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LogisticEarth posted:Yeah, the leap from railroad segregation in the 1890s to racism in modern sentencing is a bit of a leap. It would probably be best to just drop the bickering over comparisons. Let's see what libertarian ideologues think about this: Hans Hermann Hoppe posted:In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They -- the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism -- will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order. I guess the answer is no.
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May 29, 2014 19:41
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I would say "well that's just Hoppe" but for some reason libertarians never really come around to denouncing him as full-throatedly as they do, say, social democrats. It's more like "ha ha, oh Hans!" Kind of alarming, really.
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May 29, 2014 20:22
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SedanChair posted:I would say "well that's just Hoppe" but for some reason libertarians never really come around to denouncing him as full-throatedly as they do, say, social democrats. It's more like "ha ha, oh Hans!" Kind of alarming, really.
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May 29, 2014 20:27
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Also the KKK didn't bother with things like community covenants and buying up land to put racist easements into contracts with buyers and tenants. They just pointed out to the race-mixers that the town isn't going to defend their degeneracy if some upstanding citizens should burn down their integrationist business.
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May 29, 2014 20:29
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SedanChair posted:I would say "well that's just Hoppe" but for some reason libertarians never really come around to denouncing him as full-throatedly as they do, say, social democrats. It's more like "ha ha, oh Hans!" Kind of alarming, really. The same is with Rothbard and his free market of children - the worst thing that you can hear about him from a libertarian is that "he holds some very controversial views and many people disagree with him". This doesn't stop the same people from recommending his philosophy.
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May 29, 2014 20:32
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Nessus posted:I think it's understandable, if regrettable, that they don't put as much heat on the people in their tent as outside, but the sort of freedom where I am kept under watch to not be advancing things like "homosexuality," "nature environment worship," etc. doesn't seem like it's actually very free. It seems like feudalism without the charms. Obviously a lot of the libertarian dream is sort of aiming back towards that period, but it's rare to see it stated so... explicitly. Actually, this point of view seems to be prevalent in libertarian philosophy. Usually it heavily is obfuscated because they redefine a lot of crucial concepts. Aggression, for example, can be committed just by violating someone's private property, so a hobo spending a night in someone's barn without asking its proprietor for permission commits an act of aggression against him. And, of course, they don't have any qualms about people defending themselves and their property. The same is with freedom - you are free to do something, but you still have to take the consequences. So if a libertarian definitely-not-government punishes you for the terrible crime of being a leftie, you are just suffering because of your terrible choice. And, of course, you can "voluntarily" renounce your rights and become a slave in all but name - irrevocably, because contracts are sacrosanct in libertarian utopia. Even doing this under pressure is fine as long as no one holds you at the gunpoint. For example, let's take Molyneux and his DROs - at one point he admits that if you ever decide to do without one, you are instantly blacklisted by every private organization within the territorial unit and denied pretty much everything: food, water, medical help or protection (as in - no one will intervene if someone tries to kill you). There are no public spaces and every citizen is represented by a DRO who shitlisted you, so you are automatically considered a trespasser wherever you go. In best case, you become an outcast without any rights and ability to live in this society. The best thing you can do in such case is to leave immediately before someone shoots you. But it's OK, because it is a result of your choice - only the government forces you to do stuff you don't like. Some libertarians actually believe that the masses would like their philosophy if they were not deluded by government propaganda. Others however, including Hoppe, claim that actually a small subgroup of them is smart enough to recognize what's good for them. They are the ones that criticize democracy the most - after all, most people are dumb and lazy, so they will probably ask for handouts and rob the productive ubermenschen minority. This is why Hoppe can afford to be so direct - the only people worth convincing are the ones that already agree with his idea. The rest will just have to be
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May 29, 2014 21:41
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Molyneux is also rapturous about how DROs will require you to agree to cameras mounted throughout your house, monitoring your property at all times to prevent crime and help with enforcement. Because the only problem with an ever-present surveillance state is the "state" part! As long as it's a private company doing it, libertarians are just fine with eliminating privacy for all but the very rich, and police powers so all-encompassing and pervasive that it would make the North Koreans look like rank amateurs at thought control. But that's all fine because you signed the contract voluntarily* and no one held a gun to your head**. *Refusing to sign the contract bars you from commerce and travel, sentencing you to starve to death along with anyone who aids or trades with you (trading with an uncovered person triggers automatic blacklisting by their own DRO) **Also not signing the contract makes it de facto legal for anyone to hold a gun to your head VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 22:59 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 22:52
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Gantolandon posted:The same is with freedom - you are free to do something, but you still have to take the consequences. So if a libertarian definitely-not-government punishes you for the terrible crime of being a leftie, you are just suffering because of your terrible choice. And, of course, you can "voluntarily" renounce your rights and become a slave in all but name - irrevocably, because contracts are sacrosanct in libertarian utopia. Even doing this under pressure is fine as long as no one holds you at the gunpoint. Actually, Walter Block recently did an interview on a local libertarian podcast in which he stated quite explicitly that he thinks slavery in and of itself is okay, its the inability to choose not to associate with the masters that is the issue. Walter Block is actually fine with 'voluntarily' entered slavery contracts. His specifically cited example, is of course mindnumbingly  :"Lets say that your wife was sick, and needed an operation that cost five million dollars. Now you don't have that money, but say I do. Now this is just a classic exchange, you value my money more than you do your freedom, and I value the concept of owning you more than I value that money, so we make a trade, sign a contract and there we go. Doesn't really matter what I do after that, whether I make you pick cotton, or sing songs or whether I beat you or whatever, the important part that differentiates this from the slavery we used to have, is that you voluntarily chose to become a slave." How does someone think that is the example to use? I mean excluding the fact that his argument is bullshit, why the gently caress is that his example when it is a textbook case of someone being coerced into a contract, in this case being coerced by the threat of death of a loved one.
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May 29, 2014 23:53
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Caros posted:Actually, Walter Block recently did an interview on a local libertarian podcast in which he stated quite explicitly that he thinks slavery in and of itself is okay, its the inability to choose not to associate with the masters that is the issue. Walter Block is actually fine with 'voluntarily' entered slavery contracts. His specifically cited example, is of course mindnumbingly Libertarians also redefine threat - unless they literally point a gun into your head, it doesn't qualify as such. Hoppe proposed, for example, exiling criminals into Sahara or polar regions. Hey, it's not that libertarians are going to kill those people, it's heat or cold! Also, in their ideology, inaction in cases where they could prevent someone from harm, even with a small cost on their part, is perfectly OK. That's why Rothbard maintained that the parent can't hurt his child, but he is in no way obligated to take care of them or even feed them.
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May 30, 2014 00:27
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Gantolandon posted:Libertarians also redefine threat - unless they literally point a gun into your head, it doesn't qualify as such. Hoppe proposed, for example, exiling criminals into Sahara or polar regions. Hey, it's not that libertarians are going to kill those people, it's heat or cold! This is also, last I checked, the rationale buttcoiners use to justify the hiring assassins as morally valid within the framework of non-aggression.
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May 30, 2014 00:31
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Isn't "coercion" also somehow by definition only when the government does it?
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May 30, 2014 00:34
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spoon0042 posted:Isn't "coercion" also somehow by definition only when the government does it? Yes, usually due to ~*monopoly on force*~.
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May 30, 2014 00:35
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Of course, in a truly free market I will have several different slavery offers to pay for my wife's operation.
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May 30, 2014 00:37
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spoon0042 posted:Isn't "coercion" also somehow by definition only when the government does it? When a government does it, or if a company does it then they never would have been able to do it if not for the government.
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May 30, 2014 00:58
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spoon0042 posted:Of course, in a truly free market I will have several different slavery offers to pay for my wife's operation. It's not slavery, it's indentured servitude! 
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May 30, 2014 00:58
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Gantolandon posted:Libertarians also redefine threat - unless they literally point a gun into your head, it doesn't qualify as such. Hoppe proposed, for example, exiling criminals into Sahara or polar regions. Hey, it's not that libertarians are going to kill those people, it's heat or cold! For liability purposes it is the sea that will kill you, not us. Arrr. quote:This is also, last I checked, the rationale buttcoiners use to justify the hiring assassins as morally valid within the framework of non-aggression. Specifically, this argument was used to excuse Ross Ulbright, AKA the Dread Pirate Rogers of Silk Road fame of any moral culpability for his five attempted murders on behalf of his drug empire. Originally the thought was simply that it wasn't his fault because government interfeared with the market, but then that simply wasn't enough. The specific argument I heard was actually from the same local podcast as the Walter Block comment. I can link it if people want, but it is pretty local (though carried on the same network as Peter Schiff's garbage) and I don't much want to give them the views. The 'logic' goes like this: Ross Ulbright decided he wanted to kill someone, so he paid $200,000 to a hitman (who was actually an FBI informer). Paying the hitman was not an immoral act, and even if the hitman had actually done the job, Ross Ulbright wouldn't have been responsible for his crime, because he personally did not engage in any sort of aggression against anyone. The hitman, being his own person, could have chosen not to take the money, and/or not to commit the actual act of aggression, and thus Ross Ulbright himself did not engage in Aggression against anyone. Yeah... The whole argument is pretty similar to the underpants gnomes, in that its possible to follow the logic right up until the point where someone having the choice not to do it somehow absolves you of the fact that none of it would have ever happened had you not provided the incentive. I argued with this asshat for like a week over this, and never once figured out how it was supposed to work. quote:It's not slavery, it's indentured servitude! Actually no. Walter Block makes a big deal about differentiating between indentured servatude and slavery in the same podcast. The host attempted to make the argument that there were more white slaves in the US than black, a Neo-confederate bullshit position based on the fact that a lot of the Irish, Scottish and other immigrants were indentured servants for a period of years upon their arrival. Walter Block made a big deal of pointing out that he was discussing slavery and why it was okay so long as you chose to become a slave.
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May 30, 2014 01:04
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I'm on the mailing list for Impact Weekly, the Ayn Rand Institute's email newsletter, because I bought the ebook version of Atlas Shrugged just to please my father. (I imagine ol' Ayn would be ambivalent about that - on the one hand you shouldn't do anything you find distasteful just to please someone else, but on the other hand AS is the Greatest Book Ever Written and I should read it.) Every week, the ARI encourages me to buy books and lecture videos, attend events, and read articles on current issues as seen through an Objectivist lens. Why am I bringing this up? Yesterday, I posted how some libertarians have embraced Harry Potter. Today, Impact Weekly linked me to a series of ARI articles about how economic inequality is A-Okay, including a 2012 piece called "The Real Reason J.K. Rowling Deserves Her Billions." (TL;DR: Wealth in a capitalist system is based on the value of your contribution to the market, not on how hard you work.) Here's where they tie it in to Rowling: quote:Why is J.K. Rowling a billionaire while some self-published author can barely fund his Starbucks habit with the income from his book sales? Very simply: Rowling created books that tens of millions of people enjoyed enough to purchase for fifteen dollars a pop—while the self-published author may have had trouble convincing his Mom to buy a copy of his tome. Rowling earned her billion—and the self-published gent earned his latte. Aah, serendipity.
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May 30, 2014 03:58
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Honestly I'm happier with people like Rowling who generated their money through making a series enjoyed by people worldwide and who taxes on it being billionaires then people like the Koch's who got a huge inheritance and use it to screw the little people to make more.
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May 30, 2014 04:00
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Rowling's a big supporter of the welfare state and says without it she couldn't have written Harry Potter. She's also happy to pay taxes back to support the system. She's a fairly bad example for them to pick. E: VVVV Yeah, but you bothered to get the quotes. Doctor Spaceman fucked around with this message at 04:10 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 04:07
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Pththya-lyi posted:I'm on the mailing list for Impact Weekly, the Ayn Rand Institute's email newsletter, because I bought the ebook version of Atlas Shrugged just to please my father. (I imagine ol' Ayn would be ambivalent about that - on the one hand you shouldn't do anything you find distasteful just to please someone else, but on the other hand AS is the Greatest Book Ever Written and I should read it.) Every week, the ARI encourages me to buy books and lecture videos, attend events, and read articles on current issues as seen through an Objectivist lens. Why am I bringing this up? I do wonder if they are aware that J.K. Rowling is a huge fan of the social welfare state: "I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles. A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr. Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug." Edit: Beaten. Bah.
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May 30, 2014 04:09
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Rowling's a big supporter of the welfare state and says without it she couldn't have written Harry Potter. She's also happy to pay taxes back to support the system. Remember what I said a page ago about how much of libertarianism is rooted in the idea that anything which contradicts their initial axiom is by definition incorrect/ignorable? Captain_Maclaine fucked around with this message at 14:27 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 04:48
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JK Rowling made a lot of money because people want to read her books. Hard-hitting analysis is going on, guys.
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May 30, 2014 05:18
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Pththya-lyi posted:Aah, serendipity.
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May 30, 2014 12:13
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Rowling obviously just worked several billion times harder than Mr. Self-published Author. Edit: Ironically, using money as a metric (the only valid metric), she worked thousands of times harder than Ayn Rand. Davethulhu fucked around with this message at 05:34 on May 31, 2014 |
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May 31, 2014 05:29
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JK Rowling also benefitted greatly by becoming attached to a multimillion dollar infrastructure designed to commodify, produce, market, and otherwise make people want to read her book. Her success was hardly a 1:1 correlation of good writing -> market demand.
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May 31, 2014 05:49
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Defenestration posted:JK Rowling also benefitted greatly by becoming attached to a multimillion dollar infrastructure designed to commodify, produce, market, and otherwise make people want to read her book. So are literally thousands of other authors, but they don't all hit the mega big time like her. Hell, when they finally got around to a US release, the US publisher, Scholastic, only did a small print run because they didn't expect the series to be popular at all. Then it turned out people actually really liked it She did write children's/young adult's books very well including being able to keep interest from mostly the same kids for a good 10 years.
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May 31, 2014 16:21
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Nintendo Kid posted:So are literally thousands of other authors, but they don't all hit the mega big time like her. Hell, when they finally got around to a US release, the US publisher, Scholastic, only did a small print run because they didn't expect the series to be popular at all. Then it turned out people actually really liked it And their parents. I don't know anybody who read Harry Potter as a kid whose parents didn't as well. Hell, my whole family looked forward to those book release dates more than any other calendar event except maybe Christmas.
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May 31, 2014 18:12
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Nintendo Kid posted:So are literally thousands of other authors, but they don't all hit the mega big time like her. Hell, when they finally got around to a US release, the US publisher, Scholastic, only did a small print run because they didn't expect the series to be popular at all. Then it turned out people actually really liked it Those authors didn't actually benefit from that infrastructure however. Its the same argument that walmart benefits substantially more from our existing infrastructure because they use the roads more, they hire more people who were educated in public schools etc. J.K. Rowling benefited more from those systems than did the guy who can't sell more than one or two copies of his book. That isn't to say that her work doesn't matter, far from it, just that its a reminder that no one, not even the incredibly successful succeed on their own. On a less fun note, I finally got banned from the Libertarian Party of Canada's facebook page for my 'trolling'. Apparently the last straw was my reply to this meme: quote:"All this talk about banning guns because they're killing people... We should just make murder illegal and people will stop getting killed." I asked if that meant that the libertarian party was in favor of removing all laws against murder. Since they clearly aren't 100% effective there is no point in having them, just like there apparently isn't any point in having gun safety laws unless they stop every possible murder. It is a sad day for trolling libertarians.
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May 31, 2014 23:39
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Uh no, the argument is that you should be suspicious of laws that try to "enhance" other laws. We started with banning drugs. After that failed we moved on to precursors. Then lab equipment, then grow lamps, then excess electricity use. With guns we started with the prohibited possessor system and 4473. Then background checks for licensees and adding more possessor classes. Then state universal background checks and proposals for federal ones. And calls for registries everywhere. When does it stop?
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May 31, 2014 23:58
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:When does it stop? Just as soon as it starts working! 
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Jun 1, 2014 00:39
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:With guns we started with the prohibited possessor system and 4473. Then background checks for licensees and adding more possessor classes. Then state universal background checks and proposals for federal ones. And calls for registries everywhere.
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Jun 1, 2014 00:57
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Halloween Jack posted:No matter how many token efforts are made to stop gun violence, powerful corporate interests will overpower them in a society dominated by capitalism. Plucky little Bloomberg, stopped by the capitalist forces of _______ A sad tale indeed.
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Jun 1, 2014 01:02
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:Plucky little Bloomberg, stopped by the capitalist forces of _______ Big Gun.
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Jun 1, 2014 02:31
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:When does it stop? Full Communism.
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Jun 1, 2014 04:06
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:Plucky little Bloomberg, stopped by the capitalist forces of _______ Uh, the small arms industry? Interest groups for "gun rights" massively outspend lobbyists for gun control every year.
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Jun 1, 2014 06:55
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Chomskyan posted:Uh, the small arms industry? Interest groups for "gun rights" massively outspend lobbyists for gun control every year. The NSSF, which is actually funded by the gun industry, brings in $27 million per year according to their latest financials, compared to the NRA's $250 million. Your next post is gonna be about secret industry contributions to them, a claim high on hype and low on evidence.
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Jun 1, 2014 07:18
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:The NSSF, which is actually funded by the gun industry, brings in $27 million per year according to their latest financials, compared to the NRA's $250 million. The NRA recieves less than half its funding from members dues. Anywhere from 30-45% of remaining NRA funding comes from the gun lobby in one fashion or another, whether it be ad revenue, direct donations (such as trace donating 10% of all revenue to the NRA for laser sight sales), sponserships etc. The NRA is completely intertwined with the gun lobby.
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Jun 1, 2014 07:39
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Caros posted:Those authors didn't actually benefit from that infrastructure however. Its the same argument that walmart benefits substantially more from our existing infrastructure because they use the roads more, they hire more people who were educated in public schools etc. J.K. Rowling benefited more from those systems than did the guy who can't sell more than one or two copies of his book. The libertarian argument against this is that it's a question-beg. Yes, state infrastructure exists and people definitely benefit from it. However, just because it's built by the state doesn't mean it has to be. Authors like Rowling would have an even better chance with super-efficient private roads, schools etcetera.
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Jun 1, 2014 09:11
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Am I confused, or does that itself not beg the question? (At least without further argument in favour of the position). The difference being that we at least have empirical proof of a public infrastructure aiding Rowling? (That is to say, it assumes the conclusion "private infrastructure is superior to public" in order to support the argument that... private infrastructure is superior to public). Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Jun 1, 2014 |
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Jun 1, 2014 10:45
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Hodgepodge posted:Am I confused, or does that itself not beg the question? (At least without further argument in favour of the position). The difference being that we at least have empirical proof of a public infrastructure aiding Rowling? Yeah, it's a pretty weak response. But I thought I'd put it out there in the interests of 'knowing one's enemy'. In other news, libertarians are considering setting up little off-shore libertopias: quote:Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine.... I'd say stuff, but I really don't think it's necessary. Mike the mad biologist has a post in the matter of what rules and regulations there would inevitably be.
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Jun 1, 2014 11:06
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