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Nessus posted:The ideals of free-market libertarianism, of course, which holds as sacred the principle that no man may aggress against another person, save to defend his property, which, of course, is self-evidently his own. And if someone else had that property in the past, well, you know, maybe they should have non-aggression-principled a little harder. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the thing was that there's something about adding "value" to property which is how someone claims it. Like, if I come across some land, and I plant some crops there, I have added value to the land, thus I can claim it as my property. I think this is the excuse that was used to take land from the Native Americans, the idea that they weren't actually doing anything with it (this was false but anyway) therefore it was totally fine to take the land from it if we were going to use it for things. That's always seemed like a very bizarre method of property rights though, so in Libertopia does that mean if I take a weed whacker to my neighbor's yard I can claim it as my own?
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Dec 18, 2014 09:58
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Twelve by Pies posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the thing was that there's something about adding "value" to property which is how someone claims it. Like, if I come across some land, and I plant some crops there, I have added value to the land, thus I can claim it as my property. I think this is the excuse that was used to take land from the Native Americans, the idea that they weren't actually doing anything with it (this was false but anyway) therefore it was totally fine to take the land from it if we were going to use it for things. Actually I suppose I understand this now. A libertarian government would A. probably not interfere with the operations of the Catholic Church and B. appears to encourage the (colloquially understood) sinful nature of humanity, which would provide more pressure for spiritual surcease. More butts in pews, and so forth. If the Church became sufficiently wealthy, it would also reacquire temporal power simply by virtue of that wealth, and if libertarianism broke out worldwide overnight, the Church would probably be one of the largest surviving organized, hierarchical groups (other than the corporate entities, of course). Meanwhile, in a democratic-republican environment such as exists in America now, the Church is certainly protected from persecution -- but persecution can strengthen religious identity and religious feeling. In a certain sense, making persecution possible, if not actually present might be desirable, encouraging people to rally round the cross. Similarly, wealth redistribution programs of whatever sort would remove temporal desperation and the virtues of poverty (think of how it is said that God loves to keep the Irish poor!) and once again discourage church attendance, as well as perhaps removing the "whales" of this economy, who might subsidize an entire new building or the like in a single whack of a donation. So really, from the perspective of 'min maxing' the advantage of the Roman Catholic Church, a libertarian government is probably the most preferable option short of direct rule by the Pope. Nessus fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 10:00
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Nessus posted:How many murders are justified to prevent a socialist government? Is there a scriptural reference on this topic? Maybe somewhere in the Catechism? Saying "Pinochet fits the ideal system of government" is not the same as saying "Pinochet is better than what would have occurred otherwise." If your choices are Government A or Government B, you side with the one that is more libertarian. It's just pragmatic. And Communist governments are well known to result in swaths of political killings, all to advance a failure of an ideology that is inevitably overturned by the market, which is natural law. Where is your Soviet Russia, your Maoist China now? What good were all those deaths, all that political suppression? Why do you refuse to learn, and to stand by humanity's greatest mistakes? It is disheartening. In politics, it is wise to accept a lesser evil to combat a greater evil. quote:I just think it's funny how you're complaining people haven't done in depth studies of libertarianism, while condemning it, while you have evidently not done in depth studies to other religions, yet are happy to condemn them. I mean, surely if you can learn all you need to know about Judaism or Buddhism from some Talmud quotes or some quote that mentioned the concept of "nothingness," I can learn all I need to know about libertarian thought from Internet articles. It's not that you haven't studied it in depth. I don't really expect that anyone has studied anything in-depth. In fact, if you have studied anything in-depth, you should be more skeptical of it. What I do expect is that people be open-minded to people who actually have differing views and listen to them rather than persecuting them and replacing their views with a ridiculous straw man, which is what you've done when you say "libertarianism supports dictatorship", a total joke, revealing nothing more than your own delusion. I know a thing or two about other religions. I've studied. That I am critical of Judaism and Buddhism is mainly because those two religions are held to be almost unacceptable to criticize, which is ridiculous. Christianity, on the other hand, not only deserves criticism, but is afforded no defense! I can see what's going on, and I reject it. I have to go to sleep. Good night.
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Dec 18, 2014 10:05
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Kyrie eleison posted:Saying "Pinochet fits the ideal system of government" is not the same as saying "Pinochet is better than what would have occurred otherwise." If your choices are Government A or Government B, you side with the one that is more libertarian. It's just pragmatic. And Communist governments are well known to result in swaths of political killings, all to advance a failure of an ideology that is inevitably overturned by the market, which is natural law. Where is your Soviet Russia, your Maoist China now? What good were all those deaths, all that political suppression? Why do you refuse to learn, and to stand by humanity's greatest mistakes? It is disheartening. I hope you can sleep soundly, Darth Cheney
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Dec 18, 2014 10:11
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Nessus posted:Similarly, wealth redistribution programs of whatever sort would remove temporal desperation and the virtues of poverty (think of how it is said that God loves to keep the Irish poor!) and once again discourage church attendance, as well as perhaps removing the "whales" of this economy, who might subsidize an entire new building or the like in a single whack of a donation. I think this is a big part of it honestly. While there would still be people attending church for other reasons, getting rid of poverty I suspect would cause church attendance to drop significantly. If people are comfortable and feel very little need, then they're probably not going to feel the need to believe in a supernatural being who helps them through their troubles, since they have very little troubles.
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Dec 18, 2014 10:14
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Kyrie eleison posted:Saying "Pinochet fits the ideal system of government" is not the same as saying "Pinochet is better than what would have occurred otherwise." If your choices are Government A or Government B, you side with the one that is more libertarian. It's just pragmatic. And Communist governments are well known to result in swaths of political killings, all to advance a failure of an ideology that is inevitably overturned by the market, which is natural law. Where is your Soviet Russia, your Maoist China now? What good were all those deaths, all that political suppression? Why do you refuse to learn, and to stand by humanity's greatest mistakes? It is disheartening. For there is no other choice possible. quote:It's not that you haven't studied it in depth. I don't really expect that anyone has studied anything in-depth. In fact, if you have studied anything in-depth, you should be more skeptical of it. quote:I know a thing or two about other religions. I've studied. That I am critical of Judaism and Buddhism is mainly because those two religions are held to be almost unacceptable to criticize, which is ridiculous. Christianity, on the other hand, not only deserves criticism, but is afforded no defense! I can see what's going on, and I reject it. I would say Christianity in the West does deserve criticism because it is the majority religion, by a vast amount, albeit with different sects in different areas. Is your goal to defend Christianity? I mean I remember that bit not too long ago that said Vatican II is essentially a sop to deflect criticism from the Hellbound Protestants and sundry other infidels. Twelve by Pies posted:I think this is a big part of it honestly. While there would still be people attending church for other reasons, getting rid of poverty I suspect would cause church attendance to drop significantly. If people are comfortable and feel very little need, then they're probably not going to feel the need to believe in a supernatural being who helps them through their troubles, since they have very little troubles. Nessus fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 10:15
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Nessus posted:I also think the fairly comprehensive set of Catholic social teachings - which are presumably what would be implemented if you just put the Pope in charge of a large swath of settled but ungoverned land - would probably tend to create a reasonably prosperous community. I'm not saying it wouldn't. Okay, let me rephrase. I think that the idea of a wealth redistribution program that helped reduce or even eliminate poverty could conceivably harm church attendance assuming that these programs came from the government. Libertarians like to say that private charity could provide for the poor if we got rid of welfare and the like, and Christians do run a lot of charities. If you were to eliminate welfare such that the church was the only one providing for the poor, then that would definitely lead to an increase in attendance. I don't think you'd see church attendance drop immediately or even in one generation if you were to create a place with no poverty, but I'm willing to bet it would decrease over time.
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Dec 18, 2014 10:36
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Kyrie eleison posted:Did you really think the church was going to give away its big prize -- the only hope for salvation? Oh me oh my. I'm afraid you took the bait; no, you see, the real goal is to get Protestants to soften their view of the Church so that they might realize it is correct and come home, or at least stop pestering us. Protestants had created all sorts of false anti-Catholic propaganda, you see, and we had to do something about it. But violate sacred doctrine? No no -- only language trickery. "I mean, I suppose it's possible you could be saved without being in the Church," we say, as if advancing an absurd hypothetical; "I mean, God can do anything, right?" And we smile. But secretly we know what He taught us. Why are you betraying your Church's dark secrets to us? What if a Jew reads this and converts to Catholicism and you don't get to watch his perfidious face melt in agony and hear his nasal Jewish screams? 
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Dec 18, 2014 11:03
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Kyrie eleison posted:Well, it's described by the Bible as "eternal fire." But I suppose it's a good thing you're getting a head start on trying to view it as something positive! You're going to have lots of time to adapt and maybe after the first trillion years or so the constant agonizing flame charring your flesh and cooking your meat will start to seem like a sort of nuanced pleasure. "It was worth the sins," you'll say. I don't know. Maybe it's cold there in hell and the fire is a comfort. Also, that appears to be eternal life, so you really don't need Jesus for eternal life. Besides, if my flesh is charred, i'll go into shock and be done with it soon enough anyway. Hell could be a place where you get a pistol and fifty bullets and then you end up going to town, which sounds really fun.
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Dec 18, 2014 12:28
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Hell is where the false Christians who delight in the torment of others go so I'm willing to believe it's loving miserable without any eternal fire required.
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Dec 18, 2014 12:33
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VitalSigns posted:Hell is where the false Christians who delight in the torment of others go so I'm willing to believe it's loving miserable without any eternal fire required. Yeah you got a point there.
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Dec 18, 2014 12:36
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if you're into extreme sadomasochism play i have to imagine fervent religious belief could be a bonus if you want to be tortured for eternity my personal hell would be spending the rest of time with a bunch of loving mormons and evangelicals
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Dec 18, 2014 13:11
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Kyrie eleison posted:Capitalistic libertarianism does not support dictatorship. That was a ridiculous claim. By ridiculous, I mean laughable; laughably stupid. I know you're going to say it does anyway, because you are stubborn in your most idiotic beliefs, your acceptance of the most blatant propaganda without any critical thinking. Your political opinion is of absolutely no value to me because of statements like that. You are completely brainwashed, and there is no hope for you to see reason. But of course, this isn't a libertarian thread, so it's all a bit of a derail. rudatron fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 13:40
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Kyrie eleison posted:The Creed is authoritative... 15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. I think the discussion is if one think that God created Jesus first before all creation and then created everything else with him or that he have existed eternally. Kyrie eleison posted:I know a thing or two about other religions. I've studied. That I am critical of Judaism and Buddhism is mainly because those two religions are held to be almost unacceptable to criticize, which is ridiculous. Christianity, on the other hand, not only deserves criticism, but is afforded no defense! I can see what's going on, and I reject it. There are a lot of things people have done in Gods name. Catholics/Protestant/Baptist/Etc/Etc have had a big share in causing real harm throughout history and teaching people heretical things borrowed from Greek philosophy. One thing the catholic church have done especially is deliberately not using the personal name of God. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0804119.htm "As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, it was held to be unpronounceable and hence was replaced during the reading of sacred Scripture by means of the use of an alternate name: 'Adonai,' which means 'Lord,'" the Vatican letter said. Similarly, Greek translations of the Bible used the word "Kyrios" and Latin scholars translated it to "Dominus"; both also mean Lord. "Avoiding pronouncing the Tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the church has therefore its own grounds," the letter said. "Apart from a motive of a purely philological order, there is also that of remaining faithful to the church's tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred Tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated." It is almost as if they retroactively change history so that nobody have never used God's name. It is also strange it wasnt unpronounceable before overzelous pharisees like people was afraid of even saying his name, as if he never wanted us to know it in the first place.
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Dec 18, 2014 14:11
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wheez the roux posted:if you're into extreme sadomasochism play i have to imagine fervent religious belief could be a bonus if you want to be tortured for eternity Nah, you can stay christian and live like a medieval saint. Some of those people were loving weird. Like no I don't think God really wants you to go around licking people's feet and flogging yourself bloody.
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Dec 18, 2014 14:25
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CowOnCrack posted:The Gospel isn't the end of suffering, but saved Christians tend to be the happiest people I've ever encountered. Suffering is built into our DNA and so is a God-shaped whole that has been filled by various cultures in various ways since always. To counter your anecdotal evidence, let me pose some of my own: I've seen happy atheists, miserable christians and generally mellow muslims. How can that be, if knowing God is the key to happiness? Maybe it's because 'happiness' is tied to more than faith? Also, holy poo poo, suffering as a part of DNA? God-shaped holes? I'm pretty sure this thread has been over the the response to Pascal's wager and social constructs. If they haven't, I'd love to go over just how wrong those ideas are. CowOnCrack posted:The extent to which they are happy is the extent to which they trust God, who is a supremely happy and self-sufficient being. By trusting God his happiness becomes their happiness. This is a big point that many Christians and even 'saved' (those who believe in the concept of born-again) Christians miss. Once again, this is ignoring the happiness of every non-Christian on the planet. CowOnCrack posted:The biggest problem with this working of course is that God's character has been defamed. If you think God is an rear end in a top hat, you won't be happy trusting and believing in an rear end in a top hat obviously. God has been brought to scrutiny and has been found to be a jealous, petulant, negligent deity based on the words of his holy text. If this is the wrong way to see him, then he needs to address this disparity. Otherwise, could it be said that he loves his creations if he leaves them in ignorance that leads to destruction? That is not an act of love.
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Dec 18, 2014 15:20
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CowOnCrack posted:The biggest problem with this working of course is that God's character has been defamed. If you think God is an rear end in a top hat, you won't be happy trusting and believing in an rear end in a top hat obviously. I agree that the musings of warlike bronze age assholes has unfairly defamed the character of our creator.
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Dec 18, 2014 15:23
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The belief that God send people to hell have done more than enough to make people believe that God is cruel. If people knew that it is actually not true then it would be more nuanced opinions itt imo.
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Dec 18, 2014 15:24
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J.A.B.C. posted:To counter your anecdotal evidence, let me pose some of my own: I've seen happy atheists, miserable christians and generally mellow muslims. How can that be, if knowing God is the key to happiness? No, you see, every happy atheist is in denial; they know they have that God-shaped whole[sic] that can only be filled with Christ, but they love sin too much to admit it! In addition, every unhappy Christian simply doesn't love God enough, or is somehow....you might say....No True Christian. There, does that answer your questions?????? I can repeat the answers or provide further baseless assumptions if need be.
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Dec 18, 2014 16:42
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rudatron posted:Like I said, if capitalism and democracy clash, the libertarian chooses capitalism. That means buddying up with fascists, surprise surprise.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:08
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J.A.B.C. posted:To counter your anecdotal evidence, let me pose some of my own: I've seen happy atheists, miserable christians and generally mellow muslims. How can that be, if knowing God is the key to happiness? To add some anecdotal evidence to counter CowOnCrack's, I've gone to Mass with my Catholic wife hundreds of times and the people who sang the loudest, bowed the deepest, smiled the widest, and who spoke about God and Jesus and being saved in every sentence were almost without fail the least happy people there. They were alcoholics, or chronically unemployed and near financial ruin, or in abusive marriages, or any other number of things. All the happy words and faces were just facades to keep back the sadness or anxiety. And all it took was the slightest bit of pressing for them to unload about how they really felt inside. But even if their happiness was fake their belief wasn't. They believed just like CowOnCrack does, that if you have enough trust and faith in God that it'll work out and true happiness and blessings were just around the corner. They didn't have happiness but they did have hope. Unfortunately it was a harmful form of hope that was preventing them from actually solving their problems when combined with the social pressures of the other church members who were mostly very conservative, so can't be a welfare queen, no divorce, and in general seeking any type of outside help was seen as an admission of unforgivable weakness. Especially psychiatric counseling. I was told from more than one person that "psychiatrists are for crazy people, and I'm not crazy!" It was really heartbreaking to hear them talk about this because it wasn't in my power to help them besides lending a sympathetic ear. So happiness doesn't come from God and we don't have a God-shaped hole in our hearts. In fact if anything it's the opposite. Happiness comes from a stable and fulfilling life, and people who don't have that try to fill that hole with God.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:10
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twodot posted:I'm not libertarian, but this is a weird criticism. Democracy isn't intrinsically good. He's not saying this is why Libertarianism is bad. He is saying this is why Libertarianism is anti-democratic, giving the example that historically right-libertarians supported fascism, apartheid, etc. Reason magazine in particular had a series of articles in the 1970's praising apartheid in South Africa as a regrettable necessity to keep the swart gevaar from voting in socialism, and prominent Libertarians like Hoppe prefer a monarchy even today. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 17:16
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VitalSigns posted:He's not saying this is why Libertarianism is bad. He is saying this is why Libertarianism is anti-democratic, giving the example that historically right-libertarians supported fascism, apartheid, etc.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:23
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Because words mean things? But from a practical standpoint being anti-democratic is bad, because democracy is the most reliable way we've found so far to keep rulers accountable to the people and anything that dilutes that check (like, say, the influence of huge campaign donations by corporate lobbyists; or loving apartheid, both of which Libertarians support) leads to bad outcomes. To ponder this, consider that in your own post you had to go to an example of something imaginary (an all-benevolent God-emperor) to suggest a system with superior outcomes to democracy.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:29
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VitalSigns posted:Because words mean things? quote:But from a practical standpoint being anti-democratic is bad, because democracy is the most reliable way we've found so far to keep rulers accountable to the people and anything that dilutes that check (like, say, the influence of huge campaign donations by corporate lobbyists; or loving apartheid, both of which Libertarians support) leads to bad outcomes. To ponder this, consider that in your own post you had to go to an example of something imaginary (an all-benevolent God-emperor) to suggest a system with superior outcomes to democracy. twodot fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 17:38
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Nessus posted:I don't think this is actually very inevitable though. Pope Francis seems to be encouraging a revival of the image of Catholicism with his actions, and while I don't know if this is translating to increased mass attendance, it doesn't seem like it hurt anything. I also think the fairly comprehensive set of Catholic social teachings - which are presumably what would be implemented if you just put the Pope in charge of a large swath of settled but ungoverned land - would probably tend to create a reasonably prosperous community. I dunno about mass attendance, but at least here in Germany Catholics stopped leaving the church en masse after he became Pope. Under Ratzinger the number of people leaving the church increased by the month, especially during the height of the mass pedophilia and child abuse scandal Ratzinger was involved in covering up. I was gonna leave myself until I heard he was quitting and decided to wait out until what the next Pope is gonna be like and hey, under Pope Francis I don't actually feel ashamed and guilty to be a Catholic, so that's cool. But then I'm also a lapsed Catholic who hasn't seen the inside of a Church in five years.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:40
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It should be said that direct democracies are actually really poor forms of government once you exceed a population of a certain size since it's really not feasible to get 316 million people to vote on everything the government does. Not just because tallying that many votes (or even just a tenth of that) is a pretty monumental task but also because it's impossible to expect everyone to be experts on policy. Which is why most societies quickly switch to representative democracies pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure everyone here's talking about the latter, but a lot of people who critique or argue about the merits of a democratic government like to use the two interchangeably.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:46
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twodot posted:A) I thought you said rudatron wasn't saying Libertarians are bad, if that's the case, why are you bothering to argue being anti-democratic is bad? What possible relevance does this have? (It's because we all know rudatron was saying Libertarians are bad). People are a sum of their thoughts, beliefs, and actions and aren't defined by any individual one. Having one (or several) bad thought doesn't make one bad on all accounts or overall.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:49
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twodot posted:Words mean things, yet no one cares that the word tea has three letters. People (who aren't you) post things because they want to convey something that is actually useful. ( twodot posted:B) This is a total failure to understand what I am saying. Valuing good outcomes over democracy is good. If there was a way to get to a good outcome without using democracy I will take it every time. It could be the case there are zero ways to get to good outcomes without democracy, but it would still be correct to value good outcomes over democracy. This is the very meaning of the phrase "good outcome", it is by definition good. (edit: Libertarians value bad outcomes, which makes them bad, but we aren't talking about why Libertarians are bad apparently, so this is irrelevant) Yeah I actually agree with all of this here. However, to appeal to Americans, Libertarians often cloak themselves in the terms of our civic religion and talk about how they support "democracy", "freedom" etc when an actual examination of both the history of the Libertarian movement and the works of Libertarian authors show that they support anything but and are, like you said, primarily concerned with transferring all power to the capitalists and will defend any regime that benefits capitalists, no matter how repressive and odious. It's certainly relevant to the discussion to point that out, especially because to many American minds capitalism and democracy are synonymous. Why concede anything? Don't let Libertarians get away with claiming they support democracy. They don't. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 17:49
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Who What Now posted:
One can confuse happiness with delight or temporary contentment. Maybe a better word than happiness is fulfillment or inner peace, which tends to come from hope and faith and results in happiness and perseverance through life's unavoidable trials. For example, faith in heaven is supposed to take your focus off your current woes to look forward to something that comes after. This isn't supposed to make you derelect in your duties. I don't think this means neglecting solving your problems at all, I just think fixing your spiritual condition is the most proximate solution necessary to everything else. If hope and faith lead you away from this then there must be a confusion somewhere. People need spirituality before everything else. I happen to think the Gospel is the distilled essence of our spiritual condition and gets closest to the 'Truth' that our feeble brains can grasp. It is very straightforward, and very radical. Nothing else matters but this guy Jesus who died for us all so we can get right with God. Without it we are all crippled and helpless. With it we are as powerful and as happy as we can be on this cursed rock until he comes back and hopefully save this doomed planet from what we've done to it, and in the meantime we have the hope to fight to the bitter end to be better friends, family members, neighbors, stewards of the earth, crusaders for social justice, shoe salesmen, bronze age assholes, and what have you. CowOnCrack fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 18:18
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VitalSigns posted:I was explaining what the point of contention between Kyrie and Rudatron actually was (whether Libertarianism is anti-democratic: Kryrie said it wasn't, rudatron said it was). Then you asked me a follow-up question: what is wrong with being anti-democratic so I answered that. Calm down man, no reason to be hostile, hey? Do not misconstrue me. I very, very clearly said that libertarianism is "oppositional to democracy" in my very first sentence, and explained why this is the case. Libertarianism is anti-democratic, and this is a good thing, because democracy is bad.. However, libertarianism is not pro-dictatorship, that is ridiculous, and absurd to suggest. Dictatorship supports all sorts of ideas which violate the NAP, which is the true essence of libertarian philosophy.
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Dec 18, 2014 18:23
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Kyrie eleison posted:Do not misconstrue me. I very, very clearly said that libertarianism is "oppositional to democracy" in my very first sentence, and explained why this is the case. Libertarianism is anti-democratic, and this is a good thing, because democracy is bad.. My mistake. Apologies. I remembered you arguing that Libertarianism wasn't pro-dictatorship and I thought that was a pro-democracy sentiment. I suppose you're more in support of a Third Way of some sort? Kyrie eleison posted:However, libertarianism is not pro-dictatorship, that is ridiculous, and absurd to suggest. Dictatorship supports all sorts of ideas which violate the NAP, which is the true essence of libertarian philosophy. Apartheid violated the NAP but Libertarians were only too happy to line up to support that! Also Nazi Germany, which Rothbard was still mad about us fighting 50 years on when we should have let them destroy the commies for us while we took inspiration from their racial theories about Nordic superiority. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 18:28
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Kyrie eleison posted:Do not misconstrue me. I very, very clearly said that libertarianism is "oppositional to democracy" in my very first sentence, and explained why this is the case. Libertarianism is anti-democratic, and this is a good thing, because democracy is bad.. To paraphrase noted pugfaced man Winston Churchill, "democracy is the worst possible system, save for all the others that have been tried from time to time." While Churchill was himself kind of a shithead, the concept here seems pretty good: the best system which we have developed for governance is some form of representative democracy, which is a very wide spread that allows for a lot of diversity. For that matter, you were saying earlier that everyone is intrinsically a sociopathic maniac who will do whatever if there is no fear of punishment. Would this not require a governmental apparatus to enforce the non-aggresion principle? And if so, where are the funds and resources for such an apparatus found? Who will make decisions regarding this apparatus? Or is it just going to be, "Everyone really ought to do this, and if they don't, you can shoot them."
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Dec 18, 2014 18:36
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Nessus posted:For that matter, you were saying earlier that everyone is intrinsically a sociopathic maniac who will do whatever if there is no fear of punishment. Would this not require a governmental apparatus to enforce the non-aggresion principle? And if so, where are the funds and resources for such an apparatus found? Who will make decisions regarding this apparatus? Or is it just going to be, "Everyone really ought to do this, and if they don't, you can shoot them." Presumably the fears of corruption and unaccountability are inapplicable to the Catholic Church which is self-defined to be perfect and infallible because God would never let the Magisterium of His One True Church on Earth fall into error and evil. Also I would assume church-leveled taxes are a-okay if you put Jesus' face on the coins because when Jesus was talking about how bad wealth is, he only meant wealth denominated in coins with caesar on them. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 18:44
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VitalSigns posted:Why concede anything? Don't let Libertarians get away with claiming they support democracy. They don't.
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Dec 18, 2014 18:46
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VitalSigns posted:Presumably the fears of corruption and unaccountability are inapplicable to the Catholic Church which is self-defined to be perfect and infallible because God would never let the Magisterium of His One True Church on Earth fall into error and evil. That said if the plan is to bring about a libertarian utopia so that everything gets so lovely that Papal rulership is a preferable alternative, that's pretty ice cold. But hey, it's for a better cause.
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Dec 18, 2014 18:52
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VitalSigns posted:Apartheid violated the NAP but Libertarians were only too happy to line up to support that! This article is great and everyone should read it. A Libertarian posted:“I regret the fact that honest, law-abiding blacks cannot own property in or near white cities, but I realize that without this restriction separate development will fail — and with it the capitalist system in South Africa.” A state legislator on voting against changing "orientals" to "asians" in state documents: quote:“I’m very reluctant to continue to focus on setting up different definitions in statute related to the various minority groups. I’d really like to see us get beyond that.” whiteperson.txt
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Dec 18, 2014 18:53
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twodot posted:I'm not suggesting anyone concede anything, I'm asking why are we bothering to discuss not-bad aspects of Libertarians? Your response appears to have been "because" followed up by "actually that is a bad aspect" followed up by "No, wait, it's actually not bad". Given Kyrie's clarification, I realize I was mistaken and what they were discussing was whether or not right-Libertarianism is pro-dictatorship (it is), since they apparently agree that it's opposed to democracy. Sorry for being sloppy.
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Dec 18, 2014 18:55
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Kyrie what is Jesus Christ's views on blowjobs?
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Dec 18, 2014 19:16
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CowOnCrack posted:One can confuse happiness with delight or temporary contentment. Maybe a better word than happiness is fulfillment or inner peace, which tends to come from hope and faith and results in happiness and perseverance through life's unavoidable trials. Fulfillment doesn't come from hope and faith but from feeling like one belongs to a community and that their life and actions have meaning and value. If fulfillment came from hope and faith then the people I spoke to would have had that but they didn't. CowOnCrack posted:For example, faith in heaven is supposed to take your focus off your current woes to look forward to something that comes after. This isn't supposed to make you derelect in your duties. I don't think this means neglecting solving your problems at all, I just think fixing your spiritual condition is the most proximate solution necessary to everything else. If hope and faith lead you away from this then there must be a confusion somewhere. Technically I suppose it wasn't their faith that led them to not solve their problems as much as it was the other parishioners. It did lead them to believe that God would fix their problems for them, though, which is also a harmful belief. CowOnCrack posted:People need spirituality before everything else. Real question, can you define what you mean by spirituality? Because as it is I have no idea what you're talking about. CowOnCrack posted:I happen to think the Gospel is the distilled essence of our spiritual condition and gets closest to the 'Truth' that our feeble brains can grasp. It is very straightforward, and very radical. Nothing else matters but this guy Jesus who died for us all so we can get right with God. Without it we are all crippled and helpless. With it we are as powerful and as happy as we can be on this cursed rock until he comes back and hopefully save this doomed planet from what we've done to it, and in the meantime we have the hope to fight to the bitter end to be better friends, family members, neighbors, stewards of the earth, crusaders for social justice, shoe salesmen, bronze age assholes, and what have you. I don't have belief in God or Jesus and I am very happy and am neither crippled nor helpless. Why do you think that is?
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Dec 18, 2014 19:17
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