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Captain_Maclaine posted:I have a couple of friends who used to be minarchists of one flavor or another, but the events of 2008 and since have thoroughly disabused them of such madness. In particular, they tended to be the sort who were initially enamored of Ron Paul before they knew anything about him beyond the superficial, and once the discovered he was only one or two costume changes removed from a klansman that ended pretty quickly. How dare you accuse Ron Paul of racism. Surely we can agree on my definition of racism that gives libertarians the most possible benefit of the doubt. Here are links to the names of several libertarians who totally aren't racists (provided you don't do ten minutes of research on them.)
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Nov 23, 2014 20:07
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StandardVC10 posted:How dare you accuse Ron Paul of racism. Surely we can agree on my definition of racism that gives libertarians the most possible benefit of the doubt. Here are links to the names of several libertarians who totally aren't racists (provided you don't do ten minutes of research on them.) You forgot how libertarianism is about the individual, and racism is collectivist.
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Nov 23, 2014 20:11
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Nolanar posted:Does anyone else have Libertarian friends they're willing to throw into the thread? I figure we'll either get a larger variety of arguments (ha), more frequent updates of the same arguments, or another meltdown like that Finnish dude. I'm okay with all of these possibilities. It's really hard to be friends with libertarians after a while because it requires a certain level of obliviousness to really hold onto these ideas, and many of the libertarians I know tend to be really privileged people who don't understand that the world didn't have the options that they had. I mean, it's hard to take someone's ideas seriously when they are a libertarian and they chose to take a year off after college to help out around the house (AKA doing chores) and reading old books. He didn't really understand that he was from a rich family and he didn't start off with the same struggles that other people started off with. It's like the people who didn't go to college or do anything after high school. It's really hard to hang around them because after a while, you're just in a such a different place mentally that it's really difficult to identify with them.
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Nov 23, 2014 20:46
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I think I found AnCap.mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zMQtXP7F5k
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Nov 23, 2014 23:24
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Cemetry Gator posted:It's really hard to be friends with libertarians after a while because it requires a certain level of obliviousness to really hold onto these ideas, and many of the libertarians I know tend to be really privileged people who don't understand that the world didn't have the options that they had. I mean, it's hard to take someone's ideas seriously when they are a libertarian and they chose to take a year off after college to help out around the house (AKA doing chores) and reading old books. He didn't really understand that he was from a rich family and he didn't start off with the same struggles that other people started off with. Yeah, I'm completely with you with that first paragraph. The closest thing I have to a libertarian friend is an engineer who wouldn't mind paying lower taxes, but thinks libertarians and conservatives openly despise her (she is a lesbian). Real-life debates with them tend to get awkward, since they know I'm hard working and self motivated, and then find out I used to be on food stamps and credit the program with getting me where I am today. As for the second, I'm not sure quite what you mean, but I haven't really had problems being friends with non-college-educated people.
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Nov 23, 2014 23:53
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Bear Retrieval Unit posted:I think I found AnCap.mp3 Notice how the libertarians responding to it do not think it's tongue in cheek. Also the closest thing I have to a libertarian friend is a guy who like Ayn Rand, however his politics (although he would never admit it), resemble those of a utilitarian liberal. I really cannot engage actual libertarians, whenever they set up booths at my college I ask them really inconvenient questions from conservative, socialist, and liberal viewpoints. Also I point out that the founding fathers loved state interventionism and then ask them why they like Thomas Paine being that he invented the ideals that lead to the welfare state.
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Nov 24, 2014 00:09
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Nolanar posted:As for the second, I'm not sure quite what you mean, but I haven't really had problems being friends with non-college-educated people. I didn't mean to send that message. I was taking about people who just didn't grow up after high school. They never did anything, whether it is going to school, learning a trade, or anything. It's hard to express without sounding a little elitist, but you know the people in perpetual adolescence? I don't know how to best put it.
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Nov 24, 2014 03:04
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drat it, I wish jrod would come back. I really want to know how both he and Von Mises start with the axiom Humans Act and logically deduce directly opposed conclusions regarding the validity and morality of the state's geographic monopoly on force. We're supposed to believe this philosophical edifice is pure, rational, and true like mathematics, but I don't see mathematicians starting from Euclid's postulates and deriving totally mutually incompatible versions of the Pythagorean Theorem. I would question the rigor of two mathematicians, one telling me a3+b3=b3 while the other one claims stubbornly that only a4+b4=c4 actually describes the relationship of the sides of a triangle.
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Nov 24, 2014 17:12
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You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk. I used to consider myself an ancap. There are actually intelligent reasons to reject that philosophy but A.) that doesn't make every single aspect of it wrong and B.) the actual reasons to reject it aren't absolutely retarded things like "what about the roads???????" For example someone earlier in the thread asked what would happen to their autistic sister or whatever. Well your family would take care of her, or the community, or a charity. Is that really so hard to understand? I'm sure there would be some instances where an autistic person would fall through the cracks but acting like every single one of them would just be shoved out onto the streets and be expected to survive on their own is really stupid. Not to mention the fact that countless governments have failed to help them effectively since the dawn of history. Which brings us to the crux of why this debate is generally so utterly pointless: libertarianism is on trial against "My Perfect Government". Cool, in the world where you are king you will have perfect laws to protect everyone and have a perfect economy. Or you will have a perfect democracy where everyone votes perfectly so everyone is perfectly protected and the economy is perfect. Why, how could anyone think that any other system could compare! And of course, if the perfect denizens of Perfect Land decided to get rid of their government, they would of course become reprehensible savages (somehow, despite being perfect) who couldn't even muster the collective will to make roads or save autistic people. Also, someone made fun of some guy for responding to every post and writing long replies. How is that bad? All of you communist retards on this board are used to being in the majority in your echo chambers, you don't know or care what it's like to be gangbanged by 20 people at a time asking deep philosophical questions and/or making snarky insulting comments. The fact that somebody cared enough to try to have an honest discussion is remarkable, the fact that people on this board made fun of him for it is unsurprising. I haven't posted here in years and the last time I did, it was a similar situation. This board is a far left circlejerk, there is nothing "debate" or "discussion" about it. Here's the final truth to all political and economic debate: good folks make good countries. Following from that, the best countries will always be racially homogenous and white/asian/jewish. States can have utility value which can justify their existence. Mixed markets are the best economic system. There is nothing inherently wrong with laws that interfere with a market but you have to be economically literate enough to understand the effects of such laws. gently caress this dumb board.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:18
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LuftWaffle posted:You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk. Ahhhh, the out-of-nowhere surprise meltdown. Been quite a while since we've had one of those. 
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Nov 24, 2014 18:20
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LuftWaffle posted:You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk.  Why won't people respect my econimic pseudo-faith There was nothing deep nor philosophical about what Jrod posted. It was a word salad that he posted citing Mises and others who also just make a giant jump of word salad that SOUNDS intellectual but in reality is pseudo-intellectual bullshit.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:22
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LuftWaffle posted:Which brings us to the crux of why this debate is generally so utterly pointless: libertarianism is on trial against "My Perfect Government". Cool, in the world where you are king you will have perfect laws to protect everyone and have a perfect economy. Or you will have a perfect democracy where everyone votes perfectly so everyone is perfectly protected and the economy is perfect. Why, how could anyone think that any other system could compare! And of course, if the perfect denizens of Perfect Land decided to get rid of their government, they would of course become reprehensible savages (somehow, despite being perfect) who couldn't even muster the collective will to make roads or save autistic people. Oh my god. This is just precious. Libertarianism is the sensible one with realistic views everybody, our notions of a Democratic Government that provides essential service and tries to reign in the excess of business is an untested fairy tale!
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Nov 24, 2014 18:25
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LuftWaffle posted:You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk. i like the "surprise racism!" at the end.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:31
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To the surprise of no one the libertarian is also a racist.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:32
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Who What Now posted:To the surprise of no one the libertarian is also a racist. No, you're the real racist for thinking what he said was racist, he's just being a Realist™ 
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Nov 24, 2014 18:32
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sudo rm -rf posted:i like the "surprise racism!" at the end. Its a feature, not a bug.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:34
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LuftWaffle posted:You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk. Ah yes the ideology which can be summed up as "gently caress you, got mine" can surely be depended upon to provide for a developmentally disabled child, how stupid we were to doubt this.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:35
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LuftWaffle posted:For example someone earlier in the thread asked what would happen to their autistic sister or whatever. Well your family would take care of her, or the community, or a charity. Is that really so hard to understand? I'm sure there would be some instances where an autistic person would fall through the cracks but acting like every single one of them would just be shoved out onto the streets and be expected to survive on their own is really stupid. Not to mention the fact that countless governments have failed to help them effectively since the dawn of history.  No one acted like that; the autistic people born into wealthy families would be fine, I'm sure. But the rest of them would be hosed, because charity giving barely counts for anything and a lot of families don't make enough to support a lifelong dependent who needs serious medical care. Of the few things that one might be able to consider "valid" in ancap libertarianism, the idea that charity and community can fill the void left behind by the loss of medicaid and medicare is probably one of the most preposterous. quote:Which brings us to the crux of why this debate is generally so utterly pointless: libertarianism is on trial against "My Perfect Government". Actually, it's not. If you had been paying attention, you'd find that libertarianism is on trial against the system that we have now: an imperfect government that manages to get things done at enormous cost. And that's the only comparison that really matters; after the libertarian revolution, what will change, and who will benefit? Not a single person here is perfectly happy with the current system, but comparing the outcomes of the current system to the outcomes of the hypothetical ancap libertarian system results in a society where everyone is much worse off except the ultra rich. quote:Also, someone made fun of some guy for responding to every post and writing long replies. How is that bad? Have you ever heard the expression "brevity is the soul of wit"? Writing huge meandering diatribes is a much less effective debating strategy than writing just a handful of concise and well-referenced sentences. I went after jrod with this kind of constructive criticism a long time ago, and then a few more times after that, but eventually I gave up because he refused to listen and wanted to jam as many words from his thesaurus into every post as possible. So now I occasionally mock him for doing that, because jrod knows that he's ruining his own objective by producing a lengthy and incoherent diatribe but he doesn't care. quote:Here's the final truth to all political and economic debate: good folks make good countries. Following from that, the best countries will always be racially homogenous and white/asian/jewish. States can have utility value which can justify their existence. Mixed markets are the best economic system. There is nothing inherently wrong with laws that interfere with a market but you have to be economically literate enough to understand the effects of such laws. And the secret racist reveals himself, arriving at multiple flawed conclusions without explanation or deliberation. Well done QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Nov 24, 2014 |
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Nov 24, 2014 18:36
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LuftWaffle posted:You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk. Look you're probably not going to respond to this but it needs to be said: Libertarians get chased out of this thread because Jrodefeld is the only ancap who posted here that argues in good faith*. Everyone else argues like you and calls us a bunch of sheep brainwashed by the state and too dumb to realize it. If you want us to take libertarianism seriously you should stop being a walking punchline. *I mean yeah he can get condescending as all get out, and he doesn't so much argue as he does vomit forth essays C+V'd from Mises.org but he at least tries.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:54
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See this is why it matters so much if the GOP establishment is still in control or if the Tea Party/Birchers/various Libertarian strands have won the internal ideological battle on the right. Surprise racism. Straight from asserting virtue economics (good people good country crap) to "racially homogenous." It's even an if-then ("following that") type of assertion! A jump to: ideologically homogenous could be made in the same way.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:18
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LuftWaffle posted:For example someone earlier in the thread asked what would happen to their autistic sister or whatever. Well your family would take care of her, or the community, or a charity. Is that really so hard to understand? I'm sure there would be some instances where an autistic person would fall through the cracks but acting like every single one of them would just be shoved out onto the streets and be expected to survive on their own is really stupid. Not to mention the fact that countless governments have failed to help them effectively since the dawn of history. How does someone fall through the cracks of libertarianism? Being able to fall through the cracks implies a system that's supposed to fix their problem but for some reason it did not do it's intended function. I don't think that applies to libertarianism. Everything works exactly as intended. The problem is, the intended result is what we're objecting to. In a state with functioning universal healthcare, the system to get a poor low functioning autistic person the help they need might make a mistake and they don't get the therapy, assistance, medicine, etc that they need or for whatever reason long term care for low functioning autistic people isn't covered. This is a failing in the system because a medical need was not paid for by the universal health coverage. Sad, but something that probably happens in some UHC nations. In libertarianism, if a poor low functioning autistic person doesn't get the help they need, nothing went wrong here. They/their family could not afford the market rate for whatever they need and the community isn't footing the bill, ergo they go without treatment. Nothing went wrong, everything worked exactly as advertised. quote:Also, someone made fun of some guy for responding to every post and writing long replies. How is that bad? Long replies aren't themselves bad, they're bad when they're needlessly wordy and bloat a 2 paragraph response into a 5 paragraph essay or when the long reply is an entire article just dumped right into the thread with no summary other than "This dude covers that". quote:Here's the final truth to all political and economic debate: good folks make good countries. Following from that, the best countries will always be racially homogenous and white/asian/jewish. So, knowing the thread has accused libertarianism of being dog whistles taken to their natural extreme, why did you think this was a good idea?
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Nov 24, 2014 19:19
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I'm thinking that the disconnect on racism is the tribal belief in which Libertarians automatically assume that if it's something that a supposed "Liberal" says, it's wrong by default. Therefor, nothing they say or do could possibly be racist, as racism doesn't exist to them.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:31
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LuftWaffle posted:I used to consider myself an ancap. There are actually intelligent reasons to reject that philosophy Would you mind sharing? If our reasons for rejecting it are wrong, why should we reject it? Enlighten us.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:38
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Because the baser races need governance.LuftWaffle posted:You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk. My goodness thank you, most libertarians have to be drawn out over countless posts to indirectly admit what you just blurted out at the end. 
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Nov 24, 2014 19:47
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Ahahaha he came back after 3 years of not posting to call us stupid for not being retarded racists.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:51
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Ahahaha he came back after 3 years of not posting to call us stupid for not being retarded racists. Faith is a powerful tool.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:52
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LuftWaffle posted:You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk. That isn't why I made this thread. Once every three or so months, we get a libertarian, usually an An Cap who decides to preach to the infidels. This comes in two flavors, making GBS threads up an existing thread or posting a personal thread that is both against the D&D rules and non-conductive to actual discussion. Jrodefeld is the premiere example of this phenomenon, but he is far from its sole example. In the first case, the thread would derail for about 10-20 pages, and then get locked or the poster would get banned. It was annoying when it was in good threads. In the latter the poster would generally go on for upwards of 20 pages, but would eventually get banned at the end of things because Xylo would get fed up with him. This is why Jrodefeld has multiple bans and prohibitions on his account. This thread is the solution to that. If a libertarian wants to come and preach to us, we've got a thread set up and waiting where we can talk about his ideas to his hearts content. Eventually he'll get bored and wander off, but he won't get banned and no one gets annoyed because if you don't want to read an cap garbage, stay out of an cap city. It does kind of end up as a circle jerk when no one is around, but that is the price of freedom from mod tyranny? Don't you like Freedom you statist? quote:I used to consider myself an ancap. There are actually intelligent reasons to reject that philosophy but A.) that doesn't make every single aspect of it wrong and B.) the actual reasons to reject it aren't absolutely retarded things like "what about the roads???????" Oooh, that is a fancy straw man there. You do realize that even our complaints about the roads are more detailed than "What about the roads????????" For example I might as, what happens when someone buys all the roads around my home, encircling me. I can't use his roads without aggression, and he can then extort the everloving poo poo out of my need to eat in an entirely non-aggressive fashion. If you have actual reasons feel free to list them. Is it that you are worried that blacks might be able to live alongside whites in Ancaptopia? quote:For example someone earlier in the thread asked what would happen to their autistic sister or whatever. Well your family would take care of her, or the community, or a charity. Is that really so hard to understand? I'm sure there would be some instances where an autistic person would fall through the cracks but acting like every single one of them would just be shoved out onto the streets and be expected to survive on their own is really stupid. Not to mention the fact that countless governments have failed to help them effectively since the dawn of history. Charity can't come close to taking care of everyone. I hope you understand this. It is one of the reasons mental illness is rife in the US compared to places with universal healthcare. quote:Which brings us to the crux of why this debate is generally so utterly pointless: libertarianism is on trial against "My Perfect Government". Cool, in the world where you are king you will have perfect laws to protect everyone and have a perfect economy. Or you will have a perfect democracy where everyone votes perfectly so everyone is perfectly protected and the economy is perfect. Why, how could anyone think that any other system could compare! And of course, if the perfect denizens of Perfect Land decided to get rid of their government, they would of course become reprehensible savages (somehow, despite being perfect) who couldn't even muster the collective will to make roads or save autistic people. Nope, we're comparing it to everyday life. The only time I refer to a 'perfect' society is in instances where Jrodefeld insists that something bad is an unavoidable consequence of the state. For example, when he references the holocaust, I can rightly say that the holocaust is not a necessity of the state. quote:Also, someone made fun of some guy for responding to every post and writing long replies. How is that bad? All of you communist retards on this board are used to being in the majority in your echo chambers, you don't know or care what it's like to be gangbanged by 20 people at a time asking deep philosophical questions and/or making snarky insulting comments. The fact that somebody cared enough to try to have an honest discussion is remarkable, the fact that people on this board made fun of him for it is unsurprising. I haven't posted here in years and the last time I did, it was a similar situation. This board is a far left circlejerk, there is nothing "debate" or "discussion" about it. I mostly made fun of him for plagiarizing his ideas and being unwilling to admit it. quote:Here's the final truth to all political and economic debate: good folks make good countries. Following from that, the best countries will always be racially homogenous and white/asian/jewish. States can have utility value which can justify their existence. Mixed markets are the best economic system. There is nothing inherently wrong with laws that interfere with a market but you have to be economically literate enough to understand the effects of such laws.  If you're actually interested in continuing this discussion, you can totally just reply solely to me and I'll point out why I think you're wrong about things. But you won't, because you're just doing a drive by with casual racism at the end.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:59
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DarklyDreaming posted:Look you're probably not going to respond to this but it needs to be said: Libertarians get chased out of this thread because Jrodefeld is the only ancap who posted here that argues in good faith*. Everyone else argues like you and calls us a bunch of sheep brainwashed by the state and too dumb to realize it. If you want us to take libertarianism seriously you should stop being a walking punchline. I didn't once call anyone a sheep brainwashed by the state or anything close to that. I'm not even anti-statist anymore. I even explicitly stated in my comment that a state can be justified. What I am saying is that since nobody here is actually anti-statist, it's just a circlejerk of strawmen and annoying snarkasm that no sensible person would actually want to engage with. Imagine going to a tea party website where no one knows what they're loving talking about and they're all lamenting the fact that an actual communist won't come to get rekt by their amazing debate skillz. Even if you went there and presented perfectly coherent arguments you'd be deluged by insults, crappy strawmen, and illogical nonsense. The thing with these arguments about political/economic systems is that they either utterly ignore the people factor, or they only utilize the people factor in ways that are advantageous to them and disadvantageous to the person they are arguing against. The fact is, that if you have good people, almost any political or economic system could work, to one degree or another. If you have good people, then in a totalitarian state, the dictator would be a good person with the good of his people at heart, and he would take due care to make sure that people have their needs met etc. If you have good people, then in a communist system you'd have good and intelligent people deciding what should be produced and yadda yadda. If you have good people, then in a state of anarchy people would leave each other alone, but also help each other out when needed. If you had bad people, then a totalitarian dictator would be a murderous rear end in a top hat. State communism would be ruined by people making poor decisions and rampant cronyism. Anarchy would be ruined by roving gangs in some kind of Mad Max nightmare, and retards would be starving to death in the streets. There are some arguments that can be made in comparing the systems but A.) you have to realize that you're arguing about/comparing rules or structure, not what people "would" do in those systems, since people are a variable (they can be good or bad), B.) there are going to be some things that are simply tradeoffs with pros and cons, and whether one thing is "better" than another is going to be subjective, and C.) some of the comparisons are going to be of a more complex nature than "well in this system PEOPLE WILL DIE!!!!!11111". For example, the argument in favor of democracy over dictatorship might be that it's not nearly as susceptible to the extreme vacillations of a human being. The argument in favor of a dictatorship over democracy is that single-minded purpose can get things done faster and more efficiently. Which is better? Again, take the "people factor" into account. A democracy of shitheads could easily be worse than a dictatorship of enlightened people. This is why I believe that fetishizing political and economic systems is largely a waste of time, and the true nature of the problem is that good folk make good countries. A bunch of idiots/assholes will never make a great state. They will not be able to organize themselves effectively to do such a thing. They also probably wouldn't deal well with anarchism but perhaps the necessity of survival could inspire them to operate at least somewhat effectively. If you do have good people then I really don't see much of a reason for a very large state (if any), nor do I see much of a reason to reject the principle of protecting private property, trade, etc. As for my "racism": when I was an actual ancap/libertarian, I was not a racist. In fact, part of why I felt anarchism/libertarianism would be preferable (and one of my talking points) was that states enforced/protected slavery, segregation, the war on drugs, and so on. I also felt that allowing Mexicans into the US would be economically advantageous. It was only after I became "racist" that I started seeing the justification for a state. E.g., to deport non-whites, to have actual protected borders to keep Mexicans out, etc.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:00
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Ahahaha he came back after 3 years of not posting to call us stupid for not being retarded racists. Well it looks like before then he was picking stocks, he probably lost everything and had to pawn his computer. But now he's fought his way back through sheer pluck and being "good folks" (white/asian/jewish).
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Nov 24, 2014 20:01
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LuftWaffle posted:As for my "racism": when I was an actual ancap/libertarian, I was not a racist. In fact, part of why I felt anarchism/libertarianism would be preferable (and one of my talking points) was that states enforced/protected slavery, segregation, the war on drugs, and so on. I also felt that allowing Mexicans into the US would be economically advantageous. It was only after I became "racist" that I started seeing the justification for a state. E.g., to deport non-whites, to have actual protected borders to keep Mexicans out, etc. Tell me more about why the state should deport non-whites and keep Mexicans out, in 15 words or more this time please.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:06
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LuftWaffle posted:As for my "racism": when I was an actual ancap/libertarian, I was not a racist. In fact, part of why I felt anarchism/libertarianism would be preferable (and one of my talking points) was that states enforced/protected slavery, segregation, the war on drugs, and so on. I also felt that allowing Mexicans into the US would be economically advantageous. It was only after I became "racist" that I started seeing the justification for a state. E.g., to deport non-whites, to have actual protected borders to keep Mexicans out, etc.  LuftWaffle posted:This is why I believe that fetishizing political and economic systems is largely a waste of time, and the true nature of the problem is that good folk make good countries. A bunch of idiots/assholes will never make a great state. They will not be able to organize themselves effectively to do such a thing. They also probably wouldn't deal well with anarchism but perhaps the necessity of survival could inspire them to operate at least somewhat effectively. If you do have good people then I really don't see much of a reason for a very large state (if any), nor do I see much of a reason to reject the principle of protecting private property, trade, etc. You must be new to the Libertarian trade, because fetishizing economic systems is LITERALLY what they do.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:06
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Nolanar posted:Does anyone else have Libertarian friends they're willing to throw into the thread? I figure we'll either get a larger variety of arguments (ha), more frequent updates of the same arguments, or another meltdown like that Finnish dude. I'm okay with all of these possibilities. LuftWaffle posted:You guys are such assholes on this board that most libertarians found that it was not worth posting here, so now you just make threads where you discuss ideas that none of you actually hold, which really just amounts to a really dumb strawman circlejerk. It's better than I could have ever hoped for. It also hits one of my favorite weird talking points Libertarians tend to drop out: the "'what about roads???' whining" whining. Half the time they'll bring it up before we do. If your best counter to an argument is repeating it back to the person in a silly voice, you should take a long hard look at why you haven't come up with a more substantial one. So since you brought it up: what about the roads? It gets brought up all the time in libertarian debates, and it's a really basic thing you need to keep a society running, so surely you should have a slam-dunk rebuttal prepared.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:08
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LuftWaffle posted:I didn't once call anyone a sheep brainwashed by the state or anything close to that. I'm not even anti-statist anymore. I even explicitly stated in my comment that a state can be justified. What I am saying is that since nobody here is actually anti-statist, it's just a circlejerk of strawmen and annoying snarkasm that no sensible person would actually want to engage with. Imagine going to a tea party website where no one knows what they're loving talking about and they're all lamenting the fact that an actual communist won't come to get rekt by their amazing debate skillz. Even if you went there and presented perfectly coherent arguments you'd be deluged by insults, crappy strawmen, and illogical nonsense. Good to see you kept the lingo! quote:The thing with these arguments about political/economic systems is that they either utterly ignore the people factor, or they only utilize the people factor in ways that are advantageous to them and disadvantageous to the person they are arguing against. Which is why a poster, in this thread that you obviously did not read, unironically talked about how his favorite libertarian thinker is in favor of a benevolent monarchy, and believes that it would be better than democracy. That same thinker is also in favor of people being ruled over by, and I poo poo you not this is real, genetically superior natural social elites. quote:There are some arguments that can be made in comparing the systems but A.) you have to realize that you're arguing about/comparing rules or structure, not what people "would" do in those systems, since people are a variable (they can be good or bad), B.) there are going to be some things that are simply tradeoffs with pros and cons, and whether one thing is "better" than another is going to be subjective, and C.) some of the comparisons are going to be of a more complex nature than "well in this system PEOPLE WILL DIE!!!!!11111". For example, the argument in favor of democracy over dictatorship might be that it's not nearly as susceptible to the extreme vacillations of a human being. The argument in favor of a dictatorship over democracy is that single-minded purpose can get things done faster and more efficiently. Which is better? Again, take the "people factor" into account. A democracy of shitheads could easily be worse than a dictatorship of enlightened people. Okay... but you see, we're talking about people in the real world, not a world where there are hypothetically good people or theoretically bad ones. A dictatorship is pretty much universally considered bad for pretty obvious reasons. I'm sorry if you have difficulty understanding why dictatorships are bad. quote:This is why I believe that fetishizing political and economic systems is largely a waste of time, and the true nature of the problem is that Fixed that for you there. Your argument basically comes down to "Government could be good if people are good, but if people are good then you don't need a government." Is that a fair assessment? Because that is a remarkably shallow and naive view of the world. For one example, what happens if the typical people in a society are good, but those with power are bad. We know that leadership in the business community tends towards those with sociopathic tendencies for example, which means that even if our society is 'good' the people with the power might not be. A state would allow us to curb these excesses by way of imposing the will of the masses on things we dislike. Or what about corporate indifference. Companies frequently dump toxic waste in places that is environmentally unsafe because the cost of paying fines is less than the cost of proper disposal. Its not a good or evil decision in their books, in many cases its made by so many different factors and people that there is no moral decision at all, just a financial one. quote:As for my "racism": when I was an actual ancap/libertarian, I was not a racist. In fact, part of why I felt anarchism/libertarianism would be preferable (and one of my talking points) was that states enforced/protected slavery, segregation, the war on drugs, and so on. I also felt that allowing Mexicans into the US would be economically advantageous. It was only after I became "racist" that I started seeing the justification for a state. E.g., to deport non-whites, to have actual protected borders to keep Mexicans out, etc. States also ended slavery, segregation etc. And I thought I recognized you, you're one of the rare white supremacist posters, aren't you?
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Nov 24, 2014 20:13
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The short of it is, debating the radical liberals on this forum who are in majority here is an exercise in futility. I get the sentiment, it's somewhat frustrating, and really pointless. There is a reality distortion field here that seems to negate any other opinion or thinking other than extreme leftist liberalism. Enjoy your sandbox sirs and madams.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:15
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R-Type posted:The short of it is, debating the radical liberals on this forum who are in majority here is an exercise in futility. I get the sentiment, it's somewhat frustrating, and really pointless. There is a reality distortion field here that seems to negate any other opinion or thinking other than extreme leftist liberalism. Enjoy your sandbox sirs and madams. "hey man I'd totally debate you and poo poo but I'm just on a whole other level than you" e: lol look at all those probations and bans for racism
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Nov 24, 2014 20:17
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LuftWaffle posted:As for my "racism": when I was an actual ancap/libertarian, I was not a racist. In fact, part of why I felt anarchism/libertarianism would be preferable (and one of my talking points) was that states enforced/protected slavery, segregation, the war on drugs, and so on. I also felt that allowing Mexicans into the US would be economically advantageous. It was only after I became "racist" that I started seeing the justification for a state. E.g., to deport non-whites, to have actual protected borders to keep Mexicans out, etc. What's with the scare quotes around racist? You are 100% without a doubt a bigot who believes he is racially superior to non-whites, so at least own up to it all the way.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:18
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LuftWaffle posted:
Just when I was feeling that followig this thread was losing its spark because I couldn't in good conscience claim to appreciate Jrod, as the title says, along comes someone that makes him look like a paragon of honesty and erudition. I guess this is one of those teachable moments I heard about.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:22
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Who are "good" people? Who are "bad" people? Let's look definition you gave us that "Good" is White/Asian/Jewish and "Bad" is, presumably, Africans/Arabs/Latinos. If we just use that definition, can we conclude Apartheid was good because it put good people in charge while the move to not-racist democracy was bad because bad people got put in charge? If you feel this definition of good and bad are wrong or unfair, can you provide a better definition that better describes what you wanted? (I ask, as though I expect a response other than "nah you got it")
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Nov 24, 2014 20:25
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There's a reason that Murray Rothbard was really hard on the US government but when it came to the South African government he was like "look they're doing the best they can."
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Nov 24, 2014 20:31
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LuftWaffle posted:The fact is, that if you have good people, almost any political or economic system could work, to one degree or another. If you have good people, then in a totalitarian state, the dictator would be a good person with the good of his people at heart, and he would take due care to make sure that people have their needs met etc. If you have good people, then in a communist system you'd have good and intelligent people deciding what should be produced and yadda yadda. If you have good people, then in a state of anarchy people would leave each other alone, but also help each other out when needed. That is completely unfounded and inconsistent with historical experience, although it is an argument frequently made by radicals, both on the left and on the right. Many Marxists seem to think that the Russian Revolution would have gone better if only they had been in charge. To which I reply, "what makes you think that you are a better person than people who had to fight and risk their lives to bring about an actual revolution?" I also have seen privately how many good people working together can end up doing bad things due to a poorly designed governance structure. So no, having good people is not enough. You must have good governance structures, and the best way to get that is to look at historical precedent, of which evidence is abundantly available, as well as current practice, and see what works, what doesn't, and why. If you do that you find that private property as the sole arbiter of good has a very poor track record in bringing the goods. So let's not do that.
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Nov 24, 2014 20:43
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