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jrodefeld posted:Also, I know this is a comedy forum but as it relates to my threads, I'd really like to limit the amount of substance-less posts that consist of riffs or attempts at cheap-shot humor. I'm really interested in comparing and contrasting political beliefs. Okay, I believe that slavery is inherently oppressive and that people are inherently irrational (see: the entire field of Sociology and/or Psychology). What say you rear end in a top hat, is forcing people to sell themselves into slavery okay if the only other option you give them is death? Please repost my question until this rear end in a top hat takes time out of his busy schedule of making youtube videos. You know, in between your actual work that you must do to survive.
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Nov 19, 2015 08:16
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Holy poo poo! You're back! Halle-loving-lujah! I've missed you, sweetie! What a day! What a lovely day! Now, if you would kindly explain how, exactly, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are more economically free/cleave more closely to libertarian principles and why we should aspire to be more like them here in the west, I would be absolutely thrilled. Not that you'll do it, but hey! I can hope. jrodefeld posted:
That said, don't you loving dare aggress against me by trying to limit my freedom to post, you goddamn crypto-fascistic marionette. PUT DOWN THE GUN!
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Nov 19, 2015 08:25
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While I wait for a response to my previous post, I'd like to again return to the subject of this thread. Frankly I'm not prepared to spend my time reading through all 35 pages of replies to take a tally of how many of you responded with substance about what constitutes just private property rights in your view, but from what I have read, I'd wager the number is small indeed. To state the obvious, it is not only libertarians who value private property rights. All political ideologies have a strong conviction on private property. Marxists have a deeply felt conviction that the product of the worker's labor is their property and therefore the Capitalist is a thief by pocketing a profit from the product manufactured by the worker. That is why they feel it is justified for the workers to rise up and take control of the factories, taking them away from the Capitalist. It is not a random whim that is used to justify re-appropriation of property from the perceived thief to the "rightful" owner, but a consistent if mistaken concept of just property rights. Several posters on this very site accused me and fellow libertarians of committing "theft" if we were a tax protester to refused to pay taxes to the State. Therefore the principle is that the State, or "society", has a property right in the fruits of my labor. That is your property rights belief. Yet when pressed for elaboration, Caros in particular retreated into abstraction. "We're just a bunch of hairless apes who do whatever 'works'. There are no property rights but only utilitarian in-the-moment value-judgments on whose control of scarce resources are to be respected and whose are not." This is obviously a paraphrase but it comes pretty close to the argument offered. Yet if one is concerned at all with justice, as so many progressives claim to be, then a very clear ethical standard which informs us who has rightful control of what scarce resource must be clearly established. You may not agree with the libertarian standard, but an equally clear definition of just property must be offered in its place. As I previously stated, libertarians believe that the original way that just property is acquired is through original appropriation i.e homesteading. I was challenged with a good question, which I will try to answer here. "Since all land in 2015, or at least all desirable land where humans congregate is owned by somebody, or at least some property right is asserted, why does it matter how property was originally acquired? We don't live on the frontier where original appropriation of unowned natural resources is possible for almost anyone, so of what practical use is this abstract concept?" This is a good question. The answer is that to formulate a coherent logical theory of private property, one must establish how property originally came into existence. Originally, the appropriator of a natural resource (the first user) who transforms the resource through his or her labor has established a greater claim to its use than anyone else. Now, if another person takes that resource without the permission of the first user, he is a thief. And justice would demand that the stolen item be returned to the first user and then be compensated for his troubles. Then the first user has the right to exclusive control over that scarce resource until he voluntarily gives it away, contractually exchanges it or abandons it for a second user to claim the right to exclusive control over it. Through this theory, we can clear up the historical record about which currently existing property titles are justified and which are not. And there can or should be no statute of limitations on justice. If past theft can be proven, even hundreds of years in the past, and a descendant of a previous victim of the theft can be identified then the stolen property ought to be returned to the living descendant. This has profound implications for the descendants of black slaves and Native Americans as I have already stated. Reparations are owned to victims of past theft, but proof must be offered that the person to receive the redistributed property has a better claim to it than the current owner. According to libertarian property theory, a prior owner has a better claim than a later owner unless the prior owner voluntarily parted with the property through gift or contractual exchange. It doesn't matter if the current user of the property is not aware that they are in possession of stolen property, the rightful owner is the victim of the theft or the direct descendant. Now, imagine a case where the descendant of a black slave can prove that a plot of land in Louisiana is rightfully his since his ancestor was forced to toil on a plantation, and thus homesteaded that land. Justice, as Murray Rothbard has said, would have compelled the plantation owner to part with all his property and grant it to the freed slaves after emancipation. Since this didn't happen, the descendants of those slaves have a claim to a portion of that same property. If they can provide proof that their ancestor worked on a specific plantation, then they are owed a portion of land consistent with the labor their enslaved ancestors were forced to work on the land specified. But suppose that the black ancestor is now a rich actor and doesn't really need the land. And suppose that the current residents of the land are poor whites. Should this matter? Is the ancestor of the enslaved African man or woman less entitled to the property because of their current income vis a vis the holder of the property? Not in the least. The property is still more justly the black actor's than it is the poor white family who currently resides there. However, the black actor is absolutely at liberty to waive his rights to that property on account of his current fortune and the condition of the well-meaning people who unknowingly are in possession of stolen property. Or a deal could be worked out with the current occupants such that they pay a direct payment in reparations equal or less than the value of the land in question determined by negotiation between the two parties. Now complicated problems like this and past grave injustices can only be remedied with reference to a sound theory over what constitutes just property rights. Some modern advocates of reparations for slavery would have it that the State tax all white inhabitants and distribute that money to all black inhabitants. But this would clearly be unjust. Many whites never had ancestors who had a thing to do with slavery and many blacks never had ancestors who were enslaved. Such a reckless politically-motivated redistribution would exacerbate injustice by depriving some people of just property and redistributing it to undeserving recipients. Suppose a black person had ancestors who were African tribesmen who sold their fellow blacks into slavery, as unfortunately happened frequently during the time of the slave trade. Surely they would not deserve reparations since their ancestors, although black, actually profited from the slave trade. If anything, they owe other blacks reparations. There must be a coherent and consistent theory of who has just claim over what scarce resource in order to sort out these complicated matters. That is why the theory of original appropriation is so important. So I'd like to ask again what is your theory of property rights? By what standard do you decide that a person or group of persons has rightful discretion and decision-making authority over a scarce resource? jrodefeld fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 08:29
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Oh my God he really is just going to ignore that he held up theocrats with legalized slavery as more libertarian rules than our democracy with constitutionally-enshrined equal protection.jrodefeld posted:So I'd like to ask again what is your theory of property rights? By what standard do you decide that a person or group of persons has rightful discretion and decision-making authority over a scarce resource? Scarce resources in this case means the bodies of immigrant workers and migrant domestic labor, and my theory of property rights involves not being able to imprison them in your country and force them to build lavish eyesore resorts for oil barons, in other words I hate freedom. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 08:37
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jrodefeld posted:There must be a coherent and consistent theory of who has just claim over what scarce resource in order to sort out these complicated matters. That is why the theory of original appropriation is so important. Also, if original appropriation is the case, this continent belongs to the surviving Indians; please report to your nearest Rez for your reparatory servitude.
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Nov 19, 2015 08:45
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VitalSigns posted:What about men? Okay, I'll bite. Growing up, people thought I looked like Prince William, but that was way off. Maybe when he was younger. I've definitely got much better (and more) hair than he does. This is the closest I could find: http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BODA5ODYwMDc4Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODM1MDA0NQ@@._V1_SX640_SY720_.jpg Not exact but the hair is pretty close. I've also got blue eyes not brown. I'm probably a bit taller than he is. I'm 6'2". Here's another one. I'm not in shape like that and I'm a little older (5-8 years older I'd guess) but it's pretty close nevertheless: http://www.mancrushes.com/sites/default/files/Alexander-Ludwig-sexy-2.jpg Anyway, fun little diversion but let's get back on topic if you don't mind.
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Nov 19, 2015 08:53
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Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Why are they - according the the source you used as an authority - more free than the US, despite practicing slavery, JRod? This is a question you really should answer. Don't try to dodge the question, either, because I - and likely others - won't stop with asking you about this until you've tackled it.
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Nov 19, 2015 08:56
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jrodefeld posted:Okay, I'll bite. Growing up, people thought I looked like Prince William, but that was way off. Maybe when he was younger. I've definitely got much better (and more) hair than he does. Uggggghhhh gently caress you jrod
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Nov 19, 2015 08:58
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*returns to the thread in a fartcloud after months of being gone* hey guys let's try to be serious here, and keep the threadshitting to a minimum *two posts later* hmmm why yes I am pretty handsome, here are some people I look like
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Nov 19, 2015 08:59
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Wanamingo posted:*returns to the thread in a fartcloud after months of being gone* hey guys let's try to be serious here, and keep the threadshitting to a minimum You shut the gently caress up <  >jrodefeld posted:Okay, I'll bite. Growing up, people thought I looked like Prince William, but that was way off. Maybe when he was younger. I've definitely got much better (and more) hair than he does. Don't listen to the haters jrod, post a video of you explaining how our money should be as yellow as your fine spun-gold hair. I will debate you shirtless on camera I have been working out
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Nov 19, 2015 09:12
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:Stop there please, as your free society is not based on any notion of egalitarian philosophy nor economic empowerment for those whom are oppressed. Don't use buzzwords like freedom and liberty, especially when you distort their definitions to mean absolutely nothing. You are a moron, and if you haven't noticed these 'ideas' you're passionate about are pretty much Voodoo economics for why we should give white dudes slaves. "Voodoo economics for why we should give white dudes slaves". I don't know if that is an attempt at humor or if you are using the term "slaves" in an incredibly imprecise way or if you are referring to actual chattel slavery. If it's the later and you are being serious you're a lost cause. The very principle of libertarian philosophy is self (i.e. body) ownership and the non-aggression principle which absolutely precludes any form of slavery. Anyone who has spent two seconds reading about libertarianism or classical liberal philosophy would know that. Either you are dishonest or you literally know not a single thing about what I believe. For me to respond in any more details, you have to define your terms. I never claimed to be an egalitarian. Are you a supporter of egalitarian outcomes, i.e. people ought to be materially equal? You have to also define what you mean by economic empowerment. I feel like libertarian law provides the greatest amount of economic empowerment for everyone, including the most disadvantaged. And what do you mean by "oppressed"? Who admits to being in favor of oppression? This is one of those buzzwords that must be carefully defined. I actually have defined what I mean by liberty pretty exhaustively. Liberty is the ability to pursue your passions and cooperate with your fellow man in any way you see fit, provided you refrain from using aggression against anyone or their justly acquired property. That is, there are no unwanted boundary-crossings of scarce resources legitimately controlled by an original appropriator or a subsequent owner who acquired the property through legitimate contractual exchange from an original appropriator. That is, there is no prior restraint, no restrictions on consensual and voluntary behavior. This is what liberty is. What you mean by "egalitarian", "economic empowerment", "disadvantaged", etc are not at all clear. If you elaborate, I can follow up. Finally, a tiring aspect of debating with leftists is the unfounded assumption that defenders of the market economy or opponents of the State are not merely mistaken, but are fundamentally immoral people. Your assumption that I lack any empathy is entirely illustrative of that. I assume that most of you are generally good people who care about others but are merely mistaken and choose the wrong means to achieve the desired ends. The goal for the libertarian is a prosperous society where the poor are taken care of, humans can achieve their fullest potential, conflict is minimized, injustice is limited to the greatest possible extent, and peaceful productivity and cooperation replace politics and conflict. We may be wrong about this, but don't baselessly assert that we lack empathy, or have bad intent. The goals we seek are similar in the sense that we want to best outcomes for our neighbor, for the disadvantaged, and for society in general. We have different ideas about how to best achieve such outcomes. Now, if you are sincere in your desire for the best outcomes, then you would be open to changing your beliefs if it were to be demonstrated to you that, say, free market libertarianism lifted far more people out of poverty and created general prosperity far better than socialism and central-planning, correct? There are plenty of people so wedded to the means that they don't budge in the face of evidence that the ends they desire are better achieved though alternate means. I hope you are more open-minded than that.
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Nov 19, 2015 09:25
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jrodefeld posted:"Voodoo economics for why we should give white dudes slaves". Twerkteam Pizza ain't the one holding up the UAE as a bastion of economic freedom, champ
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Nov 19, 2015 09:33
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Here is a list of slave states that also imprison people for speaking out against the government, and which are more libertarian than the US because they let companies pollute more. Oh jeez why are you liberals accusing me of supporting slavery, you don't understand libertarianism at all. jrodefeld posted:Finally, a tiring aspect of debating with leftists is the unfounded assumption that defenders of the market economy or opponents of the State are not merely mistaken, but are fundamentally immoral people. Your assumption that I lack any empathy is entirely illustrative of that. I assume that most of you are generally good people who care about others but are merely mistaken and choose the wrong means to achieve the desired ends. Do I really have to go through the old thread and quote all the times you accused leftists of loving violence, pointing guns at everyone, coming in and cracking the skulls of anti-vaxxers, lusting after death and destruction, etc? VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 09:37
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jrodefeld posted:"Voodoo economics for why we should give white dudes slaves". And yet you use sources to bolster your argument that hold up Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, places where chattel slavery is accepted, as somehow more 'economically free'. So if there's confusion here, it's all because of you, buttercup. jrodefeld posted:Finally, a tiring aspect of debating with leftists is the unfounded assumption that defenders of the market economy or opponents of the State are not merely mistaken, but are fundamentally immoral people. Your assumption that I lack any empathy is entirely illustrative of that. I assume that most of you are generally good people who care about others but are merely mistaken and choose the wrong means to achieve the desired ends. The goal for the libertarian is a prosperous society where the poor are taken care of, humans can achieve their fullest potential, conflict is minimized, injustice is limited to the greatest possible extent, and peaceful productivity and cooperation replace politics and conflict. We may be wrong about this, but don't baselessly assert that we lack empathy, or have bad intent. The goals we seek are similar in the sense that we want to best outcomes for our neighbor, for the disadvantaged, and for society in general. We have different ideas about how to best achieve such outcomes. Now, if you are sincere in your desire for the best outcomes, then you would be open to changing your beliefs if it were to be demonstrated to you that, say, free market libertarianism lifted far more people out of poverty and created general prosperity far better than socialism and central-planning, correct? And yet, once again, you held up a source that cited loving Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as more "economically free" than the US. When you hold up societies practicing chattel slavery as an example for emulation, naturally people go 'hang the gently caress on here'! Or, if it's more to your likinig 'hang on a cotton-picking minute'. This is why you need to explain yourself on this issue and why we kind of suspect you to lack empathy, ethical boundaries, or common human dececy and even morals; We're basing our opinion on the sources you provide, the defenses you raise of you principles, and the examples you cite as good. If there's animus against you here, it's all due to your own loving posting.
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Nov 19, 2015 09:38
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TLM3101 posted:Holy poo poo! You're back! Halle-loving-lujah! I've missed you, sweetie! What a day! What a lovely day! Glad to be back (I think?). It's funny what you guys grasp onto and hammer away at me about. By citing in passing the Cato study on economic freedom in different nations throughout the world, you choose to pick out a couple entries on the the list and cite the various ways in which those nations are NOT free and demand that I answer for their failings and further assert that somehow I am claiming that the United States ought to emulate the policies of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. You can easily read about how and why Cato made this list and what metrics were used to judge the different nations. What is clear is that this is a list of economically free countries. Personal liberties were not considered in this particular study. Of course libertarians care about personal and social liberty just as much, if not more, than we care about economic liberty, but this particular study limited it's scope to economic liberty, i.e. how easy it is to start a business, respect for private property rights and effective and efficient legal systems for arbitrating disputes. These are vitally important factors in the development of societal wealth. At the same time, some of these countries have very draconian anti-gay laws, laws against drugs and prostitution and other infringements on civil liberties. None of these countries are libertarian, or are cited as such. What I intended by citing this study was to demonstrate the value that the liberalization of markets has had in the development of wealth in various countries of the world. If you look at the entire list, you see a trend. The countries at the top of the list are wealthier and have a higher average living standard than those lower on the list. The reason for this is primarily greater economic freedom. I absolutely concede that if you are gay, or are a racial minority, or are a drug user or adherent to any sort of alternative lifestyle you would have more social freedom in the United States than you would in many of these countries. But that is not what this study is meant to demonstrate.
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Nov 19, 2015 09:53
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jrodefeld posted:Glad to be back (I think?). That's lovely, but that's not the argument you made. You made the argument, and repeated the argument just now, that libertarian principles = economic freedom. So, in what sense is a slave economically free, JRode? In what way is a place with chattel-slavery more economically free than the US or Europe? That is what we're asking you here. Why should we aspire to be - economically - more like actual slave-states? VitalSigns posted:Wait wait wait no, you can't get out of this by claiming social freedom is a different metric. Are you really telling us that whether you can be owned by a construction company and held to forced labor has nothing to do with economic freedom? Yes. Yes, it seems he really is telling us that. 
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Nov 19, 2015 09:57
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Wait wait wait no, you can't get out of this by claiming social freedom is a different metric. Are you really telling us that whether you can be owned by a construction company and held to forced labor has nothing to do with economic freedom? E: I shouldn't have to clarify, but I probably do, that I'm talking about the economic freedom of the individual to not be property, not the economic freedom of oil barons to own slaves. E2: And we're not latching onto a tiny part of your argument, that handwave isn't going to work. You're the one always going on about how all our values must be based on fundamental principles from which they logically derive, so if you approve of Cato cranking through the math on your Libertarian principles and coming out with slavery as more economically free than the USA, then you're going to have to expect some hard questions about your premises and principles and whether they're really as conducive to liberty as you claim there, bub. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 09:58
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I'd assume right to property trumps right to not be property.
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Nov 19, 2015 10:00
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jrodefeld posted:Glad to be back (I think?).
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Nov 19, 2015 10:07
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TLM3101 posted:And yet you use sources to bolster your argument that hold up Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, places where chattel slavery is accepted, as somehow more 'economically free'. So if there's confusion here, it's all because of you, buttercup. Okay, let's suppose you are a Marxist. I give you a list of the following countries: United States, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Estonia, Mauritius, . Now list these countries in order of their adherence to Marxist principles. Obviously none of these nations are Marxist at all, but rather are capitalist or quasi-capitalist. Nevertheless, you do your best and rank them in accordance to your values. Then, let's suppose that I pick out number eight and number ten on your ranking of most Marxist non-Marxist countries and chastise you about their various betrayals of Marxist values. Do you suppose that would be fair or reasonable? Going into the exercise we knew that none of these countries were Marxist just as we know that none of these countries ranked by Cato or Heritage are exactly libertarian. Nevertheless, based on various metrics, they ranked the non-libertarian countries of the world according to their degree of economic liberty. These are the metrics used to judge the various countries: 1. Size of Government A. Government consumption B. Transfers and subsidies C. Government enterprises and investment D. Top marginal tax rate (i) Top marginal income tax rate (ii) Top marginal income and payroll tax rate 2. Legal System and Property Rights A. Judicial independence B. Impartial courts C. Protection of property rights D. Military interference in rule of law and politics E. Integrity of the legal system F. Legal enforcement of contracts G. Regulatory costs of the sale of real property H. Reliability of police I. Business costs of crime 3. Sound Money A. Money growth B. Standard deviation of inflation C. Inflation: most recent year D. Freedom to own foreign currency bank accounts 4. Freedom to Trade Internationally A. Tariffs (i) Revenue from trade taxes (% of trade sector) (ii) Mean tariff rate (iii) Standard deviation of tariff rates B. Regulatory trade barriers (i) Non-tariff trade barriers (ii) Compliance costs of importing and exporting C. Black-market exchange rates D. Controls of the movement of capital and people (i) Foreign ownership / investment restrictions (ii) Capital controls (iii) Freedom of foreigners to visit 5. Regulation A. Credit market regulations (i) Ownership of banks (ii) Private sector credit (iii) Interest rate controls / negative real interest rates B. Labor market regulations (i) Hiring regulations and minimum wage (ii) Hiring and firing regulations (iii) Centralized collective bargaining (iv) Hours regulations (v) Mandated cost of worker dismissal (vi) Conscription C. Business regulations (i) Administrative requirements (ii) Bureaucracy costs (iii) Starting a business (iv) Extra payments / bribes / favoritism (v) Licensing restrictions (vi) Cost of tax compliance You can read more about how this list was compiled below: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/economic-freedom-of-the-world-2015.pdf You know what metrics are not listed? Personal liberty. Penalties for possessing pornography or drugs. Penalties for engaging in homosexual acts. There are all manner of personal liberties and values dear to libertarians that were merely not part of the scope of this particular study. When Cato or another libertarian outfit publishes their annual report on personal and social liberty, then you could see how the various non-libertarian countries stack up on the other side of the liberty coin. I personally don't know a thing about the United Arab Emirates. Maybe the methodology was flawed and even when restricting the parameters to simply economic freedom, the United Arab Emirates don't deserve to be anywhere near the top 10. I can't tell you that. But if you think that ANY libertarian anywhere supports slavery in any form, you are either a fool or a malevolent and dishonest person who prefers character assassination to thoughtful critiques.
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Nov 19, 2015 10:24
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But people didn't give you a list of countries. The list was provided by you.
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Nov 19, 2015 10:29
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Jrod, just admit you made a mistake, stop doubling down. I can't speak for the other posters, but I'll respect you more.
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Nov 19, 2015 10:35
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VitalSigns posted:Wait wait wait no, you can't get out of this by claiming social freedom is a different metric. Are you really telling us that whether you can be owned by a construction company and held to forced labor has nothing to do with economic freedom? I don't know how I could be any more loving clear. Libertarians absolutely, positively and without any reservations oppose all forms of coercive associations of which slavery is the most egregious. The loving end. There are plenty of human rights abuses that go on in the United Arab Emirates, I grant you. You'll get no argument from me there. But do you not see how picking out ONE of the top 15 countries as listed by Cato for economic freedom is rather disingenuous? Why not spend a few minutes speaking about Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Mauritius, Jordan, Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Georgia or Taiwan? Are these nations not, generally speaking, more economically free than many other nations? Do you suspect that the general economic liberalism of these countries in comparison to other, more economically Statist nations might prove a larger point about the efficacy of laissez-faire in promoting the generation of societal wealth? There is a reason why North Korea is in abysmal poverty in comparison to South Korea. None of these nations are libertarian. Yet lessons can be drawn nonetheless in comparing the relative lack of State interference in economic transactions in some nations versus the heavy regulation and legal restrictions in others. That is the ONLY point I was trying to make in citing this study. Try to see the forest for the trees.
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Nov 19, 2015 10:54
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jrodefeld posted:
I love how you still try to dodge this thing as best you can. Allow me to quote something to you: jrodefeld posted:[...] So here we are. You, JRode, claim that property-rights = human rights. Your bleating insistence now that "oh, no, there's, like totally a difference, guys, and societal rights are a totally different thing altogether" is... interesting to say the least! My insistence that you square your citing as "economically free" - and worthy of emulation - societies that are organized in a fashion where human beings can be property and owned is a direct critique of the basic premise you started this entire thread with. So, to summarize: You, JRode, claim economic rights = human rights. You, JRode, then cite a study that finds that slave-societies are more economically free than the US and several European countries. Do you see why I am hammering this point as hard as I am? There is an inherent contraditcion here that you are refusing to acknowledge at all. And this is why it is neither malicious, nor any attempt at character-assassination whatsoever on my part, to point out that you have some serious unreconciled problems in your thinking about these issues.
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Nov 19, 2015 10:58
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Pththya-lyi posted:Jrod, just admit you made a mistake, stop doubling down. I can't speak for the other posters, but I'll respect you more. What mistake? I've already made it quite plain and clear that I don't answer for other people. I'll clearly state MY position and defend that, using sources to illustrate points at certain times. This is just a ludicrous thing for you all to harp on. I cited the Cato study to illustrate a broader point about the economic liberalism being a benefit to wealth creation and average living standards. The study listed EVERY country, nearly two hundred of them. Was the United Arab Emirates listed too high? Maybe. I honestly don't have the specific knowledge of that country or its policies to tell you. But calling out the human rights abuses in the United Arab Emirates and demanding that I answer for that is the most ludicrous and petty rebuttals you could offer. There is a larger trend that I was trying to get across that you seemed to have missed. In the interest of moving on and discussing something more substantive, I'll say that I denounce the United Arab Emirates (and Qatar for that matter) for their human rights abuses and they are not the least bit libertarian. Satisfied? Now, let's talk about something substantive.
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Nov 19, 2015 11:07
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jrodefeld posted:Finally, a tiring aspect of debating with leftists is the unfounded assumption that defenders of the market economy or opponents of the State are not merely mistaken, but are fundamentally immoral people. Your assumption that I lack any empathy is entirely illustrative of that. It's not an assumption so much as an inference in this case. You explicitly derive your preferred economic system from your ethical values, which is a fine and correct way to go. But in doing so you reveal your moral priorities, which explicitly place property rights above things like "personal liberty", and many in this thread (including myself) find this morally repugnant. Not only that, but in reading the works of many prominent libertarian thinkers (Rothbard, Hoppe, etc) you've presumably come across many of their more disgusting opinions without being instantly repelled. It's not hard to infer a lack of moral clarity from this observation. quote:I assume that most of you are generally good people who care about others but are merely mistaken and choose the wrong means to achieve the desired ends. The goal for the libertarian is a prosperous society where the poor are taken care of, humans can achieve their fullest potential, conflict is minimized, injustice is limited to the greatest possible extent, and peaceful productivity and cooperation replace politics and conflict. We may be wrong about this, but don't baselessly assert that we lack empathy, or have bad intent. The goals we seek are similar in the sense that we want to best outcomes for our neighbor, for the disadvantaged, and for society in general. We have different ideas about how to best achieve such outcomes. Now, if you are sincere in your desire for the best outcomes, then you would be open to changing your beliefs if it were to be demonstrated to you that, say, free market libertarianism lifted far more people out of poverty and created general prosperity far better than socialism and central-planning, correct? Hey, you're the one who was arguing for a deontological view of ethics earlier! Don't get all consequentialist now! quote:There are plenty of people so wedded to the means that they don't budge in the face of evidence that the ends they desire are better achieved though alternate means. I hope you are more open-minded than that. You'll find that there's been a lot of really high-quality evidence thrown at you in this thread (and the other one) and your response has either been to run back to the deontological position or to ignore it completely (the healthcare discussion springs to mind here). You don't get to lecture anyone about open-mindedness.
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Nov 19, 2015 11:09
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jrodefeld posted:I don't know how I could be any more loving clear. Libertarians absolutely, positively and without any reservations oppose all forms of coercive associations of which slavery is the most egregious. Other than the worker-boss hierarchy. Which you claim is voluntary, because economic necessity is not coercive. So what is to stop a situation of economically necessary 'voluntary' slavery arising?
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Nov 19, 2015 11:14
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jrodefeld posted:What mistake? I've already made it quite plain and clear that I don't answer for other people. I'll clearly state MY position and defend that, using sources to illustrate points at certain times. This is just a ludicrous thing for you all to harp on. I cited the Cato study to illustrate a broader point about the economic liberalism being a benefit to wealth creation and average living standards. The study listed EVERY country, nearly two hundred of them. Was the United Arab Emirates listed too high? Maybe. I honestly don't have the specific knowledge of that country or its policies to tell you. But calling out the human rights abuses in the United Arab Emirates and demanding that I answer for that is the most ludicrous and petty rebuttals you could offer. There is a larger trend that I was trying to get across that you seemed to have missed. No-one's saying that you're responsible for human rights abuses in UAE/Qatar. We're saying that these countries are economically successful due to human rights abuses, and that those abuses are a direct consequence of unfettered property rights. In other words, by posting that list you're helping to make our point, which is that your advocacy of property rights is an implicity advocacy of human rights abuses. This is why, when you go on about property rights, we start going on about slavery.
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Nov 19, 2015 11:14
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jrodefeld posted:I personally don't know a thing about the United Arab Emirates. Maybe the methodology was flawed and even when restricting the parameters to simply economic freedom, the United Arab Emirates don't deserve to be anywhere near the top 10. I can't tell you that. But if you think that ANY libertarian anywhere supports slavery in any form, you are either a fool or a malevolent and dishonest person who prefers character assassination to thoughtful critiques. Okay but you provided us that list to convince us that Libertarian principles will make us more prosperous like the other countries on the list, but now it turns out you don't know anything about the methodology and can't tell us it's not complete bullshit. jrodefeld posted:What mistake? I've already made it quite plain and clear that I don't answer for other people. I'll clearly state MY position and defend that, using sources to illustrate points at certain times. This is just a ludicrous thing for you all to harp on. I cited the Cato study to illustrate a broader point about the economic liberalism being a benefit to wealth creation and average living standards. The study listed EVERY country, nearly two hundred of them. Was the United Arab Emirates listed too high? Maybe. I honestly don't have the specific knowledge of that country or its policies to tell you. But calling out the human rights abuses in the United Arab Emirates and demanding that I answer for that is the most ludicrous and petty rebuttals you could offer. There is a larger trend that I was trying to get across that you seemed to have missed. Again, we're not criticizing the UAE's record on gay rights, we're questioning why states with slavery and forced labor rank higher than the US on economic freedom according to your source. If your defense of the list from your source is that the rankings might be bullshit after all, then why should we accept that source as any kind of evidence for a trend?
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Nov 19, 2015 11:24
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I want to be a Cato Analyst. ================== United Arab Emirates economic freedom analysis by VitalSigns, age 8 You might end up a slave: -$2 Liberty points But you might get to own a slave: +$1.25 Liberty points Taxes exist: -$1,000,000 Liberty points But it's not federal income tax, it's a flat capitation tax that only burdens the poor: +$999,999 Liberty points But they tax rental income too: -$50 Liberty points Some environmental laws exist: -$150 Liberty points No safety regulations or worker protections of any kind: +$Texas liberty points Rating: 4.5/5 Jefferson Davis heads Ranking compared to USA: six places higher, suck it Lincoln! ================== Put me in coach I'm ready
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Nov 19, 2015 11:39
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VitalSigns posted:
Or, indeed, accept that source as any kind of evidence for anything at all, apart from the ability to rank coutries by arbitrarily defined metrics?
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Nov 19, 2015 11:41
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TLM3101 posted:I love how you still try to dodge this thing as best you can. Allow me to quote something to you: You are the one who is confused here. Yes, to a libertarian, property rights ARE human rights. For example, the principle ownership of ones body logically means that violent acts like slavery and rape are immoral because they constitute unwanted and uninvited invasions against ones physical body. Furthermore, rights such as the right to speech don't exist outside of property rights. For example, you are not permitted to come into my living room and say whatever you wish. If you enter my home, you are obligated to abide by my rules or you will have to leave. That means that I can state that you are NOT permitted to say certain things while on my property. You cannot, for example, swear at my family and be rude and obnoxious. You don't have an unlimited freedom of speech anywhere you go. On your own property, you may say anything you wish however. At any venue where you are invited and permitted to speak freely, you can disseminate any information or personal views without any problem. But you must either own the property or get permission from the owner of the property that the speech you make is permissible. That is what is meant by the statement that human rights equal property rights. However, in politics, liberty is frequently separated into two parts. People speak about economic liberties and personal liberties. To the libertarian, both are sacrosanct and ought to be respected with equal reverence. To a degree, it makes sense why people look at these activities differently. We are not only economic actors after all. We have private and personal lives. Therefore it is not the libertarian who makes a sharp distinction between economic and personal liberty but most of society. After all, it is the progressive who holds up social liberty as the thing that ought to be defended. Gay marriage, free speech, drug use, alternative lifestyles, prostitution, pornography, etc ought to be defended yet economic activity, campaign contributions, political speech, advertisements, free trade, contracts, wage rates for workers, etc ought to be heavily regulated and restricted by State law. For the conservative, precisely the opposite is true. Economic freedom is to be respected, yet personal freedom is to be infringed upon. Gay marriage should be outlawed, abortion restricted or made illegal, pornography limited or banned, drugs made illegal, prostitution made illegal, etc. How is it a contradiction that a specific study by a libertarian group, Cato, ranks the various countries by their adherence to economic liberty but not personal liberty? Each study has parameters and a defined scope. That hardly means that something outside the scope of this particular study is somehow not important to libertarians as a group. Seriously, in the interest of a more productive discussion, let's drop the Cato study for now and discuss libertarian theory as I defend it, okay?
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Nov 19, 2015 11:41
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Drop the personal liberty vs economic liberty angle, we're only talking about economic liberty (unless you'd like to argue that slavery isn't a question of economic liberty?) The thing I'm getting at, is that despite the lip service Libertarianism gives to personal liberty and economic freedom, when you look at what they actually value, low taxes is much more important than slavery. And it's not just the Cato list either, this came up in the discussion of Libertarian support for secessionists and the Southern Lost Cause from the last thread as well. Yeah Confederate slavery wasn't exactly good, but it's somehow a lesser evil compared to the Federal Reserve and the EPA and the 16th Amendment. That's just slavery. That's not even getting into the personal liberty problems of modern-day secessionists, who believe Republic of Texas' lack of an income tax the most important thing, and sure we're jettisoning the US constitution's equal protection guarantee and the Supreme Court will no longer enjoin Texas from enforcing its horrible anti-gay and anti-woman laws but that's well worth it. These are the kinds of things that drew me away from Libertarianism and toward progressivism. Despite the lip service to liberty and freedom, it seems like the most prominent Libertarians are perfectly happy to let bigots punch down at minorities or countenance horrific abuses by industry (like forced labor!) in exchange for a few percent lower taxes on the super-rich. Don't just wave away Cato's rankings as bullshit, take a minute to think them over: what do they say about the real values of the Cato Institute if they make income taxes a higher priority than forced labor when talking about economic freedom? VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 12:05
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jrodefeld posted:In the interest of moving on and discussing something more substantive, I'll say that I denounce the United Arab Emirates (and Qatar for that matter) for their human rights abuses and they are not the least bit libertarian. Satisfied? No. You put up a list of countries and claimed they were examples of how libertarian states are more successful than non-libertarian states. When people pointed out that slavery isn't very libertarian, you tried to avoid the question altogether - and now that we've forced you to acknowledge your mistake, you make the claim that slavery is somehow not a question of economic freedom. Face it, you messed up. Have the guts to admit it.
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Nov 19, 2015 12:12
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jrodefeld posted:However, I would be absolutely happy to do a written debate with one, or a small handful, of the serious members of this forum. Caros and Cemetary Gator come to mind, since they are two of the most substantive posters on this site. jrodefeld posted:I'll clearly state MY position and defend that, using sources to illustrate points at certain times. I think the issue is that you mostly don't want to engage in a written debate and you don't defend your points. There are people who make honest efforts to reply to your posts and if you wanted you could be having a written debate because that's basically what a forum discussion is. Now you actually replied to one of my posts, but when I made a fairly substantive response you ignored it and didn't reply. When I pointed this out to you, which I did more than once, I still got no reply. The thing is I'm not the only one, plenty of other people made serious posts and got no response either. You can't complain about people making jokey or insulting posts when you don't reply to the people who do make the type of response you're after.
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Nov 19, 2015 12:17
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jrodefeld posted:You are the one who is confused here. Yes, to a libertarian, property rights ARE human rights. For example, the principle ownership of ones body logically means that violent acts like slavery and rape are immoral because they constitute unwanted and uninvited invasions against ones physical body. However, if a body is a piece of property, it can be owned, inherited, transferred, sold, bought. Of course you'll say that these things can only be done "voluntarily" but recorded history shows that you don't need to put a gun to someone's head to make someone do a lot of things, and considering the only coercion that libertarians recognize is 'putting a gun to your head', that strikes me as a rather toothless ethical foundation.
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Nov 19, 2015 12:48
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Jrod, why do you think the Cato Institute, a leading libertarian think tank, in its freedom index, decided to omit social and political freedoms from its factors?
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Nov 19, 2015 14:13
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jrodefeld posted:I'm really interested in comparing and contrasting political beliefs. no you're not, you coward, you're interested in prosletyzing the virtues of your bullshit ideology for assholes and then running away when everyone points out you're an rear end in a top hat. not once in, what, two years now? have you come remotely close to addressing anything that resembles someone's point. so nah, gently caress off with that bullshit until you grow a pair also caros has DONE point by point rebuttals of your posts for fuckin years and you've never actually responded to them, so gently caress off with THAT poo poo too
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Nov 19, 2015 14:16
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someone post the thing about the CCCP example again so we can watch him ignore it, again
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Nov 19, 2015 14:19
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jrodefeld posted:You can easily read about how and why Cato made this list and what metrics were used to judge the different nations. What is clear is that this is a list of economically free countries. Personal liberties were not considered in this particular study. Of course libertarians care about personal and social liberty just as much, if not more, than we care about economic liberty, but this particular study limited it's scope to economic liberty, i.e. how easy it is to start a business, respect for private property rights and effective and efficient legal systems for arbitrating disputes. These are vitally important factors in the development of societal wealth. How about "the right to earn wages for your labor"? Because slaves don't have that right. And Qatar and the UAE employ slave labor. Why on Earth should any thinking person accept that a nation is economically free to any meaningful degree, much less in the top ten most economically free nations, if it employs slave labor? Why should we take seriously a standard of economic freedom that allows nations that employ slave labor into its top ten list of most economically free nations? Is it because "economic freedom" is not actually for workers, hmm?
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Nov 19, 2015 14:32
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