educate a liberal

[tylerdurden]

[ QUOTE ]
I assume you're an American.

If you are, you've had ample opportunity to pack up and live elsewhere should you feel oppressed - yet since you've stuck around, driven on the roads, let firemen put out your fires, let the military protect whatever business interests you have, etc. you've given your tacit consent. The state doesn't need your explicit consent to be legitimate. If you don't like it, the state (at least the US) isn't holding you back from finding greener pastures.

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Ah, the old "love it or leave it" arguement. I knew you were eventually going to bring this up. Recognizing that the current US government is oppressive in no way implies that there is somewhere else that is less oppressive. If there were, I would indeed move.

Do you completely agree 100% with everything the government does? If not, why don't you pack up and move? Put your money where your mouth is? Is it impossible in your worldview to have ideals, yet accept a reality which is less than perfect when compared to those ideals? Should one just give up rather than work to improve things? Your defeatist attitude, to be frank, sucks.

[tylerdurden]

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Government, by definition, is someone telling someone else what to do. How is that not a negation of liberty?

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Government is also protecting you from those who would do you harm and take your stuff otherwise. Therefore they're providing freedom you couldn't have had otherwise. This isn't to say government is always providing liberty, or that governments are never oppressive.

But, at the very least, a good government is providing its citizens more liberty than they would otherwise have had if said government not existed.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a lot more reasonable than your previous post. Yes, government protects me from some thugs. That doesn't mean things would be worse without them.

I would agree that a government that provided more liberty than one would have otherwise is "good" - but I don't think such a government exists. At least, there isn't one where such condition is true for everyone. Whenever government provides something to someone, it does so at the expense of someone else.

[tylerdurden]

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PVN,

I must say your original thinking is refreshing. Have you read the book "The Sovereign Individual" by J.D.Davidson? I think it would be right up your alley.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have not, but it is on my list of things to check out.


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As long as people have respect for the concept of order, and agree that violence is not a preferred method for dispute settlement , the market can provide peace, even among competing private police agencies (which you could pejoratively call warlords, I suppose).

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The part in bold is imo the propaganda dupe job of the century. Politicians and the media have done an amazing job drilling that one into people's subconscious but a thinking man imo has to recognize that it simply isn't true. The reality of humanity on planet Earth is that violence (or credible threat thereof) has always been the ONLY way the most important disputes have ever been settled. Even lesser disputes are resolved with violence as the ultimate final resort but there are so many levels between the point at which one party voluntarily gives in and the actual use of violence (not necessarily by one of the parties directly, but via calling the police, say) that this fact is often overlooked even by very intelligent observers.

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I'm not a pacifist. I don't believe that violence can be 100% abandoned. It is, however, a terribly wasteful method of dispute resolution. Productive and freedom-respecting economic agents (by which I mean both individuals and collective agents such as businesses and even states) recognize this, which partially is why you hardly ever see two democracies going to war.

It's important to note that I said that such parties "agree that violence is not a preferred method for dispute settlement."

[ QUOTE ]
In case you have already thought this all through, I ask you this...

In an anarcho-capitalist world, how do you envision child custody situations getting resolved between a divorcing couple who are adamant in their beliefs that the child is best off with them and that all problems in the relationship are the other person's fault? Just curious because my imagination falls short here.

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I haven't specifically thought of this scenario before. Without spending too much time thinking about it, it seems that in a state-free society, a "divorcing" couple would have had some privately-decided contract to "sanctify" their "marriage," and such contract would have stipulations for such disputes upon the dissolution of the marriage contract. The standard marriage contract might stipulate a third-party arbitrator, but any couple could negotiate their own marriage terms.

[tylerdurden]

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Pork is definately on both sides, I'm more dissapointed in the Republicans though because I expect pork from democrats.

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But you don't expect it from republicans??? You're more naive than I thought.

[FishHooks]

Your the naive one, for making a statement like that, again with the flaming. But again I expect that, so not dissapointed.

[polarbear]

Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for.

One question though, how does www.cagw.org determine what spending constitues pork?

[BCPVP]

Glad you asked! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] It looks like the site is down for maintainence but if you dig around they answer your exact question. There are certain criteria that have to be met before they deem it "pork". I'm glad you have an open attitude about it.

It's nice that they rate individual Congressmen and show what issues they're voting on. If you happen to live in the right state, they may also have a "Pig Book" for your state. There books may also be at your local bookstore (I've seen it at the Barnes and Noble near me). If you're worried about whether the group is too soft on Republicans, have no fear. They take them to task often. Even the military isn't safe.

I hope you do take a serious look at how your congressmen are spending your money. Everyone should, because unless they know we're angry, they'll continue to do it.

Best regards.

[TransientR]

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Pork is definately on both sides, I'm more dissapointed in the Republicans though because I expect pork from democrats. I will never ever ever ever become a lib, the more I learn aboutu economics the more crazy the left becomes.

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Your a high school graduate about to enter college, yet you spell and write this poorly. I weep for the future.

Frank

[Darryl_P]

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Productive and freedom-respecting economic agents (by which I mean both individuals and collective agents such as businesses and even states) recognize this, which partially is why you hardly ever see two democracies going to war.


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I'd go even further and say that ALL of the larger collective economic agents recognize this and almost all individuals, ie. that using violence causes losses to both sides and therefore seems on the surface to be a lose-lose proposition. Using strict economic definitions it doesn't just SEEM to be lose-lose, it can be shown to BE lose-lose, but when we bring in intangibles like furtherment of one's personal values (which could easily be negatively correlated with economic wealth), expansion of spiritual habitat etc. it goes back to just seeming like lose-lose to a lay observer who fails to see what is truly at stake.

The primary reason why western (ie. nearly true) democracies hardly ever consider war with one another is because they espouse similar values, economic strength being right up there on the podium. But once you introduce players who have markedly different values (like Iraq, Iran, Syria, N. Korea, or Al Qaida, say) then it becomes critical to achieve the maximum potential for violent resistance to any potential attackers. I think you would have to admit that the current state mechanism does a better job of this than an anarcho-capitalist system in which there is no central power which achieves massive proportions through theft and extortion (ie. violence on its own citizens).

So basically I'd like to ask where the flaw in my logic is, if there is one, and if there isn't, then how can the citizens of western democracies protect themselves against violent takeover by the above nations if there is no massive central military funded by extortion? Are you saying such a military could come about with private contributions alone? Or that a much, much smaller amount of force (1% say of the current) would be enough to ward off the potential attackers?

[US Conservative]

Any libs that want to be educated should listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity daily!