One of the loudest catcalls Libertarians get is that their ideas are “utopian” and thus, unrealistic. It’s a brilliant tactic because, of course, it sets up a false argument. One that can’t be won.
Utopia – literally, nowhere – cannot exist. By definition.
If Libertarians advocate utopia, then they are advocating the impossible.
This is easy to ridicule.
But Libertarians do not advocate utopia; the impossible.
At least, none that I know of.
We do advocate something different; something we consider better than current arrangements – which are based on coercion and collectivism.
We favor human interaction based on the mutual consent of the individuals involved.
It’s not a nutty idea – much less a utopian one. In fact, our opponents – the coercive collectivists – themselves pay lip service to the principle of consent. But of course, they do not really mean it. When they speak of “consent,” they speak in generalities. The consent of the governed, for example.
Dissected, this does not mean each individual gives his consent to be governed. It does not mean the individual is even asked to give his consent.
Much less that he actually gives it.
Rather, his consent is simply hijacked to legitimize the carte blanche aggression against him that inevitably follows. It is held – but rarely articulated – that because the individual is given the opportunity to vote for a candidate (usually not of his choosing) he has consented to all that candidate does in his name, once elected. He is never given the option of withholding his consent – and of that being respected by those who sought his consent but, having failed to obtain it, simply presume it.
Why bother with this charade?
Because even the coercive collectivists understand the persuasive power of Libertarian morality. They can’t openly say: “We are in charge of you; we will order your life as we see fit to suit our purposes.” That would not sell. So instead they sell the sleight-of-hand that the “people” (but never specific, actual people) have consented to what is done in their name. Having been “asked” (via the ballot box) to “choose,” the individual has given his proxy (even though he hasn’t, actually) and thus is bound by what follows.
This is how aggression – everything from the income tax to jaywalking statutes – is justified. Specifically, how punishing people is justified. After all, you agreed to this. Gave it your sanction. To disobey is to breach contract. Even if they never actually presented a contract, let alone obtained your signature. That it was presented to others – random strangers – and some of them signed it is sufficient.
But the interesting thing about this is the coercive collectivists’ tacit acceptance of the Libertarian idea that consent is good – and that it is practicable. Else why bother with the charade of obtaining it?
Are the coercive collectivists guilty of advocating a utopian idea?
Now, of course, it is impracticable – impossible – to obtain everyone’s consent for everything. Which limits what can be done. Which is why coercive collectivists object to idea of literal consent.
But limiting what can be done without the literal consent of those involved is not utopian. It is merely better.
That’s what Libertarians advocate.
Human interactions based on consent rather than aggression. Not only is this obviously better (who will openly say they believe it’s ok to force people to do what you want them to do and that it’s ok to threaten to beat them up, put them in a cage or even kill them if they attempt to resist your aggression?) it is how most of us already engage with other people on a day-to-day basis.
If you’re married, you probably asked your spouse – and she freely consented to the partnership. Her consent was not implied.
When you bought a cup of coffee this morning, no one put a gun to your head – or the head of the barrista. You wanted a cup of coffee; were willing to part with the sum requested. This was accepted and in return you got your coffee.
We have friends because we want them – and they want us. Not because we’re forced to have them, or they us.
Why is it utopian to think that what already exists could not be adopted generally?
The fact is aggression isn’t necessary. Cooperation – without coercion – works. Not in abstract theory. In everyday life. The coercive collectivists understand this can’t be admitted because to do so would concede the argument. So, instead, they change the argument.
They begin with the unspoken premise that “nothing would get done” in a Libertarian society – when what they really mean is some things they want done might not get done absent the use of coercion. Certainly. That’s just the point. Not everything should get done – especially when the doing of it involves threatening other people with violence to coerce their compliance.
Pyramid building. The DMV. Obamacare. $66 billion (so far) for F22 aircraft you’d rather not “help” subsidize.
But that is not utopian.
Just better.
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![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2015/12/02/libertopia/&media=https://www.ericpetersautos.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Libertopia-.jpg&description=Are Libertarian ideas "utopian'?){kind=link}
The picture never resolves, the depiction of the one true view of Roanoke, nor does the argument end, how to do the one true math.
Simultaneous-Origin-Axis Algebra is more rational and useful, you choose the x, y, z, matter, space, and time maps concerning various Roanoke territories and depict the many true views of Roanoke and negotiate how to sort the maths and cooperate and find common ground, or keep apart and let alone, and solve the various queries and questions that emerge and have partial or complete solutions.
Roanoke a statist sees
https://www.google.com/maps/search/government+offices+near+Roanoke,+VA/@37.2742987,-80.0275825,12z
Roanoke a churchist sees
https://www.google.com/maps/search/churches+near+Roanoke,+VA/@37.2742575,-80.0275827,12z/data=!3m1!4b1
Streets. Physical addresses. Oral directions to landmarks. Telephone numbers. Local characters. Households. IP addresses. Census of vehicles. Census of televisions. Census of pets. Hot girls in your area. Thugs and tough guys for hire. Dealers. Hangouts. Parties. Game consoles. There are lots of items and lots of ways to array them.
Careful. Leaving exiting statist churchist family friendly safe space.
*NSFW* Roanoke an adultist sees. (might be fakes, scams, YMMV)
http://roanoke.backpage.com/adult/
*NSFL* Roanoke an anarchist sees (may cause mind, soul, damage)
Tor Hidden Agoras. Category. Percentage.
Gambling 0.4
Guns 1.4
Chat 2.2
New (Not yet indexed) 2.2
Abuse 2.2
Books 2.5
Directory 2.5
Blog 2.75
Porn 2.75
Hosting 3.5
Hacking 4.25
Search 4.25
Anonymity 4.5
Forum 4.75
Counterfeit 5.2
Whistleblower 5.2
Wiki 5.2
Mail 5.7
Bitcoin 6.2
Fraud 9
Market 9
Drugs 15.4
Underworlds. Points of contact for ruling entities and authorities. What is the topology of your liberty. And the topology of your incarcerations, both accepted and imposed.
I have to laugh, when inadvertently, I see the clover smuggling in yet another sparkly word he’s enthralled to for its shininess and hopes to brandish menacingly, rather like a crow with a scrap of tinfoil feathering his nest with what in his bird brain, is a dagger’s blade.
The word is brainwashing. Which sprang up in the LexiKano ‘MeriKano only in 1950, a literal translation of the Chinese xi nao. A term from the Korean War.
The Koreans who I’ve yet to see even raise their voice about anything, but who for some strategic reason, we had to start slaughtering by the score, for this, that, and the other thing all in the game of war.
What is Xi Nao? It is literally “Wash Brain.”
First appearing in articles by CIA spook and newspaperman Edward Hunter, in the Miami News, in October of 1950.
Hunter’s MOS, was as an outspoken anticommunist and CIA agent working semi-secretly undercover as a journalist, writing a series of books and articles on the theme of Chinese brainwashing, and the word brainwashing quickly became a stock phrase in Johnny’s Cold War headline Recommended Daily Allowance.
The Chinese xǐ năo – literally “wash brain” – was originally used to describe methodologies of coercive persuasion used under the Maoist government in China, which aimed to transform individuals with reactionary imperialist mindsets into “right-thinking” members of the new Chinese social system.
The term punned on the Taoist custom of “cleansing/washing the heart/mind” (xǐ xīn) before conducting certain ceremonies or before entering certain holy places.
Hunter and those who weaponized this Chinese term used it to explain why, during the Korean War (1950-1953), some American prisoners of war cooperated with their Chinese captors, in some cases even defecting to the enemy side.
MI5 British radio operator Robert W. Ford and British army Colonel James Carne also claimed that the Chinese subjected them to brainwashing techniques during their war-era imprisonment. To further solidify this latest threat and Clear and Present Danger to baseballs, hotdogs, apple pies, and family sedans.
And hasn’t that become the Dao of the Western Man, now? Each morning he arises, and one way or the other he marinates and washes his brain with “the news” from this, that, and the other source. Before beginning his sacred rituals either for or against the state.
Meant to be edgy, but merely it is sad really. Isn’t this derived from RIF. Reading Is Fundamental. Reading what is fundamental, I would ask myself. Reading recommended daily doses of Wash Brain material is how I would answer myself.
https://cdn-webimages.wimages.net/05148ff66aa176615414320cd853afe45a616d-wm.jpg
Without all the washee washee brain games. What even is left in the clover mind. And how far are we removed from this odious cloveric cleansed travesty. If we are truly to be objective on the matter.
What if its all been a CIA drawn Cartoon graveyard we’ve been living in. What if there never was any such street fight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doihYFkeWsQ
You can call me Al. Al Anonymous. I no longer want to live as a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULjCSK0oOlI
Like many an AmeriKano, I find myself walking down the street. Ignoring the call to be a commie streetfighter. Wondering, why am I soft in the middle now. When all the rest of my life is so hard.
I’m not some photo-opportunity. Not in need of a shot at redemption.
Just not wanting to end up a cartoon. In some CIA Psyop cartoon graveyard,
No more operation Bonedigger Bonedigger. Devil Dogs attacking in the moonlight.
Tying another one on the remnants of the last one. Far away from the well-lit door. Mr. Beerbelly Beerbelly. Get these statist mutts away from me. You know I don’t find any of this stuff amusing anymore.
If Lew will be my bodyguard. I’ll send Murray some long lost pay pal.
I can call him Betty. And Betty when you write for me. You can call me Al.
Again I’m walking down the street. Wondering why am I so short of attention. Is it from the Xi Nao. That I got such a short little span of attention. And woe my nights are so long
Where’s my wife and family, What if I die here. Who’ll be my role-model. Now that my MK Ultra role-model is Gone Gone. Now I’ve ducked back down the neon tin pan alley. With some roly-poly little bat-faced bar girl. And all along along. There’s these incidents and accidents. And those hints and allegations.
And somewhere on the other side a brain wash laundromat man Mr Lee or Mohammed Al Lee walks down the street. It’s a street in a strange world. Maybe it’s the Third World. Maybe it’s his first time around. He doesn’t speak the Western language. He holds no fiat currency. He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the sound.
The sound. Of cattle in the marketplace. Scatterlings and orphanages.
He looks around, around. He sees angels in the architecture. Spinning in infinity. He says Amen! and Hallelujah! Allahu Akbar. As-sala alaykumm Bismillah.
He prays. If you’ll be my bodyguard. I can fight as your long lost jihad pal. I can call you Aisha. And Aisha when you call me. You can call me Al. Call me Al.
Slightly off topic.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/12/lew-rockwell/lrc-trouble/
The vise is being tightened.
Hi Escher,
Indeed. Even Lew is having problems. That says a lot. I’ve posted here about my problems. I am not alone. This is a pervasive problem affecting all contrarian sites. Internet advertising has become a virtual company town, with Googuhl the owner of said town. Probably 90 percent of the advertising is through Googuhl or a Googuhl emulator that pays only for “clicks” rather than the space/visibility. This reduces potential income to almost nil. Or at least, an amount that’s so low the site is barely able to meet basic expenses (e.g., servers) let alone pay staff. I am gonna develop this rant a little…
Libertopia is simply a world without slavery. What we have now is a world entirely enslaved by something called “the financial system”. The currency is corrupted, which deprives everyone of the proceeds from their work. Their efforts are siphoned off (productivity gains) and assigned to those who own the “banking system”. It is theft on such a large, systemic scale that it is a surreptitious continuation of slavery. It is the concept of “authority” that is used to keep it all in place.
So in effect, what the slaves who argue against Libertarians are saying is that it is a Utopian fantasy to live without slavery. They believe you must have some amount of slavery, or you won’t be free. In Slavetopia, the slavery is out of sight so that they don’t have to feel bad. They tell themselves fairy tales about “government”, that taxes are simply the dues for living in a “society”, that violence is not used against them because they are protected by violent men called “authorities”, and even if they experience a little violence now and again from “government”, well, isn’t your current master better than the one that would conquer you?
These kinds of people are antithetical to the American Spirit. They are stupid cows that think jostling against one another for position in the slave order is “getting somewhere in life”, and they measure the goodness of another person by how well they conform to the rules imposed on the herd, which obviously is tied to financial success. It’s a twisted sort of Calvinism that says those who have money are automatically good people. And this is their “society” for which they happily give up their freedom, and gratefully lick the boot that is on their face.
But Clover, oh Clover is a special little thing indeed. That’s another story.
In the Libertarian utopia there will be no jaywalking, taxes or coercion.
Once again, the articles on LewRockwell.com, for example those of Walter Bloch, describe the functioning of a world that does not exist. Which is why I call it the Libertarian utopia (would y’all prefer Libertarian paradise?). If you read through them you may find there will be lots of rules, just not made up by the government. And if you run afoul of them you can expect there to be coercion. While you will not have income taxes, roads gotta be maintained, so you will pay home owners fees, and tolls. My point is if your problem is being pestered by the government, you will be still be pestered only now by the private owners.
So don’t count on your being able to ride a motorcycle without a helmet in the Libertarian utopia, you might not be allowed to ride a motorcycle. And if I owned the Garden State, minimum insurance limits would be $5 million per accident.
Theories of Highway Safety
http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/highway_safety.pdf
Chicken George is my name for a person who refuses to reason or think independently.
http://static.oprah.com/images/o2/20120116-roots-promo-13-949×534.jpg
Ben Vereen’s Emotional Memories of Playing Chicken George on Alex Haley’s Roots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtPaHJcj-pI
Alex Haley Biography
http://www.biography.com/people/alex-haley-39420
You’re confusing culture with the State.
” And if I owned the Garden State, minimum insurance limits would be $5 million per accident. ”
And if so, few if any vehicles would avail themselves of your parkway, and you would go bankrupt and new owners would take over, with the opportunity to design more reasonable requirements with an eye toward maximizing profit.
We may have a new Clover… 🙂
1) Check with your insurer, assuming you have enough assets to warrant a homeowners or renters policy or perhaps being a Libertarian you just feel you should be able to take responsibility for your actions. Also note the reason you need high insurance limits is so the insurer will provide a robust defense instead of just throwing in the towel and settling for whatever minimal amount of insurance you signed up for. You might be surprised at how inexpensive millions of dollars of personal liability coverage are.
Yo Bro, you (or your mommy and daddy) need an umbrella policy aka catastrophe policy. Taking personal responsibility is the Libertarian and in this case smart thing to do.
The Business Of Frats: Shifting Liability For Trauma And Injury
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/25/281994720/the-business-of-frats-shifting-liability-for-trauma-and-injury
2) Not believing in mine or your ability to central plan the transportation system it is possible that requiring prudent levels of insurance will not be a sustainable business practice. Doing business with persons who cannot accept financial responsibility for their actions would seem to be an obviously poor business practice but perhaps transportation is unique among businesses in this respect. I am guessing that if I clear out all the personal autos with one occupant by charging an unacceptably high toll I would be able to charge commercial vehicles much more for a roadway clear of traffic. Commuters would then have buses of various sizes available to them, or they could carpool. At any rate, I have trouble believing that my accepting responsibility for others actions on my highway is a good idea. I also doubt that it would be possible to add an insurance charge to the toll, but who knows.
Hi George,
Insurance, as such is not a bad thing – and can be a good thing, provided it is not coerced. The problem is that it is coerced. This enables the insurance mafia (which it is, when it is coercive) to charge people much higher rates than they otherwise would be able to; to profit at our expense. One might be able to make a more respectable (but still morally flawed) argument for mandatory insurance that was not for-profit. But it is obnoxious in the extreme to be forced to give money over to a massively profitable cartel.
Again, profit per se is not the obscenity here. The obscenity is profit extracted at gunpoint.
Insurance companies are mafias.
George, have you ever read what comes out of the typical D and R think tanks? The various foundations that believe in the state? Have you? They often discuss the way they want the world to be. They have the wealth and influence over governments to bring them into being. The european union didn’t appear overnight. It was roughly fifty years of work by people with the wealth and influence through their organizations to make it happen. It was a world that didn’t exist when it was first put to paper. What we live in today was largely laid out more than century ago and put into action by the likes of Woodrow Wilson.
Utopia building has been something the so-called elite do. They’ve been doing it for a long time thus people make the error of assuming anything from the libertarian perspective is the same. Generally libertarian intellectuals explore how to achieve a goal with coercion. Something people consider very difficult to achieve without force is a road system. Which is odd because road systems sprang into being without governments but out of need for centuries. Even modern paved roads came into existence out of need. The state of course took over soon after.
Anyway what block writes about is not utopia the way it is typically understood, it’s an intellectual exercise of how could this work under libertarian principles. There could be many solutions that satisfy that condition. Libertarians understand that. The typical utopia builder, the typical statist, sees only one way. Only the government can build roads. Only central planning can decide where roads can be. They see no other way. They can only fiddle at the margins and in the details. Yesterday the state decided private automobiles would be best, today it has decided that transit is best. But it’s always about how the state, how the utopia builders will allocate resources. How they will build a utopia of their liking regardless of your wishes. You live in the utopia builder’s world while the libertarian intellectual is often trying to convince people they can live a life they build themselves to break through this mindset that we must live in the world the so-called elites create.
It’s the conditioned mind set that asks ‘but what about the roads?’. Some libertarian intellectuals answer it. I don’t because the person asking doesn’t want an answer and won’t be swayed. His aim is to derail the discussion. Which is why I answer the way I do.
Achieve a goal withOUT coercion.
I did a double take on that one Brent!
Lol.
“Utopia building has been something the so-called elite do.”
Isn’t the the basic goal of the ‘Progressive’ movement? As well as the ‘Social Gospel’ movement of the mainline denominations?
Utopias are imaginary worlds meant to be superior to the current one owned and operated by the current elite establishment. In general people who don’t like the government like reading about the workers paradise or whatever it is. So Libertarians imagine a ration world where the government is small or irrelevant and is unable to enforce helmet laws and barely charges taxes. Like the Marxist utopia, the Libertarian utopia will not be quite as you imagine. There will be plenty of rules, and plenty of mandatory (or you will be coerced into paying them) fees.
The world we live in is the result of utopia builders. Meddlers, control freaks, social engineers, etc using the monopoly of legal violence to make you live the way they want. The wealthy tried to build utopia privately first. They tried to create what you say would happen in a libertarian system. Guess what? It failed. Enough people said no. Disputes among the so-called elite further damaged it. That’s when the state became the way to do it. Before the state would always side with the wealthy guy in disputes, now the state enforced the wealthy’s vision of how society should be. And guess what? They didn’t have to pay for it any more.
That’s the other thing about privately created utopia. It’s damn expensive. It could break even the wealthiest people. Which is why it’s done through the state now.
Yes there would be rules, but we end up with the sort of basic rules we all follow anyway because they are mutually beneficial. Those who try to impose the kind we get through the state now end up having too hard of a time of it and eventually failing at great personal expense.
Tell me Brent one rule that everyone would follow? Brent you say that if everyone thinks like you do then everyone will agree. Why is that Brent? If you can not decide what to have for breakfast between two people then how are you going to get everyone to agree on something? Tell me Brent in detail, IN DETAIL, how a near perfect libertarian society would work. if everyone is free then everyone will be nice and pay their fair share.
Tell me how you would build transmission lines across the country when a few don’t want it across their land. How about roads? How would they be built if a handful of people do not want it across their land? The local road starts to fall apart and a handful of people say that they will not pay. Tell me Brent how you solve such problems the libertarian way? Do you just accept there are a large number of freeloaders in a libertarian society?
You know Brent the way things get changed is to propose a better solution and let people decide on it rather than just to say there is one. Tell us the libertarian solution?
Hi George,
I’ve been making a moral rather than a utilitarian argument. We don’t know how a Libertarian society would flesh out (although we do have the example of the freer past).
The bottom line here is the immorality of aggression. I focus on this because it’s damned hard to argue the contrary without obviously endorsing thuggery, usually highly subjective thuggery.
You conflate government with rules. There is a big difference.
Government is a monopoly on violence; rules are not necessarily coercive. For example, I have “house rules” at my place. But you are free to leave, if my rules annoy you. I, meanwhile, cannot (morally) force you to contribute to the upkeep of my place.
Do you see?
Good one Eric. We have house rules in this country and if they annoy you then you are free to leave.
No one that I have ever met has been subjected to thuggery by our government No one that I have ever met has had aggression placed on them by our government. How about you?
You say that people have a right to fight the government because of the rules that they have. So Eric if we got rid of our government and everything was owned by individuals and companies do you also have the right to fight a person or company if you do not like their rules? How about the new owner of the only road in town for you. Do you have the right to fight him if you do not like his rules or pricing or do you declare an NAP violation because you do not like his rules and beat him up?
Who is “we,” Clover?
Interesting that you presume to speak for everyone; that everyone agrees with you. Or rather, that those who do not agree with you have no right to do so and (in your mind) must accept being forced around to your way of thinking.
“No one that I have ever met has been subjected to thuggery by our government No one that I have ever met has had aggression placed on them by our government.”
In other words, everyone you know submits and obeys. The concept of duress is apparently beyond Clover’s ken.
“So Eric if we got rid of our government and everything was owned by individuals and companies do you also have the right to fight a person or company if you do not like their rules?”
No, Clover – I’d simply elect to not do business with them. But with government, you can’t just opt out, ask to be left out of it. They force you to participate/pay and so on.
Your enfeebled brain does not grok such distinctions, I realize.
I see Eric. So if you do not like the owner of your local road and his rules then you will just stay home. Good for you. Tell me why you do not stay home now since you do not like the owner of the roads? Eric right now the owners of the roads are the people. In your new world it would be owned by a dictator who has absolute authority. He can ban you from driving into town and use a 50 caliber on you if you continue to use his road. Eric you can have your world because 95% of the people do not want it.Phillip you said we should get rid of the education system
Clover,
“I see Eric. So if you do not like the owner of your local road and his rules then you will just stay home. ”
Again, deliberate dishonesty. Your specialty.
What I oppose is the idea of government roads. Meaning, no alternative – and imposed by force.
Why do you always try to hide the violence that is government, Clover? Does it embarrass you? Or it just a rote-learned manifestation of the CrimeStop you were taught while attending government schools?
[…] We have house rules in this country […]
Hmmm…
Ferguson.
Washington, D.C.
Baltimore.
New Orleans.
Chicago.
The list goes on.
“House rules” seems to mean, “whatever corruption and violence we can get away with.”
“[…] and if they annoy you then you are free to leave. […]”
Really?
FedGov demands you tithe your income to them even when earned outside the country, even if you renounce citizenship…. For a decade.
And if you don’t? They come get you.
This is not an unknown, nor even the “subject of a movie I saw once where…”
It’s accessible via Google as real news events. And on the IRS web site. And recorded on many expatriation sites.
Further, it’s considered a “sin” against FedGov to have overseas bank accounts. (Not necessarily criminal, but subject to multiple reviews, higher scrutiny, RICO statutes, etc.) Again, NOT NEWS. Google is your friend. Try Wikipedia.
What FedGov (and LocGov) does, is illegal for us to do.
And you’re trying to sell a vision that wasn’t accurate in 1950s, let alone now. E.G., “The Brady Bunch” was probably typical for the top 5% of the time…. Not the “average joe” of then, let alone even the moderately well-off.
Since then, the races have become more antagonistic, the economy has been shit on and flushed thanks to your type, sex relations are a disaster, marriage a sham, morality is illegal, and the top 1% are living higher on the hog, while the rest of us are condemned for living, period, and have a lower income in real dollars and buying power both. Jobs are sent overseas (where fedgov’s restrictions on production don’t apply), and people are sold a bill of goods on education (none of which is worth the paper it’s printed on), and those people get into massive life-long debt, because you can’t flip burgers or be a secretary without a college degree.
But people on here have made something of themselves without graduating HIGH SCHOOL, and it’s known there are many multi-millionaires and above who never got through college. Bill Gates, for example.
Which indicates the scam of education is extended adolescence and debt slavery.
If it weren’t for the fact I had people shouting , “WHAT IF…?” in college, I’d think you were a unique idiot-savant or a Liza program.
Instead, I recognize that you are a waste, a mental quadriplegic, with verbal excrement you spew on the unwise and uneducated – and there are millions, if not billions, of you, in the dysfunctional daycare of the dis-United States of Amerika, United Kinkdumb, and Australopithicus Mentallus Minificus.
In other words, you’re AVERAGE. And merit-based societies corralled you and made you something useful of your idiocy.
Alas, we must listen to your verbal spewings, and cannot prevent you from inflicting yourself on us, or others.
jean, I’m reading An Act of Self-Defense by Ernie Lewis. It’s a primer for the clovers of the world. I suspect they wouldn’t be caught dead buying any book that isn’t “government approved”.
Nice one jean. I do not know all the situations that you mentioned but many of them occurred to bad people who were stealing from others or acted like thugs. Jean I and other people I know do not act like illegal thugs. I could care less if something bad happens to the thugs. It is like Eric says, it was people who violated NAP so under a libertarian society they would be punished hard or killed if they continued to act like a criminal.
Just like one of the last videos posted here. People complained that a guy was shot by police. All he did in the past was drove drunk and injured or killed others. It was in the record. He was on drugs and alcohol and ran from police when stopped by the police in a car. Jean I could really care less what happens to people like that.
I suppose you think the two that just killed 14 people should just be let go. We should not have killed them right? They were really nice people. I suppose you are one of the first people that would post a video of their shoot out and complain that the cops should just have let them go.
Clover,
Is there nothing more in your repertoire than “nice one” (and “tell me”)?
You clearly approve summary roadside execution for the capital offense of running from cops.
As you say, “nice one.”
Has it ever occurred to you that disproportionate punishments give people an incentive to run/try to get away from these heroes whom you worship?
I mentioned the other day my latest traffic stop. I wish I had not stopped. The fact is I could easily have run – and “gotten away with it.”
I stupidly chose to stop. Thinking that my actions (I was on a fast sport bike; stopping was very optional) and the trivial nature of the “offense” (I was riding about 10 MPH over the posted limit, or only slightly faster than everyone else was driving/riding on this road) and being civil to the cop would result in a quick license check and a warning.
But, no.
The cop was the typical dick. An order-barking asshole who threatened violence without any legitimate reason for it, who then issued a ticket that cost me almost $200.
Next time, I will run.
They have given me every incentive to.
yes Jean it seems that this site blocks all the truth filled posts while it lets the posts with lies in them in at all times.
I hope the brainwashed libertarians are paying you well Eric.
Clover,
I don’t block “truth filled” posts; I block posts that are purposely evasive, or which contain deliberate misrepresentations of the views expressed by others (e.g., “Eric wants the innocent to pay millions of dollars”) or which repeat – for literally the 30th or 40th time – objections such as “no one I know has ever had violence done to them by the government” that have already been responded to 30 or 40 times (every action the government takes implies violence, which means everyone is under duress – which is the threat of violence – with the actuality ever present to punish noncompliance). Rather than acknowledge the fact and do the intellectually honest thing and argue that duress/coercion are justified because of “x” (as you see it) you continue to deny the fact that duress/coercion are at issue.
So it’s not that we disagree, Clover. It’s that you’re a dishonest, illiterate, evasive, unintelligent, mean-minded troll.
Eric the following post to Jean did not misrepresent anything anyone said. It was facts that were in the post.
Nice Jean. So that is it. You are a brain washed libertarian. Someone who is brainwashed can usually not accept facts. Ferguson? Was Brown your idea of a good and innocent person? So what if he robs a store and bullies the manager. So what if he does drugs. So what if he charges the police which was proved by many witnesses. The brain washed still say he is an innocent person with his hands up saying don’t shoot. Libertarians make up your own facts. The truth does not matter to you.
Clover,
Is it possible you’re this obtuse? That dishonest?
Jean neither wrote nor implied that “Brown (is his) idea of a good and innocent person…”
This is a classic example of the way you twist things around; deliberately misrepresent what others have argued.
The issue was not Brown’s character. It was the actions of the police, which were excessive. You believe (apparently) that it’s ok to summarily execute people for what amounts to contempt of cop. Jean and I and others do not think it’s ok. But you won’t debate that. Just as you won’t openly discuss the fact of government coercion/duress. Just as you won’t defend the presumptive guilt you advocate but won’t openly admit to defending. It’s always some non sequitur (e.g., “Eric wants dangerous drunks to get away with it”) that totally evades the issue and at the same time demagogues what the person being attacked actually did argue.
Libertarians are very precise; we choose our words carefully; we discuss things in terms of principles. We don’t make vague generalizations, as you do. We never put words in people’s mouths, as you routinely do.
So what is your solution Eric. A 20 year old 250 lb guy comes up to a cop in a police car and tries to beat him up and take his gun. Should the cop just run and let the bad guy alone? Eric if a criminal tries to assault me and if I have a gun and the ability to shoot him then he would be dead. What would you do? What should police do? I believe there is nothing you can do that is excessive to someone who is trying to kill you. I do not believe criminals have more rights than everyone else.
My “solution,” Clover?
It is simple: Leave people alone who’ve not caused any harm to others.
That’s the core issue. Brown is incidental.
People like me are upset because people like you believe it’s legitimate for cops to use any level of violence to enforce compliance with “the law” – laws that are (to us) illegitimate because violating them entails no actual harm to other actual people.
I and three friends were waylaid at gunpoint this summer for the heinous “offense” of riding our motorcycles 56 MPH in a posted 45 zone. The thug cops had their hands on their weapons and demanded we keep out backs to them at all times and not get off our bikes. This notwithstanding that we’d pulled over immediately, were polite and none of us look like (much less are) “criminals.” Yet we received the order-barking and threats that have become typical of law enforcers’ actions these days.
But you are a Clover – and so you love it long time.
“I’ve been making a moral rather than a utilitarian argument. ”
Which is why Libertarian utopia is not a bad word for it, it is based on moral not utilitarian arguments. While Libertarians claim in their world there will be no government coercion, there is plenty of room for private coercion, which Libertarian boosters often leave out.
“For example, I have “house rules” at my place. But you are free to leave, if my rules annoy you. I, meanwhile, cannot (morally) force you to contribute to the upkeep of my place.”
What if I refuse to leave? What if I claim you do not have the authority to make me leave? What if I claim I own your house and you should leave? What if a dozen of my buddies show up to evict you? How does this resolve itself in the Libertarian utopia.
The authoritarian central planning you advocate does have its place.
Example.
90 year old guy is unable to care for himself, and asks his family to help him. They place him in assisted living. He gets three meals a day prepared for him, with no individual choice on his part.
He eats the meals, or goes hungry. Also the home will probably report him to his family, out of concern he’s not eating, liability reasons, etc.
What we find so despicable about you. Is for whatever perverse reason, you want this same kind of regime imposed on you, even though you are still perfectly capable of feeding yourself.
And you want it imposed on all of us. And you want whoever runs this food administration to be in control of everything, and reduce us all to some kind of scheme where we can fill out a form and as a group decide what we’re all going to eat and call it democracy.
Are you really unaware of how ridiculous this is. And what kind of unspeakable cretin you are to be advocating it.
We don’t wish you to choose our meals for us. Or our cars. Or our insurance. Or the countless other things we want to do on our own and not have you be involved with us at all.
Is it lost on you how completely unwelcome you are here, and how completely we reject everything you want to impose on the rest of us, and how deeply loathsome we find you to be?
Why does libertarianism have to solve all the problems with statism?
Under statism this very same problem you pose is much more complex. Under libertarian principle the property owner may use force to get someone to leave. Under statism in many cases the property owner is not allowed to do anything but call the government’s police force to handle it. They may choose not to show up. They may end up harming the property owner or the person who refuses to leave. The cops may side with the tresspasser under some technicality or the other. Or the cops may throw up their hands and say it’s a civil matter and walk away. The problem is far more complex under the present system than it would be under a libertarian system and yet this is to be held against the libertarian system?
Makes no sense.
The assumption that an orderly society can only be built on the basis of brute force coercion in the form of rules (“laws”) and extortion (“taxes”) unilaterally imposed upon sovereign individuals by a self-appointed gang, is the most egregious case of question begging ever.
Is there anything “utopian” about a society without GAWKI Government As We Know It, but instead predicated on voluntary contract?
Of course not.
Not only have such societies existed in the past. The medieveal Icelandic Commonwealth was merely one such example.
Such societies exist even today, albeit relegated by the Leviathan State to tiny enclaves. The Amish are one example.
The marching orders, are to be full metal jackets. Human bullets on sacred state missions.
Either as bearded menacing middle easterners. Or as shaven faced perfumed and power-washed westerners.
With our minds full of menace. And menace on our minds. About face.
And so it goes. A left. A left. Hi Ho.
At least I’ve got the latest Quantico file here all 151 megabytes of agent Alex mp4 awesomeness.
And just how do they get all this episodes widely rounded data points into such a small narrowly squared file,
Like some mute raving techno savage, I should bow before such gloriously compacted ingeniously simplified technology a gift of the media gods.
As a suggestion for this site, why not interview Walter Bloch or Lew Rockwell on the subject of roads and automobiles and anything else. Ask them if in the Libertarian utopia the owner of a highway can tell you how to operate a motorcycle or set the tolls so high you end up taking the bus. Ask them if Libertarian utopia or Libertarian paradise are acceptable terms for the world they imagine could exist.
George – why don’t YOU interview Lew Rockwell or Walter Block (ps, that is how he spells his name, you bloch head). If you can write it up coherently, I’m sure Eric would be happy to post it.
I’ve been a guest on Lew’s show several times. The subject has been addressed at length.
Its “Block” not “Bloch”. I don’t know if this was an attempt humor, ignorance or just a type-o.
That’s all I have. You have already shown, by way of your comments, how ill prepared you are to have a logical conversation.
Thanks for the back-up, Sirirb!
George is our newest Clover; like the T1000 Terminator, he’s a bit updated over the original.
I’ve been away for a while.
Did “Gil” change his handle to “George” while I was gone?
LOL!
Nope. No. Nope.
Well, Gil, I see you can’t help reading EPautos! 🙂
Conflating libertarian philosophy with utopianism is an old tactic. Andre Marrou, the LP candidate for prez in ’92, was asked by Larry King in an interview, “What is your plan for utopia?”. Andre answered that utopia wasn’t an option in his philosophy.
It’s telling that you should choose Block as your example of how incoherent libertarian ideals are. Block is the most incoherent of all the contributors to LRC. I regard him as an insufferably tedious writer and a muddled thinker. Your argument would fall flat if you were to choose as your example a more effective thinker such as Tom Woods.
We need to establish a Libertarian Religion, where everybody MUST practice the NAP. 😉
OK, you can pull your tongue back out of your cheek now, before it gets stuck there.
Eric, your initial premise “libertarians are rejected for being utopians” is only one side of the coin.
When libertarians propose, for example, getting GovCo out of education they are criticized for not proposing a perfect solution to the failed education paradigm.
In other words, utopian solutions are demanded to dismantle the Statist-Quo by the statists themselves. You must start from the premise that what is in place must be built upon, not abandoned.
Heads they win, tails you lose.
“When libertarians propose, for example, getting GovCo out of education they are criticized for not proposing a perfect solution to the failed education paradigm.”
Actually many victims would be better off if we replaced ‘gunvermin edumacayshun’ with nothing. It would not stay that way. The free market, if it were permitted to exist, would come up with multiple alternative solutions. But until gunvermin is taken out of the way, it won’t happen.
Check this one out!
West Michigan judge orders former pastor arrested for handing out jury nullification fliers
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2015/12/judge_orders_man_arrested_for.html
When virtually everyone was homeschooled, everyone was smarter. Things grown people have said to me. I handed one some handwritten notes in cursive. “I can’t read that stuff”. Me: OK, the wind is blowing from the north because it’s coming in this window……blank look. Look, this window faces North so the opposite side of the building the window faces South, the direction the wind was from earlier. Yesterday it blew into the front door remember? So what direction was that? Reply: I don’t do directions. Me: Well it’s real easy. There are basically 4 of them. You sit here and look out this window, to the north all day so the windows to your back are then south. If you stick your right arm out away from your body like this(demonstrates)then it points to the east so that leaves only one direction west could be, your left arm when done the same way. Reply, smile, blank look. See, it’s real easy. Reply: Smile, ok, whatever you say.
Ben Franklin ended his formal education at, IIRC, 11. He was then apprenticed to a printer. By 13 he was running his own business. These days ‘child labor laws’ would not allow that. That’s because they were promoted by the unions in order to reduce wage competition. But “it’s for the chiiiiiiiildren!”
Now we have babies in college demanding that their feelings not be offended. And children (not men and women) graduating from college to move back in w/Mom & Dad. Why didn’t they just stay there to begin with, since they are incapable of caring for themselves?
You are right Phillip. We do not need child labor laws. We need to get the 10 year old kids out in the fields working 16 hours a day like they used to in the good old days.
Clover,
As usual, you try to make your point using hysteria and exaggeration:
“10 year old kids out in the fields working 16 hours a day.”
As opposed to a 15-year-old who’d like to be an apprentice to a skilled tradesman, say – rather than waste another three years at a government school.
Poor ol’ Clover!
When are you going to tell us which Insurance “family” you work for?
You missed it again, Clover. I’m not saying 10 year olds should be forced to work (well, except around the home). I’m saying they should not be forced not to work. Forbidden, under threat of violence, to earn a wage. Or even run a lemonade stand w/o a gunvermin license.
clover, I was “out in the fields” working 12 hrs a day and maybe at harvest, 16 hrs but I didn’t have a quota. I worked with family so it was enjoyable and being a family farm, it wasn’t really work although the sweat and sunburn and freezing cold were sometimes severe but I wasn’t forced to do more than I could or wanted to. But seeing everyone else working, you don’t get a grand feeling of contributing sitting in the barn or in a warm pickup when it was cold. The harder you worked, the more equal you felt and more a part of something bigger than all of us but representing ALL of us. I earned things, worth more than the pay I got working at the grocery store or the cotton gin. Graduating up to working with my uncles and learning to drive trucks, no, not frickin pickups, I had learned to drive pickups, jeeps, tractors and other farm equipment so a big truck was a big deal. I got my license at 14 so watching adults stare at me driving a truck left me feeling proud and capable. I learned one hell of a lot of stuff “working”. I learned to weld…..with all sorts of welders and torches, to work on equipment of all kinds, to do electrical work, wire in two and three way switches and learn what size wire to use for the load, basic electrical formulas. I learned to be a lay veterinarian capable of catching sickness in it’s early stages and doing the right things to cure the animal. I learned basic surgery skills and how to hit a vein on a cow intent on killing you, learned to pull veins and arteries that were cut to stop the bleeding. To be honest, I don’t think I have enough time to list the things I learned working and figuring out people was certainly one of those things. You learned to spot a lazy clover instantly just by what they wouldn’t/couldn’t do or excuses they used to not learn.
I recall something probably not a lot of people experienced and that was Ag class. Building machinery, learning to work wood, learning the in’s and out’s of soil, Robert’s Rules of Order, raising and taking care of livestock and getting along with everybody to simply get along or get some project done. Nobody made me learn land judging or pasture grasses. It was tough work in it’s own way and often judging land was done in the cold or rain or cold rain or snow that made it tougher. Sliding down a slippery ditch and landing in a pool of freezing water that soaked your butt was a good character builder. You learned to laugh at it like everybody else. Loading up on a bus and being hauled back to a university for evaluation and having your teacher pick all of you up and treat you like a man(hey B. I see you found the bottom of that ditch full of water…..and everybody laughed and you did too and you weren’t the only one to find it with your backside), look at your scoring cards and showing you what you the correct answer for everything and congratulating everyone for doing their best. Then being asked “Where do you “men” want to go for supper?”.
If farming weren’t profitable only for mega-farms, I’d love to go back to truck-farming since botany was one of my main interests. I wouldn’t trade my “labor” in the fields for another 20 years of living. You couldn’t slap the grin off my face remembering the first time my grandfather(a great guy who never said anything bad about anybody and never complained, always ready for a good joke, esp. at my youngass expense(it was character building at it’s finest). He was the one who sent me to find my first cow that had calved and taken it to the pasture on my own, using me as his personal cowdog and hearing him laughing watching me running from tree to tree and doing my best to get away from that old mad cow who was just protecting her calf. And i later laughed about it myself and wish I had a video of it right now……probably eyes as big as saucers trying to get away from her. And both of us telling my parents when they got there how I could round a corner faster than an old mad cow and everybody laughing.
Coming in at dinner to the pens where we’d filled a huge water trough early that morning that was in the shade of trees and picked a couple of ripe Red Diamonds we put in that cold water and ate for dessert and let the cows have the rest.
Oh yeah, working hard all day in the sun cutting down post oaks and turning them into fence posts was hard work but fulfilling. Building fence and using posts I’d made myself. Learning all about wildlife in the pasture.
I’d go back and do it all in a heartbeat. And everybody I know who was raised he same way would do it all again. Ok, we might want to haul a bit less hay but talk about putting muscle on and making a man out of you, it was all worth it.
Child labor, boy do we ever need that to come back into vogue. And Good old days is what they were.
Edit, those were Black Diamonds that had red meat as Golden Diamonds have golden meat……either way, mighty tasty.
PtB, my father’s father was killed by a drunk driver who ran into his truck and took his truck door and him down the road when my dad was 10 years old. His mother had TB, was an invalid with three other children. My dad went to work at the ripe old age of 10 ending his formal education. He lived through WWll but not without being totally disabled. After a couple years in a sanitarium for TB sufferers, since TB and influenza were two of the worst casualty sources during the war,he went to work at the local paper setting type. He did that for 3 years and then got a job accounting eventually moving into a manager position for an electric cooperative where he retired only to come back and make big bucks teaching the people who manned the place how to do the job he had done with basically one other person for decades. The difference was female bosses moved into made up positions. They have a huge staff now that replaced maybe half a dozen people. But it’s computerized now. The point being, it certainly wasn’t school that got him where he was although he did devote a couple years of his life learning the computer system.
Since he never went to college(obviously), he could only get to MsSgt before the war ended. He oversaw crews who installed the instruments in Flying Fortresses. His pay was probably negligible. But his worth in the private sector was invaluable, proof to me at least that school was highly over-rated.
Eightsouthman – My father was prominent archaeologist before he passed away. Prior to that he was a master gunsmith who restored numerous antique arms for wealthy collectors. He never went to school a day in his life. If you can call it “home-schooling” his mother taught him to read off Burma Shave signs and soup cans. When he was older, he took an ICS correspondence course in art and was an accomplished painter and sculptor as well. He stressed the importance of “school” to us, but I think he mistook school for education. He hadn’t been, so he had no idea what child prison really was. We were poor but to his and my mother’s credit they sacrificed to send my siblings and me to private school. It didn’t end there; we had a decent library at home and learning was stressed there too.
By the time I was 10 years old, I already knew the fundamentals of electricity and electronics. When I was 12 I earned my amateur radio license; with no Internet, no online tests, just self study and coaching from a relative. By fourteen I was making and repairing jewelry, self taught from books. At sixteen, my jewelry distributor went silent when he found out he’d given a fourteen year old an open account over the phone; he thought from the way I spoke that I was in my twenties. BTW, that account was always paid on time and in full. That same year I graduated from a private high school and went to work as an apprentice goldsmith in a boutique jewelry shop. I suppose all of this was due to my white privilege; it had nothing to do with me studying, practicing the trade and working hard, did it?
I quit that job before I turned 17 because much of the hard work was dumped on me at apprentice wages by the owner while he played golf and fished. I went into land surveying and was running a theodolite within three months. I was expected to learn and perform. I assumed that life was a meritocracy and there was no excuse for failure. I’m not saying any of this to brag. This was the minimum expected of me by my family. So consequently, I expected as much from myself. There were no excuses, you went to work, did something productive and paid your own way. This is where true self esteem comes from, as you well know.
Now I watch as “the system” cranks out brainwashed and weak dependents that think life owes them something with no input on their part. It sickens me. Many of them would have already been weeded out of the gene pool through natural selection if their limp wristed daddies and over protective mamas, or in many cases now BigGov.Inc, didn’t coddle, protect and care for them.
I realize there are child labor laws in place, etc. But that’s just an excuse. There are still plenty of profitable and productive things a child can do in spite of the gun-vermin. Maybe more so now than ever because of the Internet. It’s up their parents to put kids on the right track. If they are “disadvantaged”, then it’s up to mentors in their family or school system to coach them. And it’s up to those of us who’ve take the Red Pill to call “the system” out, along with it’s proponents and dependents, at every turn; their slings and arrows be damned.
The truth will prevail and I’m seeing it do so more and more every day. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been away from here for a while. I’ve been studying the neo-masculinity and anti-feminist movements. A lot of young men and women are waking up to reality (thank God!) and spreading the Red Pill word. The elite are starting to get scared. They should be. This is going to get interesting.
Trying to be brief here, I have work that’s overdue… 😉
Several of the things you list – child labor laws, “edjumacation” (mandatory schooling), daddy Gov’t – are really about artificial control of the labor pool. It was necessary to create a “labor shortage” of sorts, so that returning soldiers could find a job.
E.G.: WW1 ends; high school is mandatory for all children, well beyond what they used to have to do. (Not all children had finished even 8th grade, and school days weren’t such a big deal; school would close for local festivals, harvest, etc.)
Also, WW2 ended: GI Bill, send many people to college to control the labor pool.
Now, we’re looking at college for “everyone” (not really, but functionally close), even before Bernie persuades people they’re OWED college as a “perk” of being born.
meantime, all the low-end jobs are more cheaply done by illegals who work off the books (no SS, FICA, etc; that’s a double cost, remember, as employer has to pay, then employee has to pay, and by paying cash to someone off the books, the EE can work for less, while the ER can pay less in wages AND taxes, double or even triple win!)
So, who’s working in Starbucks, McD’s, BK, Hooters, TGIFridays, etc, etc, etc? All those “college edjumacated” imbeciles (Some of whom really were intelligent)… But how long to pay back a $50K education loan, making $7.25 an hour, at a job that’s not in your educational range, and leaves you an unskilled or low-skilled worker, in a labor market flooded with low- and unskilled labor?
At the same time, it’s no different from the trade protectionism of Trade Unions and Guilds of the past.
As for my background, I think I’m a weird amalgamation of all sorts of pieces, which is somewhat painful.
My parents were first-gen Americans, born here. Dad prior to WW2, mom during.
Went to Catholic Parochial schools, which I think is where the feminisation of our culture started (G-D Catholic shits – rant for another site).
Protected child + love of reading + no responsibilities + socially ostracized and even assaulted = one ugly mental landscape.
So, I’m good at what I do, but lazy – no where near as industrious as most of the people here, I’d wager. Angry as a result, due to perceived lack of success (more likely, parental validation). Resentful of peers, because of the being ostracized.
But by reading and learning, and happily sharing all I know, I have made it pretty far in “success,” and I’m not afraid of hard work – I just need a lot of quiet time to process things, and gym time or just being “alone” isn’t adequate.
It’s not “JUST” laziness, either – I have no issue spending hours in the gym, working deadlifts, squats, whatever, JUST to do it. To exhaust the body and mind, and make them both “STFU!!!!!!! ”
Used to do similar – electronics kits, history books, novels, then games (RPG, make a character and grow it); build plastic models, read about machines, weapons, massage, bodybuilding, almost anything (never could stomach finance, though. Pity.)
But compared to others? they got the video games, built a make-believe persona, and they’re wasting time. ALL the time. Reading comics, instead of literature. Making friends and “hanging out” and socializing. No hard work, even if they had chores to do. Probably didn’t have some of the oddities – E.G., I’m a shy and retiring type in life, most of the time, until you get my Irish up; but, I put others first, and I do my job, and if it means I don’t hit the gym, or get home for dinner…? Oh, well – work comes first. Completion of assignment, achievement of team goal. So it’s until 5 AM, who cares?
As you noted – they’ve got a better “work/life balance,” but they also don’t have the “roll up your sleeves, it’s dress rehearsal for Hell!” attitude, and yet – they seem to prosper more.
THAT is what chafes me the most – they did a do-nothing degree, no skills of note; they went into “business” and knew the right people, and made the right friends, and said the right things (not all true, most only partially a lie…) – and they have higher position and higher income and better women…. But they fold like tinfoil the moment there’s a real (as opposed to manufactured, E.G. “Y2K”) crisis. Whereas people like us, we just double-down, and whatever’s on hand is a deadly implement to get the job done. Whether fixing a coffee maker, rebuilding a car, wiring a house, starting a business, we just knuckle down and get to work.
But we’re not even noticed by most people.
Funny, that – we’re meant for struggle, for war, and we don’t do well in peacetime. Winston Churchill would be the famous example. The moment the war was over, the British threw him out of office. But without him, they would’ve lost WW2…
But maybe I’m just an egotist. Hard to tell without that real crisis.
Boothe, learning to survey was another skill I learned in Ag class, pretty neat to be able to start at a benchmark, go all over setting other points and returning to the benchmark and find yourself right on the money. I loved doing it.
I’m reading Ernie Lewis’, An Act of Self Defense. It’s related directly to this and the ever-increasing taxes to support our overlords and diminishing economy. $.99 on Kindle and a good read so far.
8, that’s true about homeschooling. George Washington was homeschooled and was a surveyor by the age of 16.
The four cardinal directions have been basic to the teaching of children of native tribes here on this continent for millenia. Kids are being taught nonsense today for a reason.
I think that most of us here suspect what that reason is.
Phillip you said we should get rid of the education system we have now and something better will eventually come up through the free market. Tell us why? I think that all states allow schools outside of what the government provides. Tell us why the free market has yet to come up with something? Yes there are private schools now. Some are better than the government schools and some are worse. The better ones have screening and only allow certain students. Tell me why that is better that the average or below average student should not get an education?
Yes and there are some very good home schooling being done. When you have your own tutor it is better but it is not cost efficient for a large number of students and some mothers or fathers are poor teachers and it would not work.
Libertarians are worse than any politician. You are going to come up with something far better than what we have now but you have no clue on how. Why don’t Libertarians ever give details about their great plans that they have? It is because they do not have a plan. You all say that if we get rid of our current system something better will replace it. Kind of like ISIS right? Let ISIS replace our current system.
Clover,
“Phillip you said we should get rid of the education system …”
I always enjoy pointing out the imprecision of your comments.
Philip said no such thing. He did say no one should be forced to pay for or go to government schools – and that’s quite something else, isn’t it, Clover?
But – as usual – you rely on evasion and dissembling to “argue” your position. That is, you misrepresent the position of others and then argue against that confected opposition.
It doesn’t sell here, Clover. Because there are smart people here. Your tactics work on the muddled and unintelligent, who emote and feel but never reason.
I do not think we should get rid of the ‘education system,’ because we do not have one. I think we should get rid of the indoctrination system.
Very few people are incapable of learning to read, but the GIC’s are incapable of teaching many of them. How is anyone better off spending 12 (or more) years and NOT learning how to read?
Well-said, Mark – exactly so!
History of the Non-Aggression Principle:
The principle was first formally enunciated by popular philosopher Ayn Rand. It was subsequently popularized by libertarians.
Historical Formulations of the Non-Aggression Principle
1961 Ayn Rand In an essay called “Man’s Rights” in the book The Virtue of Selfishness she formulated “The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force from social relationships. … In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.”
1963 Murray Rothbard “No one may threaten or commit violence (‘aggress’) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory.” Cited from “War, Peace, and the State” (1963) which appeared in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays
I’ll put the full discussion of Virtue of Selfishness – Chap. 12 -Men’s Rights in the Whether Black Lives Matter article.
12. Man’s Rights
by Ayn Rand
If one wishes to advocate a free society—that is, capitalism—one must realize that its indispensable foundation is the principle of individual rights. If one wishes to uphold individual rights, one must realize that capitalism is the only system that can uphold and protect them. And if one wishes to gauge the relationship of freedom to the goals of today’s intellectuals, one may gauge it by the fact that the concept of individual rights is evaded, distorted, perverted and seldom discussed, most conspicuously seldom by the so-called “conservatives.”
“Rights” are a moral concept—the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others—the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context—the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law…
http://www.naturalthinker.net/trl/texts/Rand,Ayn/RAND,%20Ayn%20-%20The%20Virtue%20of%20Selfishness.htm#_Toc6821593
“Because some people cannot be trusted to responsibly possess firearms, all people ought to be prohibited them?”
If we modify this just a bit, then I can consent to it –
Because some police cannot be trusted to responsibly possess firearms, all police ought to be prohibited them!
This is the fundamental problem with the Libertarian party. The debate is between the perfect and the good. The perfectionist arm of the Libertarian party won’t accept anything less than a rollback of all government to Misses’ ideal. The “good enough” or moderate arm of the party wants to win elections and moderates the message to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Unfortunately the moderates run for office and the actual voters are perfectionist, meaning the perfectionists won’t vote for their own party candidate.
It’s also why Rand Paul is almost universally hated by the people who deify his father.
Rand Paul comes off sounding like another republican who panders to libertarians, not a libertarian who is working a means to an end. Those that do what they have to do to get into office then do what they have to do to stay in office and do what they have to do to get along with their fellow elected office holders and next thing you know you can’t tell them from the others.
A main line democrat or republican does exactly that. Panders to the libertarian minded people of the country and then does what has to be done to get into office and keep it and then we look around and wonder where liberty went.
That’s how the so-called elites get what they want. They have the resources and knowledge to set the agenda of what has to be done to get into office and stay in office. What has to be done to advance a career. Once that is set the outcome will be as desired sooner or later. People just follow along doing what is rewarded. Means to an end. Means to an end people tell themselves. Once they get where they are going they’ll change things… and it’s almost always the same, once they get there they are changed and they don’t change a thing.
The means almost always change the person on his way up rather than allowing the person to change the means.
Hear what you’re saying, BrentP. I used to live in the 26th district of TX – the one that sent Dick Armey to Mordor on the Potomac. He sounded pretty good the first time he ran, be before a couple of terms were up, you couldn’t tell him from the Newtster.
PtB , more on “Dick”. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/dick-armey-defends-million-deal-leave-freedomworks/story?id=18077760
Hey 8 – I’m sure you remember when we used to say “Dick Nixon – before he dicks you”? Works for Armey too
Nice link, 8. They call DA (hmmm, there’s other interesting things that could stand for) a ‘leader of the Tea Party Movement.’ As if!
PtB, I find it soooo depressing to listen(hear?)a talking head “defining” some Dick or another.
I won’t get on a rant here but lately I’ve had to go to the doc and the dentist(gas me baby, gas me….I can’t tolerate the stuff now but it’s pleasant thought)and they’re the only places I am forced to hear the various nitwits on TV. I keep meaning to take earplugs for the waiting room and forget. For reasons beyond me, instead of furnishing all sorts of magazines or books or just a Bible so I can pick out the juicy parts, that infernal device of the brainwashed masses is plugging away with real diamonds such as “Phil….the Great”, The View(I’m hoping for a massive coronary at that point) or some talking head talking about another talking head.
An older guy told me when I was young that women shed brain cells once a month. It seems reasonable in the doctor waiting room venue but I’ve noticed some that no longer shed seem to have picked up some sense along the way while others seemingly operate on autonomic. I admit, it’s a conundrum.
I seem to have found the answer though(still need earplugs). I have begun installing books from Kindle on my phone. Ah, that’s better.
This is the fundamental problem with the Libertarian party.
The fundamental problem with the Libertarian party is that it is a political party.
Libertarianism, as a philosophy of life based on the NAP, is simply incompatible with politics and doesn’t fit into a political framework at all. Politics, after all, is predicated on the use of force, which is anathema to the NAP.
Well said, liberranter. We refuse to remain serfs. Nor do we wish to live off the stolen labor and loot of political serfs.
Road to Serfdom In 18 Cartoons
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2190282/posts
1 There currently are no wars. Not on terror, poverty, drugs, women, christians, or otherwise. These are all false flags used as cover for national economic mobilization and the curtailing of freedoms.
2 It doesn’t matter how popular our mutual enslavements to a national cause become. Your freedom is not subject to a vote.
3 Anyone, including false liberarians, who promise any kind of utopia based on their plans, are our enemies. They are statists, no matter what they claim otherwise.
4 To the extent the Libertarian Party or even the most NAP compliant party in the world, the Freedom Party of Canada, work to sell their vision, or to gain unity of thought to their cause. To this extent, are even these parties vile statist aggressors.
5 Things will get as bad as needed, if the planners have their way. Maybe they’ll let in 4 million Muslims a year, to keep pace with Germany. They’ll attempt whatever they can, so that they’ll have their chance to enact their plans, and to control all our lives.
6 When things are going well, planners are loathe to use force or violence against the masses of citizenry.
7 Planners will give away all kinds of free things. Including education. And health care. And retirement funds. They want to win you over, and will use any kind of Ponzi scheme imaginable to do so.
8 The gullible always fall for things. Sure Obama broke all his promises, just like the last guy did as well. The simple minded never concern themselves with this. They just love to hear how great things will be. They just love to surrender and to believe.
9 Centralized planning never works well for long. Too many insiders drain away the resources and economic life’s blood. Too many mal-investments are made. Too many balk at their impositions, and refuse to produce a surplus any longer.
There are 9 more panels in this cartoon political theater. What would you caption them as?
Eric_G, I had a conversation with my best friend from the time we were kids. I interrupted his Faux News but he left it on. He mentioned Rand Paul as some sort of great guy defending everybody’s gun rights, the only subject he seemed to care about and he really should care about several others more than that but I won’t go into detail.
I countered Rand Paul was a Zionist Netanyahu supporter who would give that bunch the real power inside the US congress to the detriment of this country, use it as their own and take it over. He accused me of being anti-Semitic. I said I had nothing against Jews and that had nothing to do with it. He repeated his accusation and when I began to rebut it to point out it had nothing to do with Jews he hung up. It was his way of not debating something he didn’t know. Easy to see(and hear in the background)how he could come up with views like that.
I suppose I’ll write him a letter someday and explain the difference between Jews and the rabid Zionists who wish to destroy this country and make it their own. I’m sure he doesn’t realize that the party in power is one of three in Israel and a large majority of the voters there don’t support it and aren’t war mongers.
Ignorance, it’s a wonderful thing for subjugation, misdirection and generally having the wool pulled over the eyes of the audience. Baaah baaah baaaah
Rand Paul, the not so great magician.
“It’s also why Rand Paul is almost universally hated by the people who deify his father.”
Ron Paul is a good man, but he is man, not a god.
I’m not sure Rand is even a man, given the way he seems to be pandering in order to get votes.
Vote?
[He Googles “Vote”]
Oh, that. No thanks.
Eric, I think that the fundamental problem with the LP is the one described by Bumper Hornberger: the LP is controlled by a small cadre of bosses who see to it that all funds raised stay under their control to be handed over to the same little clique of campaign managers. Those managers are the best in the US at running failed campaigns.
Any doubt that Bumper is right was removed for me when Harry Browne was being promoted by the LP national office as the presumptive candidate as soon as the ’96 election was over. Browne had become the ’96 candidate despite the fact that most of the rank & file of the LP regarded him as a shake’n’bake “libertarian”.
I used to mock Browne by putting on his accent and saying, “Last month I couldn’t even spell libertarian. Now I are one”. I quit the LP once the national office starting touting Harry as the next LP presidential candidate 4 years before the next election.
The debate between the perfect and the good enough is a part of the LP’s problem, but party hierarchy seems to me the be the larger problem.
One last lacuna – Blame the individuals. The busybodies, the cheaters, the cronies, those who prefer giving and taking bribes to a rule of law. They are not some amorphous “state”, they are EVIL Individuals. Libertarians would hold individuals responsible.
“No, you are an evil thug and will shoot me – take my very life – by police proxy if I don’t do what you say”. Even “buckle up”.
At least coming to Jesus might have the holy spirit to assist, but come to Rothbard, or even Ayn Rand (whose writings are on Morality) is very rare. Jesus had to deal with self-righteous Pharisees who thought themselves good.
That is what we’re up against. and it needs rhetoric, not dialectic. The best book on how-what to do about it currently is “SJWs Always Lie” by Vox Day.
Why venerate the “rule of law”?
What does this mean, exactly?
If something is codified and enforced uniformly – the “rule of law” – does that make it moral, ipso facto?
I don’t think this requires elaboration…. or at least, I hope not!
PS: While I admire Rand, she did not argue for the NAP and therefore, ought more accurately to be described as a severe conservative.
Hi TZ,
In re “coming to Jesus.”
The problem here is no one can say – definitively – what this means. We have various writings, I understand. All subject to endless parsing; all written by … men.
I grok that Christians believe these writings are “god’s word.” But why am I obliged to believe it? What, exactly, am I supposed to believe? Which “interpretation” of The Word?
According to what standard?
Hopefully, you see the problem!
As a moral principle, the NAP is objective. It does not require reference to a god or any other form of arbitrary authority.
That every normal human being desires to not be harmed is sufficient as a principle of social conduct. I have no desire to be harmed; I therefore cannot justify harming you or any other person who has not harmed me first.
Simple, elegant.
Objective.
And we all embrace this idea (except for the insane).
The problem is, many do not practice what they accept – and are thus hypocrites!
Re: written… by men
Be advised, that is seen as heresy in some circles, as well as the entirety of Islam.
Nothing is more unassailable than the unaltered word of God.
Any alterations are inspired by God, and therefore the net result still the unaltered word of God.
If they happen to suit the needs of the leaders at the time, then they must have the blessing of God, and it is all good… right?
/S
Consent is of the will, not of the intellect (reason).
What if I don’t consent to your requirements of consent?
What if I don’t consent that I can’t withdraw my consent anytime?
Libertarians try to replace virtue and morality with dialectic and philosophy. But evil isn’t the same thing as stupid. The US was moral, so post-revolution set up a workable limited government. The french tried it with licensious people and got the reign of terror.
Progressives are the worst barbarians, but Libertarians are trying to change the form but not the nature. CS Lewis used a convoy. Libertarians agree the ships ought not crash into each other, but he also notes a convoy has a destination (what will your grandchildren have) and the ships themselves must be seaworthy.
Here in the intermountain Northwest, leave-you-alone Christianity is practiced, and it may be the most free. San Francisco and NYC are the most libertine and the most regulated.
I think there is causation. Strong, well formed and informed good wills automatically practice good citizenship without cops, rules, etc. (most have guns too!). Weak wills given over to passions cannot be trusted – zoos need zookeepers if they don’t want to be jungles.
A liberal is a conservative that has been arrested. A libertarian is a conservative that had his house demolished and was shot by a SWAT team raiding the wrong house.
As to the slipperiness of “consent”, See the California Campus Consent craziness – all those campus rapes, 1 in 4 is the stat of those who deny they gave consent:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/8-questions-and-answers-about-californias-attempt-to-fix-col#.dyXpVL189b
Hi TZ,
You write:
“What if I don’t consent to your requirements of consent?”
Then we agree to disagree – and leave each other in peace. I don’t force myself on you; you don’t force yourself on me.
Interactions ought to be voluntary (to be moral) rather than coerced (which is immoral).
Whether you like what I am doing is neither here nor there. Provided I am not forcing you to participate, or subsidize it, or causing you a tangible harm as a result of it, I have every right to be free to do as I please. And I extend the same courtesy to you.
CS Lewis was a Christian apologist. His ultimate argument being, because God.
Well, fine – if that floats your boat. As such it does me no harm – and so it is your right to organize your life accordingly. Just as I have an equal right to organize my life according to a different point of view (again, providing I cause you no harm in doing so).
Neither requires an objective standard – provided no coercion (or harm to others) is involved. And that’s the beauty of Libertarian morality!
The objective standard is: Don’t initiate aggression. Leave others be.
I agree with you that my argument depends on people being able to grok the concept – and self-police accordingly. That not everyone does grok in no way invalidates the idea. Or is it your position that because some people cannot be trusted to responsibly possess firearms, all people ought to be prohibited them?
Eric, I’ve noticed that all it takes to send you off the rails is the mention of Jesus. Lewis was indeed a Christian apologist. That doesn’t change the fact that he was also a very clear thinking man, and consistent in his principles.
Dismissing his rhetoric by stating: “His ultimate argument being, because God. ” should be beneath you as a clear thinker in your own right. Don’t let your visceral hatred of religion blind you to examples of coherent thinking in the writings of others simply because they hold religious beliefs that you find abhorrent.
Hi Ed,
I admire Lewis, actually. He was a superb writer. I just disagree with his conclusions, especially his great leap that not only does god exist but that it is the Christian god who exists.
I am not hostile to spiritual questing. I am hostile to assertions of certainty by anyone on this subject.
I absolutely defend everyone’s right to believe whatever they want to believe. But I will challenge them to demonstrate that it is so, when they so assert.
Example: I believe it is probable that alien life exists; I cannot prove it. Therefore, I do not insist it is a fact.
A man named Jesus almost certainly existed. There is evidence of this. But “son of the one true god”? That crosses over into assertion and belief and has no more objective validity than my asserting the actuality of Zeus or Allah or Quetzalcoatle. These are inventions of the human mind. Or at least, there is no evidence that they are more than inventions of the human mind. If I am in error, then please present the facts to the contrary. Not the assertions, not the beliefs or opinions or feelings or inferences. The facts.
I am very open to the idea that there may be (and very probably, is) more to existence than we are aware of or can apprehend.
But I never could grok accepting as absolutely true dogmas that are extremely vulnerable to logical dissection and which rely almost entirely for their support on “I believe” or “it is written” or “have faith.”
If you do, great. You are welcome to it and I do not disparage you for it. But I’ll certainly ask you to defend it, if you bring it up – and especially if you insist that you “know” about things that seem to me to be entirely matters of faith and not supportable with clear and convincing facts that can’t be denied.
We can debate questions that have answers. Religious questions cannot be answered. Just believed (or not).
Thanks for the explanation, Eric. I’ll admit, I was poking you with a stick to see if you were “listening”. I prefer to say “I think” rather than “I believe”, usually.
I’m also, as you are, not really inclined to accept dogma as fact. Beyond that, discussions of faith are apt to lead to circular arguments in online discussions, by both sides. Face to face is the best venue for such discussions, in my view.
Probably, if I turn up in Roanoke and manage to meet you face to face, we’d both find other things to discuss than religion. I would hope so, anyway. Maybe this spring, I’ll be near your AO and we can meet up to solve the problems of the world, or at least to chop up some of the topics we both find interesting.
Sounds good, Ed!
I’d be up for a beer/coffee and some good convo. I’ve always wanted to have an EPautos get-together at my place up here in The Woods…. we’ll see. It’s just been a very tough year.
“What if I don’t consent that I can’t withdraw my consent anytime?”
You’re contradicting yourself with your question. Not consenting to not consenting is not consent. Your assertion is not logical.
“You’re contradicting yourself with your question. Not consenting to not consenting is not consent. Your assertion is not logical.”
Let me guess; you’re an objectivist. TZ didn’t state that he didn’t consent to not consent. His assertion is logical. Your strawman is transparent.