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Jerry Manderbilt posted:The big question is, has there ever been a Libertarian candidate who didn't lose his deposit? I think the bigger question is how puppies only get 80% approval. We already know the answer to yours.
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Jan 18, 2015 05:59
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Who What Now posted:That's why I don't follow the Bitcoin thread. Bitcoin has been the single greatest source of humor for me in 2014, and 2015 has been shaping up to be an amazing year for bitcoin-related laughs. Watching libertarians endlessly praise each other for being "enlightened" while simultaneously jockeying for a good backstab provides seemingly unlimited entertainment. And then somehow the victims end up praising the victors for successfully stealing all of their money and the entire thing is just so confusing and beautiful
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Jan 18, 2015 06:02
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prom candy posted:When I was 18 I joined the Ontario Libertarian Party and within a few months they tossed out the idea of me running in my riding in the next provincial election. What a joke of a party that was. They were probably impressed that you were wearing long pants.
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Jan 18, 2015 06:58
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:The big question is, has there ever been a Libertarian candidate who didn't lose his deposit? Not Derek Elliott, thats for sure.
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Jan 18, 2015 08:55
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Speaking of bitcoin, have you guys indulged in this bit of of schadenfreude?quote:Roger Ver, a high-profile member of the Bitcoin community who is commonly known as "Bitcoin Jesus," has been denied a US visa — despite having been born in the country. quote:The fiercely libertarian entrepreneur has also appealed for others to follow his lead on citizenship, in June launching a website that helps wealthy people pay their way to citizenship on his new island home of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies. http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-jesus-visa-application-denied-2015-1
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Jan 18, 2015 09:18
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SedanChair posted:They were probably impressed that you were wearing long pants. One of my friends like 8 years ago was convinced by his local Libertarian party in Missouri to run for collector of revenue during undergrad (he changed his residency to Missouri to do it, which unfortunately bit him in the rear end later when applying to law school at the University of Texas). He asked me to take a picture of him because the local newspaper needed headshots of the candidates and I had to show him the photo to convince him that no really, he needs to put on a shirt, there's no elegant way to crop it to hide that it's a shirtless photo. Well that's my story. He didn't win.
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Jan 18, 2015 09:21
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Mr Interweb posted:Speaking of bitcoin, have you guys indulged in this bit of of schadenfreude? The best part is that he's often referred to as "Bitcoin Jesus" No wait, the best part is that US Immigration denied him a Visa because he had renounced his citizenship in order to evade paying taxes, and then when he paid his taxes (sending a check for $325k to the US Treasury Dept, which they cashed) they denied his Visa anyway. Man, I guess being a tax-evading shithead has its consequences
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Jan 18, 2015 12:07
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QuarkJets posted:The best part is that he's often referred to as "Bitcoin Jesus" Wait, he actually paid off the taxes he owed? That makes it even better.
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Jan 18, 2015 12:17
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QuarkJets posted:The best part is that he's often referred to as "Bitcoin Jesus" The best part was how angry he was that US immigration refused to look at all the evidence that he'd lived in Japan, despite the fact that he was claiming to be a citizen of St Kitts and had no right of abode in Japan. Also, the government of St Kitts shut down his business selling citizenship for bitcoins. Mr Interweb posted:Wait, he actually paid off the taxes he owed? That makes it even better. They refused to process his visa application until he'd paid his back taxes. Once he did, they took one look at it and immediately denied him entry. Incidentally, he spent time in prison for shipping explosives through the USPS.
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Jan 18, 2015 12:31
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It warms the cockles of my heart that at least one branch of my government would rather have poor Latin@ immigrants than repatriate some wealthy bitcoin gently caress.
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Jan 18, 2015 12:39
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Good lord, they picked the trolliest reason for denial that they possibly could: "hey rich guy who voluntary renounced his US citizenship, we're still not quite sure that you dislike the country enough to leave when you're done. You know, like all those third-world peasants who overstay their visas. You wouldn't happen to have a proof of citizenship from your fake country, or perhaps a notice of employment for self-employed people in your fake country? No?"
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Jan 18, 2015 14:51
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Strawman posted:Incidentally, he spent time in prison for shipping explosives through the USPS. loving what?!?
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Jan 18, 2015 15:34
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Count Canuckula posted:loving what?!? "According to the information and plea agreement, Mr. Ver sold explosive devices described as "Pest Control Report 2000" on the online auction site eBay. He purchased approximately 49 pounds of the devices from a supplier in South Carolina, and sold at least 14 pounds of the devices to bidders on eBay. While engaging in the business of selling explosive devices, Mr. Ver stored the explosives in a residential apartment building and mailed the devices via the United States Mail in a manner contrary to Postal Service regulations. Judge Fogel sentenced the Defendant to 10 months in federal prison, a fine of $2,000, as well as a three-year period of supervised release." I also found a thread about it with some top quality liberty posting https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=120969.0 This is well known. We still support Roger 100% with his support of bitcoin. It's crypto-totalitarianism. Everyone is a potential "criminal". Provoke the wrong people, and they may literally destroy your life. I found the original post particularly offensive. This is yet another reason that when your ignore button gets dark enough the user should automatically be given the douche bag tag and their posts should not longer be visable anywhere unless other users click on them. OMG HE BROKE VICTIMLESS CRIME LAWS WHAT A TRAGEDY All this does is strengthen my association of "ex-con" with living in a police state. It no longer has any automatic negative connotation. Every day I feel less bad about wanting an economic collapse to come about and smash this system, and to ruin those sorts who depend on it and use it to enact such injustice.
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Jan 18, 2015 15:58
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Pest Control Report 2000 is Literally Dynamite and this man kept 49 pounds of it in an apartment? Bitcoin Jesus wept
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Jan 18, 2015 16:08
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In a just society everyone would be able to handle any amount of explosives without any constraints, and if something goes wrong well the neighbors who survive can sue the guy, whose belongings (and probably life) just went up in flames. Until anything happens it's just a victimless crime; what kind of wimp is afraid of living next door to 50 pounds of TNT?
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Jan 18, 2015 16:31
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Alfred Nobel Shrugged
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Jan 18, 2015 16:39
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I very very rarely take the side of the bureaucratic nightmare that is the US immigration system, especially as my fiancee lives in the US and we're trying to navigate that system right now, but in this case they are my heroes. This is one of the funniest things I've ever read. And the best part of all is the buttcoiners haven't seemed to learn: Just because you don't like the rules doesn't mean you can ignore them. Cry about tyranny all you like, the government still exists and has power. PS If I want to make nerve agents in my house and mail them to paying customers, what's wrong with that?
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Jan 18, 2015 16:58
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Count Canuckula posted:Alfred Nobel Shrugged This is a very offensive joke because Alfred Nobel is exactly the kind of soft-hearted muddle-headed businessman who helps the looters undermine the dream of an individualistic world where talent and achievement can have free reign. This is a man who built a vast fortune by inventing and manufacturing useful things to advance the productive capacity of mankind, like explosive and military armaments, but turned his back on the cause of science and industry because he felt bad about the faceless mindless and useless masses who were killed and maimed with his inventions. Considering how much money he made virtually any number of deaths would have been objectively justifiable, but Nobel allowed sentimental emotionalism to cloud his judgment and finally squandered most of his immense fortune establishing a tawdry foundation to reward members of looter class for their special achievements in parasitism. Nearly as bad as Immanuel Kant.
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Jan 18, 2015 19:23
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Another hilarious part is that you sign a statement every time that you ship something with the USPS to the effect of "I swear that there aren't explosives, biological agents, etc in this box". It's essentially a contract that you sign whereby you agree to be punished if you try to ship explosives through USPS. I guess the libertarians don't respect the sanctity of a contract
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Jan 18, 2015 19:41
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Men with guns told me I can't mail dynamite.
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Jan 18, 2015 19:44
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SedanChair posted:Men with guns told me I can't mail dynamite. All laws are violence, man, even laws against violence.
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Jan 18, 2015 19:46
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If you're interested in reading about wacky libertarians loving each other via bitcoin, you can always just read the highlights at buttcoinfoundation.org. They have a post there that's about a week old summarizing all of the major highlights of the month so far; January has been a month of absolute hilarity The only thing that it's missing is the trial of Ross Ulbricht, who was caught red handed using the handle Dread Pirate Roberts to run the Silk Road, a giant online drug market. He also attempted to hire an undercover FBI agent to kill several people. His defense attorney is trying to claim that he had merely taken over the name from Mark Karpeles, the original Bitcoin Jesus who ran Mt Gox (no joke, short for Magic the Gathering Online eXchange), a bitcoin exchange that used bots submitting fake buy and sell orders to pump up the price and then hilariously shut down after months of not allowing anyone to withdraw deposits. The idea is that Karpeles is some sort of bitcoin supervillain
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Jan 18, 2015 20:08
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QuarkJets posted:If you're interested in reading about wacky libertarians loving each other via bitcoin, you can always just read the highlights at buttcoinfoundation.org. They have a post there that's about a week old summarizing all of the major highlights of the month so far; January has been a month of absolute hilarity Don't forget that one of the people Ulbricht tried to hire the undercover FBI agent to kill was actually the undercover FBI agent.
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Jan 18, 2015 22:27
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Karia posted:Don't forget that one of the people Ulbricht tried to hire the undercover FBI agent to kill was actually the undercover FBI agent. This isn't actually true as I recall. There were two hits ordered by Ulbright. The first was to try and kill his former business partner who had been arrested by the FBI and turned informant. Ulbright tried to have him killed and hired the FBI to to it, who promptly faked the death. The second appears to have been a scam from the get-go in which someone claimed to have info on him, and then was hired, by him, to kill themselves.
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Jan 18, 2015 22:35
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 This Week in Mises.org: no quote tags edition! Not excerpted this week: a mostly unobjectionable article on pot legalization in marijuana (the drug war being one of those issues libertarians can sound reasonable about), and a boring article on Uber. I think they have a mandate for one sane and one boring piece per week. Revolutions Kill They're Parents: Left-wing revolution is one of history's biggest bait-and-switches. Both for the intellectuals who hanker for the grapeshot, and for the marginalized peoples who get concentration camps instead of the anti-capitalist utopia they were promised. "Revolutions eat their children." This observation, by a journalist during the French Revolution, was only partly true. In reality, revolutions eat their parents. In particular, history’s left-wing revolutions eat the left-wing intellectuals who made them happen. By “left-wing” here I mean revolutions that explicitly aim to use government power to reshuffle society. To remake society so it matches whatever version of “justice” strikes its promoters as attractive. Of course, in such reformist revolutions the eggheads are just an appetizer. History's reformist revolutions move straight on to the main course: the marginalized and minorities who were often the revolution's most passionate supporters to begin with. The left-wing revolutions of the twentieth century have all followed this pattern: midwifed by utopian intellectuals, power is quickly seized by political entrepreneurs who play to the basest instincts of the common people. Even in the most “civilized” places, such as “anything goes” Weimar Germany or 1950s “playground of the stars” Cuba, these newly enthroned are happy to see those eggheads and their “perverted” friends interred, tortured, hung from the nearest lamp post. [...]Why are intellectuals so blind to this horrible pattern? Presumably, they hope this time is different and that the campus radicals and their pet politicians will hold on this time. If history is a guide, they will not. Instead, their revolution will get snatched from them by political entrepreneurs and turned into their worst nightmare: a revolution that is anti-intellectual, anti-gay, racist, and anti-Semitic. No matter how pure the birth of the revolution, history suggests this is what it will come to. This gives no pleasure to point out. None of us want radical leftists hanging from lampposts, or executed in Che's office for his entertainment. What we do wish is that violence-promoting reformers would have a bit more respect for the fire they play with. For them to study a bit more history. To understand why it is, always and everywhere, so dangerous to ride the tiger of unlimited government. The left thinks it can control the tiger of the masses unleashed. It cannot, and indeed it will be the first to hang. And that would be very sad for us all, left and right. The Fed: Reality Trumps Rhetoric: Throughout the existence of the Fed, its officers and intellectual supporters understandably asserted that the government’s movement toward central banking was a most beneficial evolution. In a 1948 issue of The Federal Reserve Bulletin, for example, Fed Chairman Thomas B. McCabe asserted that money production could not manage itself, so we need a central bank such as the Fed that acts for the public interest. Nearly three decades later, the venerable Arthur Burns claimed that the basic assets of the Fed are concern for the general welfare, moral integrity, respect for tested knowledge, and independence of thought. The alleged benefits from a Fed-managed elastic money stock became the standard justification for the Fed in later propaganda. Again in 1948, Fed Chairman McCabe asserted that a lack of a central bank caused a continual threat of financial panic, but the Fed put an end to this danger — a rather cheeky claim to make only a few years after the Great Depression. Subsequent Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin claimed that the Fed was designed to minimize panics and crises due to irregularities in flow of money supply and make the monetary system function more smoothly, but that a gold standard was too rigid. [...]Alas, from the beginning, reality diverged from Fed rhetoric. What the Fed claimed it did and would do sharply differed from what it actually did and from the consequences of its actions. Instead of preventing and ameliorating crises, it caused and aggravated them. Instead of fighting inflation, it was inflation’s fountainhead. Instead of remaining politically independent, it served politicians. [...]U.S. economic history clearly refutes the notion that the Fed merely maintained an elastic currency to satisfy only the needs of commerce. If that were so, one would expect no necessary long-term trend toward increasing inflation, yet that is what we see. The rate of annual increase of the monetary base has increased with each inflation-enhancing institutional change in our monetary system. From 1918 through 1933, the year Roosevelt took us off the domestic gold standard, the monetary base increased at an average annual rate of approximately 2.2%. From 1933 to 1971, when Nixon took the dollar off the last vestiges of the international gold standard, the monetary base increased at an average annual rate of 6.4%. After we left gold for good, the Fed increased the monetary base at an average annual rate of 9.8%. The money stock followed suit. Since the advent of the Fed, M2 money stock increased by $10,006.4 billion in 2012. That is over a 452% increase during the life of the Fed. As one might expect as the money supply increased continually over the past century, the purchasing power of the dollar collapsed relative to what it was the century before the Fed. The consumer price index was 22.8 times higher in June 2013 than in January of 1913. From 1800 to about 1895, the purchasing power of the dollar roughly doubled. Then, as prices began their long march up after the advent of the Fed, the dollar’s purchasing power began its long slide downward, culminating in a PPM (purchasing power of the monetary unit) of approximately 8 cents in 2009 compared to the dollar of 1800. So much for maintaining the value of the dollar, stable price, and manipulating the money supply only for the needs of commerce. In light of the historical record, concerns about price deflation should be laughable. Noticeable price deflation has occurred only three times over the past one hundred years. The Fed allowed for price deflation in the wake of the 1920–21 recession, which is why it was over so quickly. It was ineffective in stopping monetary and price deflation in 1931–33 even though it was not for lack of trying. [...]For 100 years the Fed has proclaimed its econonomic indispensibility. The picture it paints of a world without the Fed is a dystopian one in which society is left lurching from recession to recession, alternately experiencing runaway inflation and high unemployment. Thanks to the Fed, it is claimed, we instead enjoy sound money, fewer recessions, high employment, stable prices, and increased standards of living. In other words, the Fed is absolutely necessary for full-orbed macroeconomic stability. Economic reality teaches a vastly different lesson, however, because the laws of economics have a way of impinging on statist rhetoric. The history of the Fed has been one of monetary inflation, higher overall prices, diminished purchasing power, economic depressions, and lost decades. In 1913 the state sowed the inflationist wind and for a hundred years we have been reaping the economic whirlwind. Bait & Switch: "Economic Development" in the States: Businesses do not locate in any one place solely because of the tax laws. However, as tax burdens climb, the tax treatment of the business itself, and of its higher-paid employees and executives, becomes a more important consideration. Thus the incentive packages, made up primarily of special tax abatements for a set period of time, are developed and used in recruiting new businesses. It is apparent that the politicians — politicians as diverse as Governor Pat McCrory of North Carolina and Governor Andrew Como of New York — who try to make use of these incentives, are totally missing the point they are illustrating. If you have to bribe a company to locate in your state or bribe one not to leave, your taxes and whatever else you are using to bribe them, are too high or otherwise onerous. If this were not so, companies and entrepreneurs would move to your state without being bribed and those already there would not be trying to leave. Low taxes and a favorable business climate, like that of Texas, bring in many companies from other places, like California, where the business climate and taxes are not favorable. [...]In truth, the states should close their economic development offices, cut the size and expense of their governments, and reduce or eliminate the taxes levied on businesses. They should also cut the regulatory red tape required to start a business and then operate that business within their state. Personal income taxes should also be eliminated so that companies considering moving to take advantage of the good business climate will bring their headquarters and high earners along. If you really are a good place to do business and your current businesses are doing well, you will not have to bribe a company to move in. Just get out of the way. Look at Texas! If you are a small businessman or CEO of a big public company like Boeing, where do you want to move or expand? If a state that you are considering will offer you a “bribe” to move there, how will they treat you when you become one of the “old” companies there? If you are in the economic development office of a state, why do you think you should offer a new company something you would not offer to those already there? If you are a businessman in any state whose government will offer “incentives” to a new company, you should consider suing for equal protection under the law! The True Cost of the Homeownership Obsession: In 2014, the US homeownership rate fell below 65 percent, which means it’s back to where it was during the 1970s and much of the 1990s. Various federal agencies have long made homeownership a priority, and have introduced a bevy of government and quasi-government programs including the GSEs like Fannie Mae, FHA-insured loans, VA-insured loans, the Bush administration’s “American Dream Downpayment Initiative” and, of course central bank meddling to keep interest rates nice and low for the mortgage markets. [...]Homeownership rates have never been an indicator of economic prosperity. Switzerland, for example, has a homeownership rate half of the US rate. Nevertheless, raising the homeownership rate has long been a pet project of politicians in Washington. The political obsession with raising homeownership rates dates back to the New Deal when Roosevelt began introducing a variety of homeownership programs designed to drive down the percentage of households that were renting their homes. Based on romantic ideas of frontier homesteading  , it was assumed that owning a house was the only truly American way of living. It was during this time that the thirty-year mortgage — an artifact of government intervention — became a fixture of the mortgage landscape. And homeownership rates did indeed increase. And with it, debt loads increased as well.[...]The people were promised more homeownership, but after just a few years, it has become clear they didn’t get it. At the same time, Wall Street was promised high home prices, and when the prices faltered, it was offered bailouts instead. Wall Street got its bailouts. The cost of the housing bubble is often calculated in dollar amounts that can easily be counted on Wall Street, but for those who aren’t politically well-connected — for ordinary workers, homeowners, construction firms, and many others — the cost in time and lost opportunities will forever remain among the many unseen costs of government intervention. Switzerland Frees the Swiss Franc: You can fix your currency or you run independent monetary policy. But you cannot do both at the same time. In spectacular fashion, the Swiss government finally capitulated and decided control over the money supply was more important than a fixed rate against the euro. The Swiss franc rocketed up 30 percent in value minutes after the central bank’s decision to let the currency float. Switzerland established the peg to the euro of 1.2 Swiss francs to the euro in September of 2011, in the midst of the European financial crisis. To keep the peg intact, the Swiss central bank has been forced to buy massive quantities of euros with newly printed Swiss francs which they promptly converted into Euro government bonds. The impact on the money supply has been devastating. M1 in Switzerland has surged over 20 percent in the last three years and nearly 130 percent since 2008. The Swiss national bank’s balance sheet increased nearly 50 percent since the establishment of the peg. Of course, this has led to a surge in asset prices and has made Swiss housing even more unaffordable. Why Peg the Franc to the Euro? One of the reasons the Swiss central bank established the peg was on the notion that its currency was overvalued and that exporters were being unjustifiably hurt by the appreciating currency. Of course, the term overvaluation is loaded language. The market determines exchange value. In a capitalist economy, prices are set by supply and demand where everyone who wants to sell will find a buyer who wants to buy. Exchange rates are also determined by supply and demand. Nothing, including currencies, is over or undervalued. [...]By pegging your currency to that of a bigger neighbor, you are essentially letting your neighbor determine your monetary policy. Dubai fixed its currency, the dirham, to the dollar and imported the US’s excessive monetary policy which led to the same real estate bubble in Dubai as the bubble in the US. In other words, by fixing your currency, you have to follow your bigger neighbor’s irresponsible monetary policy.
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Jan 18, 2015 22:46
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Nolanar posted:The left-wing revolutions of the twentieth century ... such as “anything goes” Weimar Germany Noted left-wing revolutionaries, the Nazi Party 
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Jan 18, 2015 22:53
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Mornacale posted:Noted left-wing revolutionaries, the Nazi Party quote:By “left-wing” here I mean revolutions that explicitly aim to use government power to reshuffle society. Everyone who is not an an-cap libertarian is left-wing. It's another word that means whatever they want it to, like violence and inflation.
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Jan 18, 2015 23:45
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QuarkJets posted:If you're interested in reading about wacky libertarians loving each other via bitcoin, you can always just read the highlights at buttcoinfoundation.org. They have a post there that's about a week old summarizing all of the major highlights of the month so far; January has been a month of absolute hilarity and if this sounds like they are ripping off the princess bride, you are correct
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Jan 19, 2015 00:47
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"the tiger of the masses unleashed" jfc
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Jan 19, 2015 00:52
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QuarkJets posted:The best part is that he's often referred to as "Bitcoin Jesus" I love the reactions of people who are upset about this. I mean, it's the United States' country. They should be free to let people in and out as they choose, according to Libertarian philosophy. This guy broke his contract with America once before. Surely, a reasonable businessman would not make another contract with someone who broke a previous contract. What I find funny is that he's pissed off about being left out of America, and then he complains that America is an evil empire. Yeah. That goes together. "I think you're evil and you won't let me in? YOU SUCK!"
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Jan 19, 2015 04:32
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Cemetry Gator posted:I love the reactions of people who are upset about this. I mean, it's the United States' country. They should be free to let people in and out as they choose, according to Libertarian philosophy. This guy broke his contract with America once before. Surely, a reasonable businessman would not make another contract with someone who broke a previous contract. The idea that the U.S. government is illegitimate, and therefore does not have a legitimate authority to restrict migration, is in theory consistent. Ask them what they think about unfettered immigration in general, though, and the level of hypocrisy is going to rise dramatically.
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Jan 19, 2015 04:39
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So I was reading this blog post from Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ogs®ion=Body And I guess I'm not really clear on what went on with Reagan and the Vockler when it came to monetary policy. Reagan was a gold bug, so wouldn't he have supported the tight money policies that Vockler was using at the time (I mean, right-wing economists support tight money monetary policy do they not)? What exactly was the conflict that was going on?
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Jan 20, 2015 09:31
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I get the impression that Reagan had no idea what his policies were until he read about them in one of his prepared speeches, so I'd assume there wasn't much of a conflict.
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Jan 20, 2015 13:21
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Mr Interweb posted:So I was reading this blog post from Krugman: The late 70's / early 80's was a period of high inflation and high unemployment. In order to break the back of inflation, Volker raised interest rates and put the screws to an already weak American economy creating pain for business, pain for normal folks, and pain for the administration which took most of the heat for not Doing Something About The Economy. By the end of 1983 Regan's approval rating was around 35%. It's not surprising there was desire from some within the Regan administration to have the Fed let up a little. As far as what Krugman is on about, idk, it seems like a spat between him and Robert Samuelson about whether Regan deserves credit for disrupting inflation because he didn't reign Volker in or whether Volker deserves the credit because monetary policy was his purview and the fed is nominally independant.
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Jan 20, 2015 15:46
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:and if this sounds like they are ripping off the princess bride, you are correct Goodnight young Bitcoiner. I'll most likely attempt to hire an undercover FBI agent to kill you in the morning.
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Jan 20, 2015 17:26
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Mornacale posted:The idea that the U.S. government is illegitimate, and therefore does not have a legitimate authority to restrict migration, is in theory consistent. Ask them what they think about unfettered immigration in general, though, and the level of hypocrisy is going to rise dramatically. This is the libertarian position as I understand it. People who are hypocrites on this issue are just confused as to what libertarianism means. States, being illegitimate in that they are permitted to use initiatory aggression, have no right to restrict "immigration", which is merely a euphemism for "moving". The libertarian position is not that there should be "open borders" but rather there should be no borders at all. Borders are simply a line drawn on a map by people who desire to rule over others. Movement and free association is a natural right and a necessary implication of self ownership. Freedom of movement is a shorthand phrase that some use, but even that is not entirely accurate. Do you have a "right" to immigrate across my living room? No, of course not. People who cross private property must be invited. Freedom of movement and immigration is only restricted by the desires of the individual and the individual property owners of the land that you want to traverse. In a libertarian society, all land is either privately owned or unowned with the free ability of anyone to mix his or her labor with it and bring it into ownership through original appropriation. Thus there can be no universal right for anyone to travel across privately owned land unrestricted. People who immigrate into a libertarian society would necessarily be invited or sponsored by someone who already owns land. We can expect that a free economy will be starved for labor and thus businesses will likely sponsor new immigrants, apartment complexes will advertise low cost rentals for foreign immigrants and concerned citizens will help these people integrate into the community. But there can be no mandates on private property owners with respect to how they should deal with immigrants or anyone else for that matter. Freedom of association is an aspect of individual liberty and should not be violated through coercion. What this means is that it is entirely consistent for a libertarian to oppose State mandated open borders because, in conjunction with the welfare State and Federal mandates, this creates a system of forced integration and hardship for private property owners whose tax money is stressed on social services provided to new immigrants and mandates which required individuals to associate with people that they would prefer not to associate with. This is also a rights violation that some libertarians recognize. The libertarian position on immigration is completely consistent and based on principle.
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Jan 22, 2015 10:29
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Actually plenty of libertarians insist that the maintenance of territorial integrity and border security are more or less the only things for which a government is fit.
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Jan 22, 2015 10:55
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OK so political borders are just imaginary lines on a map put there by illegitimate states who desire lordship and dominion, but nothing can interfere with the right of men and women to enjoy freedom of movement and association. OK, got it. But if the imaginary lines on the map exist because some people paid money to put it there, then it's an inviolable sacrosanct property border and the community has the absolute right to enact immigration laws as draconian as necessary to keep out the blacks and the Muslims to preserve this lily white patch of the great human biodiversity of pigment alleles. So when the Congress of the United States votes to let in Mexicans, that's bad because democracy is illegitimate. But when the HOA votes to exclude Mexicans, that's just fine as long as a majority vote was written into the bylaws handed down by Our Founding Real Estate Developer And/Or Company Town Despot (pbuh) Mm-hmm. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 11:09
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jrodefeld posted:The libertarian position on immigration is completely consistent and based on principle. Libertarians encountered in the wold are wholly inconsistent and unprincipled, and their stance on immigration is a frequently encountered example of that. e: Here's an example: jrodefeld posted:Borders are simply a line drawn on a map by people who desire to rule over others. Movement and free association is a natural right and a necessary implication of self ownership. jrodefeld posted:Freedom of movement is a shorthand phrase that some use, but even that is not entirely accurate. Do you have a "right" to immigrate across my living room? No, of course not. People who cross private property must be invited. Freedom of movement and immigration is only restricted by the desires of the individual and the individual property owners of the land that you want to traverse. Here we have a libertarian arguing on one hand that borders are just imaginary lines and that freedom of movement is a fundamental right, but on the other hand property lines are inviolable and don't you dare loving cross my land without my permission 
QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 11:16
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Nolanar posted:Everyone who is not an an-cap libertarian is left-wing. It's another word that means whatever they want it to, like violence and inflation. Violence and inflation are not words that libertarians use to mean "whatever we want it to". These words have definite meanings and libertarians use these terms according to their dictionary definitions. Inflation is an expansion of the money supply. Violence is the use of initiatory force. This is plain language and people that take issue with these clear definitions are the ones who are confused. They should take their beef to Webster's or some other dictionary distributor because they are arguing against centuries of common usage of the English language. I posted an article that I don't think many of you read, called "Free Market Anti-Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal" by Sheldon Richman. People like Richman and Gary Chartier, among others, have been persistent in trying to revive a forgotten tradition of libertarianism. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, radical laissez-faire market anarchism and liberalism was not considered to be a part of the right, but of the left. Frederic Bastiat was a leftist market anarchist as was Lysander Spooner and many others. "Capitalism" is an unfortunate term that doesn't really explain what radical market advocates endorse. The term really only become widespread when Marx used it as a derogatory term. As Richman pointed out in his article, early market anarchists favored a "freed" market primarily because it provided the best method for the exploited masses to undermine the power and influence of the capitalists, meaning in this sense the literal meaning of those State-privileged big business leaders, owners of capital that have forever sought to cartelize, to monopolize and to find new and additional ways to provide privilege and protection for themselves and their wealth. Advocates of a freed market saw the surest way for the underclass to triumph over the exploitative class was to undercut them in the marketplace, provided the unnatural privilege and monopoly protection provided by the State was removed and these leaders of industry had to compete on an even playing field with the rest of society. These intellectual fore-bearers of modern libertarianism made up a great majority of the abolitionist movement, of the early labor movement, the womens rights movement and many other progressive causes. A hallmark of leftism throughout history before the 20th century was an opposition to the State. Conservatism is and was a desire to cling to the institutions and hierarchies that have existed, the "old order" as it was called. The reactionaries, the conservatives were those that sought to undermine the principles of liberalism through bringing back the old system of feudalism, of State power, of class and an elite that governed society through institutions such as the Church. By contrast, the liberals were those that sought to break up such institutions by removing such artificial privilege by tearing down the State, by advocating laissez-faire markets, individual natural rights and class consciousness. It is a sad story that Karl Marx, who was legitimately a part of the left, mislead generations of 20th century activists by misdirecting anger which should be directed toward those that use force against others, those who seek the political means to wealth acquisition rather than market means, and directing it against any who privately own capital and the means of production. While professing to hate the State and seeing it correctly as the exploitative institution that it really is, Marxists undermine their anti-statism by focusing their anger against private entrepreneurs and the free contract between employer and employee. As I've explained already, the prospect of profits provides the incentive to take risks with wealth that would otherwise not exist. The worker in essence, chooses to trade the potential for slightly hire future earnings for lower but immediate and guaranteed present wages. Since each worker has the right to become an entrepreneur himself and reap the full benefit of a return on their labor, their choice to trade their labor for wages is a reflection of a higher time preference and an aversion to risk. It cannot be seen as exploitative for this reason. Now, businesses certainly CAN be genuinely exploitative and they certainly have been on numerous occasions. But it is their use of force and coercion coupled with State privilege that is exploitative not the private ownership of capital. Once Karl Marx burst onto the intellectual scene, the "left" splintered into two movements. The Marxists on the one hand, and the radical individual market anarchists on the other. Both wanted to ultimately get rid of the State, but Karl Marx did not clarify but only obfuscated and confused matters. Marx did not invent the concept of class consciousness or the idea of a mass movement to overturn the power of the exploitative elite. In fact, it was classical liberals and anarchists who had a competing and far more logical theory of class and exploitation. On the one hand there were those who sought wealth in the market through voluntary trade, the economic means. On the other were those who sought the political means to wealth acquisition. The old order, the financial elites, high priests, Kings, the aristocracy and politicians had from time immemorial employed the political means and held together a nakedly exploitative system of serfs and overlords. The liberal revolution born from the Enlightenment era thinkers like John Locke overturned this order that had existed throughout recorded history. The surest and best way for the masses to rise up against this old feudal order was to assert the principles of liberalism, of natural rights, of freed markets and private property, of eliminating the State and the privileges it has granted to these ancient and exploitative institutions. This is why authors like Gabrielle Kolko who was indeed a Marxist, but a genuine radical leftist nonetheless, termed the Progressive Era "The Triumph of Conservatism". In this instance, the two branches of leftism observed the same thing which was the triumph of the "old order", of special privilege cronyism and State power, over the radical leftism of liberalism. It was in fact the triumph of capital, of big business and the banking elite that drove the progressive movement. During this time the correct political spectrum got twisted and confused. Leftists became associated with Statism and the New Deal of FDR and right-wing opposition to Roosevelt caused us to erroneously associate conservatism with opposition to the State. Murray Rothbard calls socialism not a "radical leftism" but rather a confused, middle of the road ideology. Essentially modern left-progressives, taught to worship FDR and social democracy in school and in the media are attempting to achieve liberal goals (equality, equal rights, justice, policing economic power) using incompatible conservative means. This tension leads only to continual disappointment as, year after year, expansions of State power never lead to the outcomes that "left" progressives and social democrats claim. Wealth inequality doesn't shrink through State power expansion, higher Federal education budgets don't lead to a better educated populace, a "war on poverty" leads to stagnant poverty rates and so on ad infinitum. Most economists and historians would concede that Marxism has been discredited and his ideas such as the "labor theory of value" have no credibility and have fatal flaws. But what we need, and if the modern left has any sense whatsoever, they will adjust their tactics and embrace the radical liberalism of Frederic Bastiat, of Lysander Spooner and become principled anti Statists and advocates for individualism, of freed markets without privilege and private property.
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Jan 22, 2015 11:20
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