merely claiming that it's too difficult or inconvenient to bother with moral principles, I'll be happy to listen and discuss it further.

Live_Free_Or_Die

08-20-2009, 06:43 PM

I’m fairly certain I’m wasting my time on you because I don’t believe you have the ability to think deep enough to understand the points I’m raising.

Fortunately, others do. So although this will go right over your head, some others will likely get something from it.

Your entire response to me is based on the ridiculous notion that shared property doesn’t exist. The problem is, it does exist, and it will continue to exist. So your political solutions need to accept this realty.

We have shared roads. We have shared schools. We have laws that prevent insane people from possessing guns in these shared spaces. We ultimately need to come up with arbitrary lines in the sand that determine who is insane and who isn’t. Arbitrary lines to determine what is child abuse and what isn’t. The libertarian position is unable to handle these situations because they have this black and white unrealistic world where nobody initiates force against another person. This is why they always have and always will remain a minority irrelevant position in the political landscape.

When we rule a person is insane and unfit to act on their rights, we are initiating force against them. Plain and simple. And who determines the sanity of people? Other people do. Professionals give their opinion, then judges and jurors weigh in on it.

This is not a strawman at all. You clearly don’t even understand the meaning of the term.

There is a fine (arbitrary) line in determining what constitutes a parents freedom to raise their kids in the manner they think is ok, and in child abuse. Libertarians are unable to determine this line in the sand without being complete hypocrites.

An adult can have sexual relations with his 18 year old child, but not his 17 year old child. They can spank a 12 year old, but can’t pistol whip them. In all these cases we are allowing a collective (majority of people) to decide what line is too far. We are drawing a line in the sand and using force to prevent people from crossing that line.

You idiot libertarian puritans have no solution. You go off about how private property must be protected, blablabla. You are a joke conza. A simpleton running around like you have a clue when all you do is parrot idiotic libertarian purist rhetoric that you read elsewhere.

Pure idiocy. If a child runs away and is found, he is returned. He can petition the courts to have guardianship removed, but that is a mixed bag.

And here is the problem. Much of what I think is not being parroted from some website/book/etc dealing with the issue. Your problem is you spend too much time reading what others think and too less using your own reason to determine the merits of it, likely because your capacity is limited to parroting what others think.

This topic is not my forte, nor am I read on it but I did want to heat up a few braincells to address this comment:

I will start with what I believe to be a few empirical facts:

1. People by human nature or human design (depending on your perspective) are free to act. Regardless of environment and circumstance people are always free to act limited only by their means. Freedom to act and life are inseparable. Even an incarcerated person is free to act albeit with limited means.

2. Since people are free to act, life itself is a risk. Help may or may not be available in a time of personal crisis. An individual who desires to live can only rely upon the fact that they will need to provide for their own safety and security. To believe anything or anyone other than yourself can best make you safe is a delusion.

The issue I have with your shared property view and insanity remark are no matter how hard you try to limit the means of people they will always be free to act. I feel your comments defy self evident truths. I believe human history illustrates drawing a bunch of arbitrary lines in the sand in an effort to limit peoples means to control human behavior using force is a system that does not bring about or have the potential to bring about the most good.

I am also concerned with the lines you want to draw in the sand because most people who advocate arbitrary lines also desire to criminalize risk when no property damage or personal injury has occurred.

acptulsa

08-21-2009, 07:23 AM

In both cases you absolutely need to educate a certain percentage of people, and persuade them to change their pre-existing worldviews in accordance with that education. But in the case of "limited" government, they have to continue that education process basically forever, or they'll have no hope at all of keeping it "limited." (Just for the record, I don't believe that government CAN be kept "limited," but for the sake of this discussion I'll assume it's at least possible.)

In both cases you're asking people to accept full responsibility for their own lives and actions, to become self-sufficient to some reasonable extent. But in the case of "limited" government you're also demanding that they accept responsibilty for OTHER PEOPLE as well, namely those they've placed in positions of political power.

I understand perfectly and more than sympathize. Thing is, unless we're all to become mountain men living like hermits, there's no escaping the 'education forever' necessity and there's no escaping taking some form of responsibility for, or at least being tied to, other people (whether you call them politicians or not).

So much of what we want is exactly the same, and the challenges we face are the challenges we face.

I really don't see how an anarcho-capitalist society can work on a large scale--at least not yet. Now, on a small scale, city or county wide, I think it would be a magnificent experiment and I'd be there to try. And I'd love to thwack the fedgov in the nose with a rolled up Louisville Slugger and get it to keep that nose to itself. That would give a fledgling voluntary society a nice umbrella of protection so it could have a chance to work out other potential problems. I like the idea.

But rather than yelling that government is automatically evil, it would probably form a more durable foundation for that society to admit that, like everything mankind makes, government is what you make it. The worst thing about it by far is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Like motorcycles, oxy-acetaline torches, guns and nuclear power government ain't no toy. But shouting 'evil' doesn't help keep the conversation rational. I think such a little society would have a better chance of thriving if everyone goes into it with an attitude of 'let's see if we have outgrown the need for government yet'.

I say take the moral "high road."

I think we both do this. I think we just have different views of how far the envelope can be pushed without creating chaos. I'm not one who considers creating chaos out of order a moral act. ;)

Conza88

08-21-2009, 07:56 AM

So anarchy, or anarcho-capitalism failed to muster a defense against foreign invasions.

Why?

Because weak forms of government get swallowed up by more forceful forms.

Do you have ANY idea how long and how much effort it took for the English to subdue the Celtic Irish?

Any idea at all?

How about you go find out aye champ.

ARealConservative

08-21-2009, 09:57 AM

Quite the contray, I'm perfectly willing to agree that conza has a tendency to use a sledgehammer, when in most cases an approach with a little more finesse would be better. I'm even willing to agree that he and other an-caps do tend to be a bit condescending at times, maybe even frequently.

How does that, in any way, render your doing the same legitimate?

In any event, it's totally irrelevant. It does absolutely nothing to address the points at hand.

By all means, respond in kind if you feel it necessary. We all do that from time to time.

But don't kid yourself that you've accomplished anything more than merely defending your own pride.

This has nothing to do with pride. I don’t hold enough esteem for ancaps to allow their sophomoric arrogance to impact my pride in the least.

I took a tank to a sledgehammer. I don’t seek out an-caps and point out the fallacy in their beliefs, but when they come around all smug and self important, I have no problem yanking the rug out from under their views

Now, if you'd actually like to address the moral issues involved in some way other than merely claiming that it's too difficult or inconvenient to bother with moral principles, I'll be happy to listen and discuss it further.

Moral principles aren’t relevant when discussing “workable solutions”, because mankind can’t agree with a single set of such principles. If they did, Karl Marx’s view of a non state might just be what we see come to pass as anarchy. It’s all utopian fantasy though.

I gave you an example – putting my kid in the corner for timeout. Maybe all he did was flip me the bird – hey that is totally in his right, but I’m not going to allow it to happen without recourse. I initiated force against him. The majority of mankind has no problems with me doing so. Maybe the majority of us are simply barbarians, but if that is the case, you better come up with a political solution to deal with us barbarians who form the vast majority of mankind.

tremendoustie

08-21-2009, 10:04 AM

Moral principles aren’t relevant when discussing “workable solutions”, because mankind can’t agree with a single set of such principles. If they did, Karl Marx’s view of a non state might just be what we see come to pass as anarchy. It’s all utopian fantasy though.

Moral principles are always relevant when determining what to believe and support. Popular opinion has nothing to do with it. A good man stands against slavery, for example, even if the majority supports it.

I gave you an example – putting my kid in the corner for timeout. Maybe all he did was flip me the bird – hey that is totally in his right, but I’m not going to allow it to happen without recourse. I initiated force against him. The majority of mankind has no problems with me doing so. Maybe the majority of us are simply barbarians, but if that is the case, you better come up with a political solution to deal with us barbarians who form the vast majority of mankind.

You own your house, and if your kid wants to live there, he has to obey your rules. He could walk out the front door any time he wants. You have not violated his rights in this case.

tremendoustie

08-21-2009, 10:07 AM

When the people of a territory vote themselves statehood, they're volunteering for more government.

What about the minority, which never consented? What about those not yet born, who also never consented? What about those not permitted to vote?

The majority has no more right to control the lives and finances of the minority than two thugs have the right to mug one victim in an ally.

acptulsa

08-21-2009, 10:23 AM

What about the minority, which never consented? What about those not yet born, who also never consented? What about those not permitted to vote?

The majority has no more right to control the lives and finances of the minority than two thugs have the right to mug one victim in an ally.

Well, my point was that people have been known to volunteer for more government. Not that I understand the impulse, because I don't.

Not to belittle your tricky questions or anything. I think there are times when a majority must be allowed to get their way, but I am disgusted at how many liberties the majority will take with this. 'Tis a pity we don't all have enough respect for each other to say, no, I won't support this legislation because whether or not you choose to do that is none of the government's business, and none of my business. This garbage of using government benefits as an excuse to regulate personal behavior because someone might hurt themselves and so cost the taxpayers money seems to me like a recipe for escalation into tyranny.

But those psychos are nothing if not good salesmen. And, of course, there are elements in society who will do what they can get away with. I saw a black kid get hit by a car (well, not that young, and no he wasn't seriously hurt--not so bright maybe but good, quick reflexes and minimized damage). It was his fault and he knew it. He darted out from in front of a bus without pausing to look. At first, he was waving the driver away, but the driver knew better in this day and age--she stayed until the police came. He did send away the ambulance. But the whole time he was taking responsibility for his actions and refusing to pretend he was hurt worse than he was, there were people in the crowd carrying on about how they'd be playing hurt and going for the hospital stay, the drugs, and the payoff check. They didn't seem to care whose fault it was--responsibility was irrelevant.

Don't mean to be a downer. Humanity has made great strides. Gets better all the time. But I still have some trouble having an abiding faith in humanity. There may yet be too many 'bad guys' out there to leave everything to posses of volunteers. Though I'd probably take my chances in a voluntaryist community anyway, given the chance.

It would work on John Galt's island. Wish I could land a job there. I'd like to work on John Galt's island.

ARealConservative

08-21-2009, 10:23 AM

You own your house, and if your kid wants to live there, he has to obey your rules. He could walk out the front door any time he wants. You have not violated his rights in this case.

No, a 5 year old kid can’t walk out anytime he wants to.

I’ll initiate force to stop him, and the world will side with me while an caps and their universal morality sits on the sideline irrelevant

tremendoustie

08-21-2009, 11:32 AM

No, a 5 year old kid can’t walk out anytime he wants to.

I’ll initiate force to stop him, and the world will side with me while an caps and their universal morality sits on the sideline irrelevant

He could walk out, but he doesn't because he loves you, and because he knows he can't provide for himself, and would be far worse off without you.

I also think that children do not have the full rights of adults -- to an extent, he is your responsibility -- property if you like, although he still maintains certain rights -- for example, you cannot abuse him.

There is a big difference between telling your own five year old to sit in the corner, and throwing a full adult in a cage because he does not do what you say, or threatening to do so in order to extract money from him. The government is not mommy, and we are not its children, nor does it own the country, as you own your house.

Live_Free_Or_Die

08-21-2009, 03:22 PM

But I still have some trouble having an abiding faith in humanity.

The leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. is automobile accidents.

Do you drive?

Thesemindz

08-26-2009, 07:06 PM

I gave you an example – putting my kid in the corner for timeout. Maybe all he did was flip me the bird – hey that is totally in his right, but I’m not going to allow it to happen without recourse. I initiated force against him. The majority of mankind has no problems with me doing so. Maybe the majority of us are simply barbarians, but if that is the case, you better come up with a political solution to deal with us barbarians who form the vast majority of mankind.

I'm curious ARC. What exactly is the problem with your son flipping you the bird?

-Rob

NH4RonPaul

08-26-2009, 07:33 PM

It has only been in the past few months I have come to the realization that Libertarianism is a pipe dream, because it shares the same fatal flaw as communism.

Yeah and that is called OPEN BORDERS! :D

Thesemindz

08-26-2009, 07:39 PM

Yeah and that is called OPEN BORDERS! :D

I'm curious NH4RP, what exactly is the problem with "open borders?"

-Rob

NH4RonPaul

08-26-2009, 07:43 PM

I'm curious NH4RP, what exactly is the problem with "open borders?"

-Rob
OH Lord, this just proves my point about you people.

What do you think the world-government elitists want? Open borders.. because that is how the sovereignty of a country is destroyed -- letting in people who don't agree to the constitutional republic, and bringing down the system by overloading it.

Do you leave your doors unlocked so I can come in and have a beer from your fridge when I want and bring a few friends with me to party? Didn't think so.

You do understand that Ron Paul is a constitutional republican, that is, he believes in a country under the constitution, WITH BORDER CONTROL.

In other words, you're free to travel OUT, but people have to apply for citizenship, who agree to the principles of a free republic..

NH4RonPaul

08-26-2009, 07:44 PM

I'm curious ARC. What exactly is the problem with your son flipping you the bird?

-Rob

Are you serious? You mean child should be allowed to make an obscene gesture to his dad without being called on it? What kind of parent would allow that?

NH4RonPaul

08-26-2009, 07:51 PM

maybe if I was a 20 year old college kid...and they didn't pick such an easterly coast region.

I simply don't like the area.

Back before they picked the location, I signed up. I was a young 29 back then though. If they would of went with a west coast area, I'm pretty sure I would be a FSP'er right this second.

This area is beautiful.... NH is the #1 healthiest and safest state to live, probably because even the wimmen are packing...

:p

NH4RonPaul

08-26-2009, 07:53 PM

I;ll look at this other angle. The Founders promoted Christianity for the simple fact that if people believed there was something greater than themselves who would either give them rewards or punishment in the long haul...they could HAVE less government. I'm not saying they weren't true believers...because most of them were. I am saying now that Christianity has been minimized ...there is more need for government control, which is exactly what the New World Order wants....total control...for the State to be seen as God...and not God. Tones

That's a good way to think of it. The people I know who are 'religious' use it as a personal motivator... and that is private and their choice, much more preferable to the government who the one-worlders want yout to adopt as your parents and god.

Thesemindz

08-26-2009, 07:56 PM

OH Lord, this just proves my point about you people.

You people? You people? What do you mean, you people?

What do you think the world-government elitists want? Open borders.. because that is how the sovereignty of a country is destroyed -- letting in people who don't agree to the constitutional republic, and bringing down the system by overloading it.

I support overloading and collapsing "the system." "The system" is violent and corrupt and needs to be collapsed somehow. Overloading it is possibly the quickest and least violent.

Do you leave your doors unlocked so I can come in and have a beer from your fridge when I want and bring a few friends with me to party? Didn't think so.

There is a marked difference between private and public property. I have never advocated trespassing, nor would I. Anyone who trespasses on privately held land is doing so in clear violation of the individual rights of the land owner.

You do understand that Ron Paul is a constitutional republican, that is, he believes in a country under the constitution, WITH BORDER CONTROL.

This would be one area, amongst many, where I disagree with Ron Paul. His position on this subject is completely meaningless. You and I are having a discussion, Ron Paul doesn't enter in to it.

In other words, you're free to travel OUT, but people have to apply for citizenship, who agree to the principles of a free republic..

Citizenship is enslavement. I owe no allegiance to this, or any other tyranny. My only obedience is compelled and under duress.

BTW, we are not technically free to travel out. There are many, many instances where the state proclaims a right to prevent you from leaving the country. In so doing, they proclaim an involate right to do so. 99% freedom is 100% slavery.

Now that we have all of that out of the way. I'm curious. What exactly is the problem with "open borders?"

-Rob

Thesemindz

08-26-2009, 07:57 PM

Are you serious? You mean child should be allowed to make an obscene gesture to his dad without being called on it? What kind of parent would allow that?

I haven't stated my position on the matter. I asked ARC a question. But since you have interjected, which is fine with me, I will ask you as well.

What exactly is the problem with a son flipping off his parent?

-Rob

NH4RonPaul

08-26-2009, 08:00 PM

I may not have the right to send my child to the corner in a time out, but that is how society is going to remain for the rest of our lives.

I am still not sure why you think you have no right to discipline your own child? Are you being cowed by the rules of the UN's rights of the child treaty?

What kind of freedom lover would succumb to that??

Unless of course you're being sarcastic... which I may have missed.

Kludge

08-26-2009, 08:03 PM

NH4RonPaul

08-26-2009, 08:08 PM

You people? You people? What do you mean, you people?

I support overloading and collapsing "the system." "The system" is violent and corrupt and needs to be collapsed somehow. Overloading it is possibly the quickest and least violent.

Uh huh... I'm not talking about the control aspect, I'm talking about the money that is taken from us at gunpoint and then redistributed 'within and among nations' as Obama's czars want.

There is a marked difference between private and public property. I have never advocated trespassing, nor would I. Anyone who trespasses on privately held land is doing so in clear violation of the individual rights of the land owner.

Well, that's what I meant....

This would be one area, amongst many, where I disagree with Ron Paul. His position on this subject is completely meaningless. You and I are having a discussion, Ron Paul doesn't enter in to it.

But aren't you here because you are a Ron Paul supporter? If you don't agree with him on many things, why?

Citizenship is enslavement. I owe no allegiance to this, or any other tyranny. My only obedience is compelled and under duress.

OK here we go... citizenship is enslavement? Then why aren't you living in some completely ungoverned country?

BTW, we are not technically free to travel out. There are many, many instances where the state proclaims a right to prevent you from leaving the country. In so doing, they proclaim an involate right to do so. 99% freedom is 100% slavery.

Well perhaps if you are a wanted person for a crime ... you'd be wanted no matter.
I've not heard of people not being allowed out... only in communist countries like Cuba are they prevented from leaving. And I believe we're heading for that under the tin pot dictator we've elected.

Now that we have all of that out of the way. I'm curious. What exactly is the problem with "open borders?"

-Rob

It is not worth arguing this with someone who just doesn't get it.
What is wrong with my locking my doors?

Don't answer that, it's rhetorical. I am too busy a person actually working for freedom to argue about it with people with unreasonable ideas.

Thesemindz

08-26-2009, 08:10 PM

When justifying punishment, it's best to refer to children as tenants. So sure, threaten and/or follow through with beating and otherwise punishing your tenants. If they don't like it, they can leave.

Is it appropriate to threaten, beat, or otherwise punish your tenants on the basis that they can leave if they don't agree to the violence? Is it appropriate for a government to do so to its citizens? Is this simply the "love it or leave it" argument in microcosm? Does the fact that tenants are voluntary participants whereas children are involuntary participants to the action affect the validity of this argument? After all, tenants check in, the children didn't ask to be here. Who owes a responsibility to whom? The child who is an unwilling victim of cohabitation, or the parent who brought them in to this world? Can children leave? At any age?

-Rob

Thesemindz

08-26-2009, 08:27 PM

Uh huh... I'm not talking about the control aspect, I'm talking about the money that is taken from us at gunpoint and then redistributed 'within and among nations' as Obama's czars want.

If your problem is the theft of private assets and sale of stolen property should you be upset with the thief or the unwitting buyer?

Well, that's what I meant....

Do you believe that public property and private property are the same in principle?

But aren't you here because you are a Ron Paul supporter? If you don't agree with him on many things, why?

I am on here because I enjoy political debate. Do you agree with Ron Paul on every single issue? If so, does that invalidate your position in any way simply because it mirrors his, or his mirrors yours?

OK here we go... citizenship is enslavement? Then why aren't you living in some completely ungoverned country?

Why should my existence on one piece of dirt versus another be anyone's business except my own? Unless and until I am causing a provable, quantifiable harm to another human being, what right does anyone have to dictate where and under what conditions I can engage in non-violent voluntary exchange?

Well perhaps if you are a wanted person for a crime ... you'd be wanted no matter.
I've not heard of people not being allowed out... only in communist countries like Cuba are they prevented from leaving. And I believe we're heading for that under the tin pot dictator we've elected.

The state routinely denies citizens the right to leave the city, state, or country, while engaged in criminal investigation. They also restrict the movement of those they deem "terrorists." Are you aware that lists of these so called "terrorists" routinely contain a number of completely innocent individuals who share a common name? Are you aware that many of these "terrorists" are not guilty of anything other than harboring thoughts and ideas antithetical to the state?

It is not worth arguing this with someone who just doesn't get it.

That much is apparent from your posts so far. I have asked you a simple question, twice now, which you have failed to answer. Clearly you view this discussion as not worth your precious time. Which is of course, your prerogative.

However, if you were to choose to discuss this issue, in any depth, I would simply ask you again. What exactly is the problem with "open borders?"

What is wrong with my locking my doors?

Nothing at all. In fact, I recommend it as a general rule. I am a compulsive door locker myself.

Don't answer that, it's rhetorical. I am too busy a person actually working for freedom to argue about it with people with unreasonable ideas.

I am glad you are so important. Your mother must be proud.

Sorry I answered your rhetorical question, by the time I saw your admonition not to, it was too late to go back. After all, I am a very busy and important person.

I would love to have a meaningful discussion with you. Perhaps you can help me "get it."

-Rob