Grand Theft Autobot posted:The Third Annual "Feed My Starving Children Gang Rape" Economists not called JS Mill often make lousy philosophers.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 00:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 16:33 |
|
|
Disinterested posted:(2) Child porn/rape is child abuse but could be legitimate and allowable if it was the only thing you could do to raise money to keep the child alive, because raping is better than death by starvation, and also allowable in the above case. This is literally the Jack Bauer scenario, isn't it? A morally repugnant act is magically justified because it's the only alternative to something even worse - but narrowing the scenario down to just those two options requires hundreds of more reasonable options to be magically hand-waved away, so that the conclusion you finally draw has no relation to reality.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 00:29
|
|
|
JRod, I'm going to get to some of your points, but first this:jrodefeld posted:I have to take a moment here to ask this question. Are libertarians welcome on the SA forums? You may disagree with everything I say but still value the contribution of someone who represents a different viewpoint. I mean, this is a thread dedicated to libertarian ideas so you might as well have an actual libertarian participating in the discussion, right? JRod, have you ever considered why people are being mean to you? It's because you don't listen. You don't actually hear what we're saying. You don't engage with anyone. I understand that it's easy to get outnumbered here and when you post, you'll get a lot of people all itching you tear you apart. But you know what? You never actually attempt to argue with us. Sometimes, it feels like you go with the most asinine and insulting posters so that way you can indulge in your fantasy that you're the well-reasoned philosopher, coming to talk to the rabble, and you're being attacked for showing them the light. And meanwhile, you ignore what people say. And then you make the same arguments again and again, and you ignore what people have to say. So yeah. We get insulting. You know why? Because when somebody acts like an rear end in a top hat, other people will call them a variety of insulting names. It's an a priori truth of human interaction. But it's frustrating to spend a lot of time dismantling your facile arguments, and then having you ignore what I have to say until I call you a racist. And so you teach people - hey, if I insult Jrod, he'll respond back. You do one of two things here. You either attempt to reboot your argument, or you spend time talking about things you don't want to talk about. Now, let's get to your posting style. It's horrible. You don't express yourself cleanly and clearly. Your ideas lack thought. I call them facile all the time because they're not thought out at all. You don't engage with what people are saying. Many of your arguments exist in hypothetical worlds, and you don't address reality. You're not engaging in an honest debate. You're that pretentious and pompous high school AP student who thinks that he's got the world figured out and IF ONLY PEOPLE WOULD JUST LISTEN TO HIS ARGUMENTS, they'd clearly see that they are blindly idiots. quote:That is why I am concluding that most of you must be purposely attempting to drive me away. It is not that you disagree with me, or that you bring up counterpoints that I object to. It is the relentless assault that is starting to get to me. Posting on a forum where you are outnumbered fifty to one and not a single other member is there who will back up a point you make is exhausting enough, but reading page after page of insults on top of it? I fly off the handle and call people names too. But there is no loving need for it. No, it's not every single loving post. It's when you start posting your long rear end ravings that are terribly written in that faux-academic style that people start calling you out. You act like a real know-it-all, and people find that offensive. And then you don't engage with us when we present you with evidence that shows your views are wrong, and you don't engage with us. The secret is engage with us and stop writing like a Freshman philosophy student. quote:Unless your goal is to drive me away permanently, what loving purpose is there to this? I have heard stories that a number of you were once libertarians yourself and, unless that was just a lie, that ought to make you more compassionate. JRod, you make it sound like being a leftist, or being a libertarian in your case, is some horrible diseased-state that should be pitied. You're throwing a temper-tantrum here. quote:If you value a libertarian voice, not just as a punching bag, then I could post here once in a while. But there has got to be some degree of civility and a willingness to be intellectually honest. You can't simultaneously criticize me for going back and answering old posts and also criticize me for skipping over important posts in favor of newer ones. That is just one example. Purposely misunderstanding what I write just so you can call me a "racist" is a low tactic also. You've said this before. You've acted this way before. Why don't you engage in debate. You can control it. Instead of bringing attention to how we all have this strange delusion that you gently caress watermelons, how about drawing our attention back to the debate. Why don't you engage with us and our counterpoints. And when you say something stupid, understand that you will get razzed for it. But don't expect a loving pity party. Grow up.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 00:32
|
|
Alien Arcana posted:This is literally the Jack Bauer scenario, isn't it? A morally repugnant act is magically justified because it's the only alternative to something even worse - but narrowing the scenario down to just those two options requires hundreds of more reasonable options to be magically hand-waved away, so that the conclusion you finally draw has no relation to reality. Yes. And unlike a ticking time bomb scenario, child starvation is much more readily preventable than bombs planted by terror cells - and by precisely the types of agency to which libertarians are entirely opposed: namely, the state providing a basic standard of care to all of its citizens. Even Friedman and Hayek were not opposed to that policy.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 00:32
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:You see, it is a state actor, the United States, that is propping up Israel! One of many observations made by libertarianism that nevertheless reaches an insane conclusion.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 00:36
|
|
|
sudo rm -rf posted:And also seeing that you seem to be responding to people about actual things that affect how people live instead of ideas, would you mind going back and explaining why the NHS has been a better vehicle for providing care and controlling costs than the US' system of healthcare? Because it is utterly at odds with your suggestion that the problems of the US healthcare market are centered in government involvement. How do you contend with the data and examples that contradict you? Please answer this question as although many other posters ask good questions this is perhaps the best real life example of your logic failing, not just shooting a hypothetical hole in the hypothetical SS Libertarianism via some argument about what would happen if we got rid of schools.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 00:44
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:Yes. And unlike a ticking time bomb scenario, child starvation is much more readily preventable than bombs planted by terror cells - and by precisely the types of agency to which libertarians are entirely opposed: namely, the state providing a basic standard of care to all of its citizens. Even Friedman and Hayek were not opposed to that policy. Look, there are going to be a ton of starving children in Libertopia, and one of them is bound to be a ticking bomb situation. Ironically, there will likely be lots of children who are literal ticking bombs, as exploding child slaves will probably make great sport in Libertopia.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 01:01
|
|
|
Welp, I was going to get angry at Jrod, but that's too depressing, so I took a trip down memory lane for the happier, sillier, somehow even stupider days of this thread.Nolanar posted:There have been other libertarians in this thread. We didn't go nuts on them with insults at first, there's always a line they have to cross first. One guy with a Japanese username I can't remember came in making similar arguments to yours, and we responded to them rather civilly, prompting him to have a spectacular meltdown and quit the thread (and then came back several times to tell us how much he doesn't care what we post). Another came in and made different arguments, and then it turned out he was a white nationalist and got banned. Shiranaihito! He was beautiful and wonderful and I loved him. A 30 year old guy from Finland who loved Molyneux and told us we were all being silly for not being libertarians, left the thread in a huff because we were mean, came back to tell us he didn't care about us calling him names, left again, came back to tell Jrod not to pay attention to us, left, came back again to tell Caros that his friend should have just gone to Thailand for affordable, reliable healthcare. Also according to him Caros is still a libertarian who's trolling us because there's no legitimate reason to leave libertarianism. The other dude was LuftWaffle (at least if it's who you're thinking about.) He used to be a libertarian, but then left after deciding that libertarianism made it too difficult to oppress black people, so we should just give them their own country and let them all die because they're too stupid to survive. He made it four posts before being banned. Also he didn't want to be called a racist. (Also I just looked at his profile and holy poo poo he was on the forums for twelve goddamn years with no probates or bans for racism before pulling that crap out here. This thread brings out the worst in people.)
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 01:04
|
|
|
Karia posted:This thread brings out the worst in people.) Looks like Hobbes was right after all. edit: goddamn, this Walter Block is a dispicable idiot. Grand Theft Autobot fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Jun 4, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 01:08
|
|
|
We've also had The Mutato and asdf32 itt.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 01:35
|
|
|
asdf32 wasn't libertarian. I am not exactly sure what he was but it wasn't libertarian.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 01:55
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:Mises said that it is consumers who, through their purchasing power, direct the distribution of capital goods into production lines to which they are most demanded. The rich may have more money on an individual basis than the middle class and poor, but as a whole the middle class people far outnumber the rich. Every business will have to spend the vast majority of their resources producing consumer goods at prices that the masses can afford. I think this quoted bit gets at the heart of where most posters disagree with you, jrod. You seem to be arguing that it's in the market, and not the government, where the people are able to wield their power. I don't think anyone will disagree that politics is corrupted by money, but the reasonable solution there would be to work to stop that corruption, rather than throwing out the whole thing. If you think that the government is incapable of serving anyone but the rich, you need to explain how you got to that conclusion. And it better be a pretty good explanation if you're going to explain away how successful democratic socialist states have been at serving their poorest citizens. You should also explain why we should prefer indirect market methods of regulating businesses (like boycotts I guess?) over government regulation. If your system only works if every consumer has accurate knowledge on which companies are treating their employees well, following food safety practices, not polluting too much etc so they know who to buy from, I can't see that working. You're going to have to do some work to explain how exactly that would work.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 02:04
|
|
|
CharlestheHammer posted:asdf32 wasn't libertarian. I don't know what he was, but he certainly was against it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 02:49
|
|
|
asdf32 isn't a Libertarian, he's a walking, talking, Just World fallacy. I can understand the confusion with Libertarianism, but it is different.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 03:05
|
|
|
Hey cool, new thread title.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 03:08
|
|
|
According to Walter Block, slavery was basically just picking cotton and singing songs, and you don't need to know how to read to do either of those things. Makes u think.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 03:25
|
|
|
So um... Serious question for Jrod: Would you say an organization like FIFA would be any more or any less terrible in a stateless society? And if not, would someone who decided to make their own sports league fare better or worse in Libertopia?
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 03:31
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:(4) Pedophiles who masturbate to naked photos of children taken by their parents that they steal are not committing a sex crime because there is 'no victim'. Of course this would be the one time a Libertarian philosopher would be okay with stealing and not too concerned with the feelings of the property owner.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 03:34
|
|
|
VitalSigns posted:Of course this would be the one time a Libertarian philosopher would be okay with stealing and not too concerned with the feelings of the property owner. As long as the Pedo isn't having sex with that innocent property, there is no crime.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 03:40
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:You entirely misunderstand the nature of markets in your critique as well. Mises said that it is consumers who, through their purchasing power, direct the distribution of capital goods into production lines to which they are most demanded. The rich may have more money on an individual basis than the middle class and poor, but as a whole the middle class people far outnumber the rich. Every business will have to spend the vast majority of their resources producing consumer goods at prices that the masses can afford. Only a very small percentage of their product line will reflect premium goods that only the wealthy can afford. "Every" business? McLaren doesn't sell any car that costs less than $100,000 and I can name ten more businesses with a similarly exclusive product line. Point is, "every" is a big word and you'll find just as many companies that try to pad their margins by making themselves "premium" as you will companies that go for a broad customer base.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 03:59
|
|
|
CharlestheHammer posted:asdf32 wasn't libertarian. a contrarian posting bot
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 04:17
|
|
|
quote:Libertarian/Jrodefeld thread: You don't need to be able to read to pick watermelons
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 05:42
|
|
|
paragon1 posted:do you think anyone has ever told jrod that part of the reason for mandatory education is to prevent parents from making their children work instead of going to school? My parents almost certainly wouldn't have sent me to school if it hadn't been mandatory. I grew up on a farm and my stepdad was constantly complaining about how school was a waste of time (he quit in 5th grade and could neither read nor write) and that I should stay home and help on the farm, and maybe take it over someday. The farm folded a few years after I graduated and moved away, because, surprisingly, it's not really feasible to run a dairy farm in the early 2000s with 1970s equipment, 50 odd head of cattle and a 1 acre pasture and expect to make enough to survive. drat the state for robbing me of that opportunity! 
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 06:32
|
|
|
You don't pick watermelons. You gently caress them
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 06:37
|
|
|
Soviet Commubot posted:My parents almost certainly wouldn't have sent me to school if it hadn't been mandatory. I grew up on a farm and my stepdad was constantly complaining about how school was a waste of time (he quit in 5th grade and could neither read nor write) and that I should stay home and help on the farm, and maybe take it over someday. But think how much sooner it would have folded if he'd had to spend seven more years in school of all places rather than out working!?
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 06:38
|
|
|
Soviet Commubot posted:The farm folded a few years after I graduated and moved away, because, surprisingly, it's not really feasible to run a dairy farm in the early 2000s with 1970s equipment, 50 odd head of cattle and a 1 acre pasture and expect to make enough to survive. You only think that because Obama started the universal education movement back in the 19th century as a long-range plan to brainwash you into preferring reading over learning to run a run-down farm, and now he controls your mind maaaaaaaaaaaan.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 06:41
|
|
|
Nolanar posted:Hey JRodimus, Okay, I appreciate this articulation of your own views. And yes, it grows tiring to have to be on the defensive for page after page. It is easy enough for a large group of people to sit back and poke holes in an ideology while a single person is tasked with defending it. Of course it is not enough to find some defect with an ideology unless you have an improvement upon it. When I talk about private property rights with people, and how original appropriation is the most sensible way to determine who has authority of which scarce resources, some people will try to poke holes in this theory by appealing to what is called the "continuum problem". To be brief, if I build a massive fence around several acres of land but I don't touch the land within the fence, can I be said to have homesteaded that land? Absolutely not. That which you improve with your labor is yours but that land which remains untouched is not yours. Let's suppose you plant crops and you place a seed one foot apart in rows in a garden. Do you own the foot between crops which you didn't directly touch? I would say you certainly do. It would be quite outrageous to imagine that a person must homestead every single molecule of dirt within the borders of appropriated land to be considered the owner. Another reason is that no other person could profit from appropriated a six inch square of dirt in the middle of my backyard so I am not forestalling anyone else from profiting either. Another objection is to say "what about the Native Americans? They didn't have the same ideas about property as you so should we just justify the theft of their land?" In the first place, Native Americans did indeed homestead land and make improvements to it, and our founders had a moral obligation to respect the property rights to the native peoples which they obviously did not do. This aside is being made to show the problems with taking shots at libertarianism without offering a compelling alternative solution or definition to a problem. How close must one alter plots of land to also be considered owner of the land between the labor (crops, buildings, etc)? This is a continuum problem and there is no perfect answer to it. Cultural norms and a consensus agreement among people, court cases and things of that nature would be able to narrow it down to a reasonable understanding. Another "continuum problem" that neither libertarians, nor anyone else, has a perfect answer to is what should the age of consent be for having sex with an adult? Should a girl be able to make that decision at 16? 18? 14? What about 15 and 253 days? There is absolutely no single correct answer to this problem. Some States say the age ought to be 16. Others say the age should be 18. We know for certain that a girl aged 11 is not capable of giving consent to sex with an adult but we know that a woman of 25 is. Somewhere in the middle is the correct age and the law will always be imperfect and imprecise. Another obvious example is abortion. No one knows exactly when life that deserves legal protection begins. Somewhere between fertilization and birth, a conscious human being is created and to kill that human is an immoral act. However, State involvement into this issue invites all kinds of abuses of a woman's reproductive rights and civil liberties. It is not a simple, morally clear issue. To criticize libertarians for not having absolute clarity on this subject is absurd, since no-one else has a perfect answer to the problem either. I understand this is a big digression, but my point is to illustrate the way it feels when people constantly critique your philosophy while not offering up their preferred alternative. There is always a comparison that must be made in the real world. Supposing I was supporting Rand Paul for president despite all his faults. No question you could criticize him for his flip-flopping, his many stupid statements on various subjects and his pandering to the religious right and to the Israel Lobby. And most libertarians have already criticized him for that. But if it turns out you are supporting HIllary Clinton for president? Well, that sheds an entirely new light on the matter. As a matter of comparison, I have no problem saying I would vastly prefer Rand Paul as president than Hillary Clinton (or any other Republican for that matter). With that out of the way, let's examine your philosophy. I've read a bit of Rawls and I ought to read more. He is certainly one of the most important political theorists of the 20th century. I'm not going to critique Rawls in the abstract, I'll stick to your summation of his views which have influenced your views. I think Rawls contention that moral theories are more just if they are deduced behind the "Veil of Ignorance" is sound. For most people it indeed is hard or impossible to separate your own material well being with that of society at large. Most people favor political policies and ideologies that benefit them directly without too much regard to who else they might harm. If people had to judge the virtue of a political theory or social order with no idea of the direct material benefit to him as opposed to others in society, what would he choose? It is a good philosophical exercise no doubt. But to sum up your animating principle, it would be that society is best whose least fortunate members of society are doing the best. If I understand it, that would mean you dissent from many on the radical left whose egalitarianism is so rigid that they would prefer a less prosperous society with more equality of wealth even if it meant that the poor would be even more poor than under a less egalitarian free market society. I am fairly certain that Bernie Sanders views things precisely this way. I have to take issue with your claim that "the evidence has shown that it is not true" that free markets are a rising tide that lifts all boats. I would argue that the preponderance of the evidence throughout the 20th century has shown that market reforms and a retreat of State controls over the economy have created an atmosphere of rising prosperity which enables the creation of a middle class and the alleviation of problems associated with poverty such as starvation in every nation where such reforms have been enacted. We can look at Hong Kong in the 1980s compared to mainland China, South Korea compared with North Korea, Singapore, Switzerland and New Zealand, which have pursued policies of mostly free markets and a limited role for the State. Look at the metrics about how easy it is to start a business and you see a very good correlation to general prosperity in that society. In fact, it has been a point that many libertarians have made that the poor in economically free market nations are consistently doing better than the poor in economically unfree nations. The poor in the United States frequently have televisions, at least one car, cell phones and the like while the poor in many authoritarian Statist nations are starving. Under conditions of free markets, the rich attain wealth by satisfying consumers. This, by definition, cannot be a zero sum game. Mutual economic transactions benefit both parties and the interests of the employer and employee are the same. Those who attain wealth through the market do so directly in proportion to the value they provide to consumers. The position of the wealthy in a freed market is always shaky, with new competitors waiting to undercut their market share. Rags to riches to rags again in three generations as the saying goes. But this is no issue as society gets progressively wealthy over time, the poor doing better and better and a robust middle class emerging from the consumer directed capital investments that form the cornerstone of market calculation. You probably would cite some social welfare state like Sweden as an example of a market economy tempered by a social safety net as a better alternative, but you have to understand that only societies that have grown prosperous through free enterprise progress to the point where they can afford such State interventions in the first place. State redistribution is meaningless without the creation of wealth with which to distribute. In the 1960s, before Sweden became Socialist, they had the second highest per capita GDP in the world. Today they are not in the top 10. Here is a paper which makes the case against this pinnacle of social democracy. It is called "The Swedish Model Reassessed: Affluence Despite the Welfare State": http://www.libera.fi/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Libera_The-Swedish-model.pdf Sweden is an example of a society that grew incredibly wealthy through the free market but whose late 20th century foray into socialism is given the credit for their living standards. Unlike many other nations, they also did not squander their money through military empire and wars which helped them out considerably. I definitely think you've got to provide a heck of a lot more evidence for your claim that "redistributive taxation, Keynesian countercyclical spending, food safety regulations, and so on have all been pretty clear boons on the whole." I also find it troubling that you seem to lack any concrete principle or conception of rights. Your idea that you can arbitrarily determine which society is more "just" by looking at the macro view is foolhardy in my estimation. A society is made up of a million different interlocking parts that contribute to the whole and looking at it from a macro level, it can be difficult if not downright impossible to determine which set of actions caused which set of outcomes. If you want to determine the moral quality of a society, you need to look at the level of the individual. It is the individual action of millions of different people that has a moral character that we ought to judge. We have to have some set of principles that we apply consistently. Even if we accept your contention that the best society is one in which "the least well-off are the best off" that doesn't explain how that society got to that point. How do you decide what factors are causative and which are mere correlations? The evidence suggests that Sweden's resultant and continued prosperity was created through the free market but yet you would probably cite their late 20th century socialist experiment as the cause of their living standards. This is really sloppy thinking with all due respect. It amounts to little more than "this society is doing pretty good, let's just adopt whatever State policies they have." I contend that instead you ought to have a consistent set of moral principles and a concept of rights and judge each action between individuals on its own merits and be consistent in your application of those principles. That is my shot at critiquing your views. I'd encourage others to share their favored political views to expose them to similar scrutiny.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 07:55
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:I'll give you a short list of libertarian reforms that ought to be immediately adopted and why they would contribute to human flourishing. I want to bring this post up once more because I'd like others to respond to what my immediate suggestions would be for reforms. Which do you agree with and which don't you? We spoke about education briefly, but there are ten things on the list and I'd like to see which ones you'd oppose.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:03
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:I want to bring this post up once more because I'd like others to respond to what my immediate suggestions would be for reforms. Which do you agree with and which don't you? We spoke about education briefly, but there are ten things on the list and I'd like to see which ones you'd oppose. the first reform would be for you to stop posting you massive chickenshit
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:06
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:
AHHHHHHH goddammit you can set your watch by it
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:06
|
|
|
Who What Now posted:poo poo, if you can't get at least a little poo poo thrown your way in D&D you might as not post here at all. That's not the problem. I wanted to gauge to intention behind it, that's all. If libertarians are welcome here then great. If the possibility of discussion is absent because libertarians are not welcome, then I'd rather not waste my time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:13
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:You probably would cite some social welfare state like Sweden as an example of a market economy tempered by a social safety net as a better alternative, but you have to understand that only societies that have grown prosperous through free enterprise progress to the point where they can afford such State interventions in the first place. State redistribution is meaningless without the creation of wealth with which to distribute. Ah ah, you're switching it up. First you claimed that the poor are materially better off in a free market society than they would in a welfare state, but then you admit that Sweden's poor actually do better than in free market societies, only it's not worth it if they don't have the highest per capita GDP in the world? But why is that important, per capita GDP doesn't tell us how the poor are doing. Looking at how the poor are doing tells us how the poor are doing. If you're going to claim that the free market lifts all boats and socialism is about making the poor worse off than before just to get even with the rich, then you can't counter evidence with the poor doing better with "but what about per capita GDP"
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:14
|
|
|
Who What Now posted:The worst crime imaginable to jrod is education and welfare for the poor. Horror of horrors! Don't misrepresent my views. The worst crime imaginable is war. I've always considered corporate welfare to be far more egregious that welfare to the poor. I've always considered police brutality and the prison industrial complex to be far more immoral than welfare to the poor. Education is a different issue altogether. I never made any distinction about public education for the poor versus anyone else. The main problem with State education is that children become subject to propaganda in social studies and history which serves the powerful. Children are taught that the State is wise and good and we would be destitute without politicians to rule over us. There is nothing wrong with education and welfare to the poor. Actually, both are good if they are provided voluntarily by free individuals. When delivered by the State, they come with an ulterior motive that is ultimately not in the interest of the poor. Any objective social study of the effects of the welfare state has come to the conclusion that the policies are counterproductive and harmful, entrenching people in poverty. The outcomes have not been good. Don't try and shove me into your self serving narrative about the heartless libertarian who doesn't want to help the poor. To the contrary, I want the best for the poor and black Americans in particular, and that is precisely why I oppose the State imposing their oppressive welfare state on the vulnerable. Harry Browne used to say that the State breaks you leg and gives you a pair of crutches and takes credit for your ability to walk.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:26
|
|
|
I thought it was private religious schools like ACE that indoctrinate children into unquestioning obedience, and universities that expose students to a wide range of literature and thought. But apparently it's the opposite. E: How does the state break the legs of the poor? I thought the poor get over in America because they don't pay income taxes and get to sit on the couch drinking beer and eating government cheese all day on my dime, dimes that were pried away from me by the Obamatrooper force. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jun 4, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:29
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:I want to bring this post up once more because I'd like others to respond to what my immediate suggestions would be for reforms. Which do you agree with and which don't you? We spoke about education briefly, but there are ten things on the list and I'd like to see which ones you'd oppose. I don't want to post a wall of text but I think this: quote:10. All licensing requirements and hindrances to entrepreneurs must be eliminated to create an even playing field between established businesses and new entrants into a market. Regulatory capture must be eliminated by gutting the regulatory code and created a simple set of principles by which free markets can operate. The Law should intervene when property rights are violated or voluntarily signed contracts are not being complied with. Is a pretty bad idea. Licensing requirements are there so that consumers can know that a doctor has at least been trained in medicine. Frankly if you can't meet licensing requirements you probably should't start a business doing that thing. Even if you did waive the licensing requirements and assume that "free market" rights all things your inability to meet those licensing standards would mean your business would fail. If you can't play the game when there are rules and be successful, then you'll have no chance when the rules are removed entirely. Unless you lie, cheat and steal your way to the top of course.. but then everyone else is doing the same thing so.... Of course then you make statements like this: quote:7. Laws requiring children to attend school amounts to kidnapping. Period. There should be no compulsory school attendance laws and no restrictions on homeschooling and private schooling. Which is so insane it completely discredits anything else you might have to say. Do you actually understand how things work in the United States of America? I often see you refer to things that just aren't the case here and I assume you're off in your Berchtesgaden fortress but then you say you live here...
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:32
|
|
|
jrodefeld posted:There is nothing wrong with education and welfare to the poor. Actually, both are good if they are provided voluntarily by free individuals. When delivered by the State, they come with an ulterior motive that is ultimately not in the interest of the poor. Any objective social study of the effects of the welfare state has come to the conclusion that the policies are counterproductive and harmful, entrenching people in poverty. Actually the outcomes have been pretty outstanding in most places, including the socialist paradise in which you were raised (a Scandinavian country, iirc). Your claim of progressive policies being "counterproductive and harmful, entrenching people in poverty" is not only unsubstantiated, it's completely disproven by actual, real-life examples. Care to comment?
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:39
|
|
|
Do you look over your own posts? How can you tell us the poor will be materially better off in a society where they're not taught to read? ^^^^ Nah, he grew up in America, couldn't pay his medical bills without help from grandma, couldn't get welfare benefits in a welfare system that was crippled by conservative ideology, and concluded those conservatives are right and anyone who needs money should get it from granddad. He's the living example of "conservatives claim that government doesn't work, and then when elected proceed to prove it" VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Jun 4, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:44
|
|
|
sudo rm -rf posted:And also seeing that you seem to be responding to people about actual things that affect how people live instead of ideas, would you mind going back and explaining why the NHS has been a better vehicle for providing care and controlling costs than the US' system of healthcare? Because it is utterly at odds with your suggestion that the problems of the US healthcare market are centered in government involvement. How do you contend with the data and examples that contradict you? Yawn
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 08:47
|
|
|
Malleum posted:Since someone mentioned the I/P thread, what is the ancap/libertarian opinion the Israel-Palestine conflict? On one hand, the Israelis are committing the worst possible crimes in the libertarian psyche via illegal property seizure and the denial of Palestinian property rights, but on the other hand libertarians are racist as gently caress. Almost all libertarians side with Palestinians in that conflict. And no, libertarians are not "racist as gently caress". How many libertarians do you know in real life? Its sort of an odd position for a racist to take to favor reparations for slavery but I do. Peer review is a great and necessary method for groups of experts in a field to judge new ideas or scientific breakthroughs. The only sense in which it would be a problem is in a field that has become so corrupted by politics and big money. If a significant number of, say, doctors and researchers in the medical field have conflicts of interest or are in the pocket of Big Pharma, they may use to process of Peer Review in order to discredit new medical treatments that undercut the profits of their donors. Why did you ask this question? I sense you had an angle here that I can't quite grasp yet.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 09:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 16:33 |
|
|
jrodefeld posted:In the 1960s, before Sweden became Socialist, they had the second highest per capita GDP in the world. Today they are not in the top 10. I won't pretend to be a historian or even much of a debater, but I am Swedish and immediately called bullshit. And what do you know... Pay special attention to the nearly unbroken period of socialist government from 1932 to 1976, jrod. I found this within five seconds of googling; imagine what you could do with some actual research! But no. Who needs basic fact-checking when you've got praxeology? (I know it doesn't prove much, but come the gently caress on, man. How intellectually lazy could you possibly be?) e: poo poo the thread's moving too fast for me now
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 09:04
|
|