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jrodefeld posted:It's hard to believe this is even a serious question, but I'll answer nonetheless. Slavery is one of the most egregious violations of the non-aggression principle possible and is indeed a worse act than a property tax. Many, many times worse. However, both exist on a continuum and are not completely unrelated. Oh, it's clear for sure. Clear that you don't have a loving clue about what the gently caress slavery is. FYI, this is actually a question of serious scholarly debate! In the field of history at least, historians have to deal with the fact that many institutions have been called "slavery" throughout time and all over the world despite having substantial differences. It is a complex subject and it's hard to make an argument that it boils down to one essential element. When someone does, for example, lean heavily on the idea that slavery is essentially defined as not being able to quit, it's a serious objection to point out other institutions which it would be absurd to call slavery had this feature. This is why monolithic definitions suck: they lead to casting way too broad a net, like you have, and making ridiculous claims. Historians also have to deal with the fact that since at least the Enlightenment, people have been making comparisons to slavery as a rhetorical point. So since this is your tack, I want to talk a bit about what your supposed intellectual forebears had to say about this. One of the major themes of American Revolutionary rhetoric was the image of Britain enslaving Americans. Americans could make this claim even while literally owning slaves themselves. How could they do this? How could they not see the difference between what they decried - taxes levied without even their virtual consent in Parliament - and what they practiced? Well, the question of hypocrisy is an interesting one, and it's worth noting that some of them got it. One of them, Ebeneezer Baldwin, wrote a tract on a “settled fix’d plan for inslaving the colonies.” At one point he rhetorically asks, why would God allow Britain to enslave us? His immediate answer was: perhaps it’s because of all those Africans we enslave, huh guys? What do you think? For now let's just focus on how they equated, the way you do, taxes and slavery. Their understanding of slavery was interesting in that it matched in an important way the ethos of what you've outlined: that variation in treatment wasn't important because one essential factor made a condition count as slavery. But for them, it wasn't right of exit that was at issue, it was subjection to the arbitrary will of another. It didn't matter whether you were worked 7 days a week from sun up to sun down and motivated with floggings or didn't do any work and barely ever heard from your master. The fact that everything you did was only by the master's command or permission is what mattered. Your master could make any decisions he wanted for you, could order you to do anything without limit. This power, to arbitrarily rule another, was the essence of tyranny. The be subject to the tyranny of a British Parliament that taxes you without your consent (this lack of consent limiting their actions being what made their rule arbitrary) was to be enslaved by Parliament. Now, what's interesting is their conception of a just and free government. It's commonly thought that Britain justified its right to tax the colonies by the principle of virtual representation, to which Americans objected, but that is not correct. Americans accepted that virtual representation was legitimate. What they claimed was that the American colonies could not possibly be represented, virtually or otherwise, by the British Parliament, due to the fact that none of the electors or members of Parliament shared anything in common with the colonists in terms of understanding what life in the colonies was like and what colonists' needs were. So long as electors and members of Parliament shared these living conditions of those who could not vote, the virtual representation of non-voters was considered valid. On this basis, what Americans did not object to was something like an American Parliament (or even several of them, for each colony) with the right to tax colonists whether they had the vote or not, simply by dint of being better positioned to virtually represent the colonists. They essentially asserted that only the colonial assemblies could tax the colonies. The important thing here is that "no taxation without representation" was actually expressing an abolitionist sentiment. Taxation without representation was slavery in as much as it constituted arbitrary rule. The solution was representation in the legislature. These were your claimed philosophical ancestors, and they did not see taxation by a government that properly represented those subject to its power as slavery in any way shape or form. And when you say things like, "The primitive tribe was not at all akin to a primitive State since the rule-setters and arbitrators were usually voluntarily agreed upon by the others," you echo their sentiment, in as much as you see the state inherently tyrannical. So maybe you should reconsider either your argument or your claimed connection to classical liberalism.
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Nov 20, 2015 14:50
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jrodefeld posted:And I don't think Walter Block makes a very persuasive case at all. Good for you. The question is not whether you're persuaded, it's whether questioning the degree to which libertarians oppose slavery "says more about [our] own prejudices than it does about actual libertarian thought" or "sounds like something progressives make up about libertarians while snuggled in their own tight-knit bubble of self-reinforcing ideologies". FYI, making contrived analogies between slavery and taxation does not actually help your case here! But I'll come back to that. quote:But this has absolutely nothing to do with libertarian objection to slavery. Slavery is a historical phenomenon (which unfortunately persists to the present day in certain parts of the world) that all decent people oppose. Walter is describing a completely theoretical contractual sort of slavery that has never actually existed anywhere. So to cite Walter Block and then infer that libertarians are not sufficiently opposed to actual slavery, i.e. the sort that has actually historically occurred and continues to occur where people are kidnapped against their will, beaten and killed if they disobey is disingenuous in the extreme. You don't get to claim that someone's justification of the benefits of voluntarily making oneself another's slave is not actually a defense of slavery because this arrangement isn't historical. (Edit: And good point by Effectronica that it actually was practiced historically; I was going to say something about that but didn't have any specific examples.) You especially don't get to say that on this basis, questioning libertarians' opposition to slavery "says more about [our] own prejudices than it does about actual libertarian thought" or "sounds like something progressives make up about libertarians while snuggled in their own tight-knit bubble of self-reinforcing ideologies" because in this case, it's less disingenuous of me and more Walter Block's communication problems as a representative of your ideology. Block thinks that the right to beat or kill slaves is something masters can enjoy, he specifically lays this out, along with the claim that slaves cannot chose to dis-associate from masters. So his hypothetical slavery looks a lot like real slavery, contrary to your claim. When you cook up contrived justifications for hypothetical slavery that looks a lot like real slavery, you make it questionable how much you oppose actual slavery. Especially if you claim that your "voluntary" kind has nothing to do with this historical kind when, in fact, it has everything in common besides the point of entry. But to continue this point: let's see what Walter Block has to say about historical slavery! quote:...he had a major problem with slavery -- the lack of free choice for slaves. The basis for much of many of Block's views is a belief in the right of "free association" (including the choice not to associate), and he was quick to state that slavery denied this right. Huh, look at that. Besides not being able to leave slavery wasn't that bad? This is what a major libertarian thinker believes? When your intelligentsia says poo poo like this, when your research institutes don't count "actually having slavery IRL" as a big enough factor against a nation's economic freedom to keep them from being ahead of the US, and when you go on to claim that taxes are like slavery because you can't get out of taxes, it actually looks a whole lot like you folks may not be that serious about opposing slavery and finding it more egregious than taxes! But look: the problem for you is not even so simple as saying Block is a minority voice. The problem is that Block's argument, contrary to your claim, is actually airtight in its adherence to what you yourself have identified as core libertarian principles: the non-aggression principle and self-ownership. If I own myself as property, I can be allowed to sell myself. Not being allowed to do so is an infringement of my property rights in myself. Any such sale that was not compelled by the initiation of force is legitimate. I don't care what Rothbard has to say about this. You put in your own words why this doesn't follow from your principles.
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Nov 20, 2015 14:54
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I think the "income tax is slavery" argument is what is so weak and pathetic about libertarianism, because it's all they are doing, whining about having to pay taxes. No one enjoys paying taxes, but most of us do it anyway cause it's part of life. Jrodefield, your imaginary scenario of a slave owner asking the slave to go freely but pay a regular portion of their income back to them is oppression. It's what gangs and mafia often do under the guise of "protection". It's what sex traffickers do. Yes, you are right that it would be oppression and awful and should be stopped. Meanwhile in the real world, we get up and get ready for work, using electricity and clean water that is often sustained in some part by public funding and investment, drive on roads built by public investments and maintained by income taxes, protected by military, police, and other public servants paid for by income taxes, organized by elected officials who are paid and supported by taxes, and aided by public safety nets that we don't often see and prevent some of our neighbors from dying on our side walks from lack of resources. The stability of our society is built upon everyone contributing something, some more than others no doubt. It's not perfect, but it's pretty drat good. And you can leave at any time if you really don't like being oppressed and having access to those things. When you don't pay taxes, you don't owe some rich politician or fat cat - you owe me. You owe your neighbors. You owe your boss. You owe your children. You owe America. I've known plenty of people who haven't paid their taxes. Men with guns don't just show up at their door. What happens is a slow process that only ends up with people with guns pointed at you if you point a gun at them or try to run away like a deadbeat and coward. Here, this article explains it beautifully: http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2015/02/20/what-happens-if-you-dont-pay-your-taxes What you have read and what you have learned is simply put wrong.
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Nov 20, 2015 15:14
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GulMadred posted:Libertarians DO sometimes acknowledge that newly-discovered resources may be "homesteadable" - rather than automatically assigning them to current landowners. Example. In typical libertarian fashion that's at once slightly reasonable and completely insane. And I was actually thinking of the slant-drilling example and might have said as much if I wasn't in a hurry to get in a snarky one-liner. Because that actually happens. Like an extraction company will show up and offer to buy your mineral rights for pennies on the dollar. Or they can go to your neighbor and get it anyway if you refuse. But it's totally voluntary and all that. And another thing that actually happens is people having to prove drilling caused water contamination / earthquakes / whatever else. Really what I should have also said was how everyone was trying to get jrod to actually define "property" for forever and he finally threw out "control of scarce resources", and "scarce resources" now isn't any more well defined. My mind went to like mineral rights because nothing else really makes sense. Land isn't all that scarce, particularly not when a few thousand colonists show up and declare ownership of an entire continent. (Unless by "scarce" he just means he can't do the same himself today, which is just pathetic.) e: And good God he's still at the "slavery isn't that bad guys, now X is the real slavery" thing. Polygynous fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 15:46
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jrodefeld posted:And I don't think Walter Block makes a very persuasive case at all. But this has absolutely nothing to do with libertarian objection to slavery. Slavery is a historical phenomenon (which unfortunately persists to the present day in certain parts of the world) that all decent people oppose. Walter is describing a completely theoretical contractual sort of slavery that has never actually existed anywhere. So to cite Walter Block and then infer that libertarians are not sufficiently opposed to actual slavery, i.e. the sort that has actually historically occurred and continues to occur where people are kidnapped against their will, beaten and killed if they disobey is disingenuous in the extreme. Well well well, look who doesn't know poo poo about poo poo! Look up "debt slavery" somewhere other than Mises or Rockwell. You might learn something for a change. jrodefeld posted:I really think that this attempt at claiming libertarianism is somehow not opposed to slavery or indifferent to the issue is incredibly dishonest. You are not arguing in good faith. Even Walter Block's theoretical future "voluntary" slavery system is not supported by almost any other libertarian and, more importantly, is completely distinct from any actually existing phenomenon. The Cato study that you brought up, unprompted I might add, gave two states where slavery is completely legal an explicit endorsement of being more free than the USA. Its methodology that you repeatedly linked allocates 10% of its total score to taxes on the rich, and 0% to "is slavery legal." The study you brought up to correct the previous study after we called you on it kept Qatar and the UAE in the top quintile. The Walter Block argument that you're defending/dismissing here is a libertarian endorsing an extremely common form of slavery that, again, you brought up unprompted. We're not making anything up or trying to trap you, we're just looking at things you've brought to us and pointing out how incredibly hosed up they are. edit: "Well, I completely skipped 35 pages of my own thread because I'm pretty sure everything you all said was worthless. Now stop arguing in bad faith, guys!" Goon Danton fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 15:53
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"I just don't understand how you came to loathe libertarianism so much!" OK, think of all the libertarian positions you've gotten offended about our "willful misinterpretations" of, jrod. Slavery. Health care. Property rights. Child prostitution. The fact that every libertarian thinker respected by the community is either an enthusiastic or covert racist or misogynist. Guess what jrod? We're actually correct about all those things. We see them clearly because we are not in the cult. You are in the cult and do not see them clearly. You think we are in a cult called "statism" but that is retarded. You're a bunch of playtime thinkers like the Nation of Islam or Transcendental Meditation. Human jokes, jrod. But we don't loathe those groups. Why? Because they didn't create Ronald Reagan. And shut the gently caress up about how Reagan was a statist, jrod. You're all statists, you just have polite little disagreements about when exactly the state should step in to enforce the rights of capitalists over workers. THAT'S IT. Now go and drink some water from a Superfund site. The state said it's bad, so it must be delicious.
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Nov 20, 2015 16:11
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GunnerJ posted:But to continue this point: let's see what Walter Block has to say about historical slavery! This bizarre-seeming conclusion is actually a perfectly logical consequence of the actual historical genesis of liberalism: resistance to the Civil Rights movement and the casting about for a neutral-sounding justification for Jim Crow in the face of explicit racism's increasing unpopularity. The whole idea of the right to associate or not associate with whomever you want for any reason as the sole definer of what separates a free man from a slave was borne out of resistance to the Civil Rights Act of 1968 VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 16:11
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RocketLunatic posted:No one enjoys paying taxes, but most of us do it anyway cause it's part of life. I do. As Orville Wendell Holmes Jr said, "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society", and I believe that wholeheartedly. And filing your taxes is the easiest thing in the world, anymore. Hell, if your employer opts into electronic filing programs like Turbotax will prepopulate all the forms for you, so it's not even that much of a hassle anymore unless you're doing itemized deductions, and if you are then you can probably afford to have a professional do it for you. Everything else you said is spot on.
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Nov 20, 2015 16:47
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jrodefeld posted:"Property", as I am using it, refers only to rules which determine who has the right to control what scarce resource. The "rules" of Marxism thus are a type of property right. One of the basic problems with your reasoning is that you assume a human's foundational relationship to reality is in terms of possessing property. Then, with great effort, you try to bend and deform every aspect of human experience into a property relationship. The most ridiculous example of this is your belief that human rights ultimately derive from self-ownership of your own body. In actuality, property is only one way among many to do this. quote:You are disputing my characterization of Marxism as having a theory of property rights, but we are speaking about the same thing regardless. Marx does have a theory of property rights: they're meaningless. The means of production and the product of labor aren't there to be owned, they exist to sustain people's lives and, if there is a surplus, enable them to pursue leisure, self-improvement, or whatever else they want to do. quote:It is not at all "unambiguous" that public goods such as roads and streetlights are owned by "society". Who is "society"? Society is the aggregation of people in a community, working together on matters of collective importance. One of the things they typically handle, through the medium of the state and government, is public infrastructure, because individual people lack the resources to provide infrastructure efficiently. For example, a farmer in Iowa wants to get a crop of soy beans to an ag processor in Omaha, where it will be prepped for rail transport to the port of Los Angeles, to be shipped to Japan where it will be an ingredient in soy sauce. Now, can the farmer pay for the 100 miles of interstate highway the semi will need to get his beans to Omaha? Can the ag processor pay for 1500 miles of rail and establish right of way the whole distance? Is the owner of the bulk freighter going to fund a navy to protect his ships from piracy? Imagine that this process has to carried out over a patchwork of infrastructure produced by local voluntary associations. Do you know where the term "robber baron" first originated? Imagine getting the tractor trailer to Omaha when every neighborhood wants a separate toll for the use of their roads. Imagine rail transport to the coast with no government to subsidize rail construction and maintenance, to establish right of way, regulate standard gauge, maximum grade, safe rail crossings, etc. etc. It would be a complete clusterfuck, to the point that it would be inconceivable to grow soybeans in Iowa for international consumption--nobody would even be able to imagine it. Even basic regional agriculture would be greatly complicated. Imagine trying to get corn down the Mississippi with a different freehold for every mile of the bank erecting a tower and shooting up your barges if they didn't heave to and pay for passage. quote:Do you own a portion of the road and streetlight in front of my house? You don't benefit from it. Sure I do. It's part of the complicated, interconnected body of the modern economy. Even if I never use that particular stretch of road, it is very, very good for me that there is generally a network of safe, well-maintained roads throughout the United States. quote:You can't simply assert that. Nah, I'm comfortable with that. The other 90% of this thread consists of refutations of anarcho-capitalism. You're not going to read them, but I don't feel obligated to repeat to you all the content you choose to ignore. quote:People ought to own what they pluck out of nature and transform with their labor and they are free to exchange what they homestead with the property homesteaded from others. Jrod, when's the last time you grew or killed your own dinner? Was it a watermelon you hosed to death? Otherwise, let's move it along past this ridiculous homesteading talk about plucking things out of nature. You're not a yeoman farmer. Even yeoman farmers aren't. You belong to a community of people who depend on one another for survival and comfort in many and various ways. quote:This system provides the most clear rules for who has the right to determine the use of what scarce resource. The rules are clear and straightforward because they don't take into account reality, particularly the necessity and desirability of cooperation for existing in the world and maximizing utility. quote:The only way that homesteading was NOT the original way that property was acquired is if you assume that there was never an original user of scare resources, which is of course ludicrous. Jrod, I want you to seriously consider for a moment how difficult it would be to clear a primordial forest and prepare it for agriculture with human muscle power and stone hand tools. Do you think an individual neolithic homesteader could do that? How long would it take? What would he eat while he was cutting down the trees, clearing brush, digging up the roots and stones, sinking a well, making the field usable? Do you think perhaps homesteading is a myth, and that it always took substantial and collective effort to access resources? Your view of how human communities developed is fundamentally wrong. Collective ownership is the default mode of property relations, because people depend on one another to live, especially at the subsistence stage and under conditions of extreme scarcity, as obtain in wilderness areas. Private property is not a natural law, the basis of human society, or the font of all human rights. It's merely one way--among many--to relate to material things and allocate resources. It isn't the default or even a natural form of property relation or social organization. In fact, in history, it has usually had to be imposed by the use of overwhelming force against the resistance of the mass of people. Government and law, rather than depending on the existence of private property, predate it and are necessary conditions for it. The state, in the sense of a governing entity that is conceived of as existing apart from people and extending its protection and control over society as a whole, is not a very old concept. Governments are very old, however. Under a classic despotism, like Pharaonic Egypt, everything is the property of the government as embodied by the despot, who is often simultaneously a religious leader. Caros also posted about the Khanate conception of property. It's important to note that there is no conception of private property here--the ruler (or temple) and the state are equivalent. His subjects have usufruct rights along with their obligation to supply rents and corvee labor. Anyway, I don't want to waste a lot of time on anthropology. Different ways of organizing control of resources have certain advantages and disadvantages. Limited but legally protected private property with robust government intervention, regulation, and taxation to provide infrastructure and other basic necessities has proven to be the best system overall. But arguments can be made for adjustments to that system.
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Nov 20, 2015 16:47
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jrodefeld posted:If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a little more about your personal story regarding libertarianism. From what I have ascertained from our past discussions you were once a dedicated libertarian who was familiar with all the common literature and arguments. The evolution in your thinking started when your friend became very ill and was unable to afford the treatment that could have cured her (my recollection is that your friend was female). From this undoubtedly traumatic event, you reassessed your position and rejected libertarianism. But this really doesn't account for the vitriol and hatred you have of libertarianism. At most, this event might make you reconsider a specific aspect of your beliefs, in particular that there is indeed a role for government policy in establishing some sort of social safety net that could have effectively helped your friend get the health treatment she needed. But this does nothing to undermine the many other libertarian arguments with which you are no doubt familiar. There must be more to the story. Phone posting so I will keep this brief. Are you real? I mean I am going to go further into this once I get home but are you really incapable of believing that seeing the death of a good friend at the hand of an uncaring private medical establishment might get me to renounce my kooky cult beliefs? My decision to stop libertarianism come as a direct result of that issue. Libertarians were wrong about health care, and the more I looked at it the more I realized they were wrong about other things. The vitriol I gave for the ideology isn't at all reflected at all libertarians. I don't hate you jrod, I pity you. I feel for you the same as I do a Scientology cult member, I just hope one day you get better and realize that your fantasy world is just that. On the other hand I do hate a lot of the top libertarians. People like Walter block and Hans Hermann hoppe actively spread your foul ideology and do so in racist and insulting ways. While there are certainly libertarians like the antiwar ones you mentioned my take on them is very simple. They are wrong more than they are right. I can agree pot should be legal without going full pants on head retarded, and there are people on the left with the same ideas who wouldn't also destroy the public health care system. For me you can boil it down to public health care really. If you don't think people should be able to get medical care regardless of ability to pay then I have zero respect for you. Watch someone you care about deeply die of a treatable disease and then talk to me about how great the free market is.
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Nov 20, 2015 17:26
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Now you want to enslave doctors too!
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Nov 20, 2015 17:35
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This got lost in the shuffle, and since it's my example, I'm going to repost it, if only so we can all watch JRode ignore it for the fourth time in a row: TLM3101 posted:
It should be noted that the original asked what would be a moral way for Carl to dispose of that profit, since JRode was on a tear about the 'moral use of wealth' or some such inanity. But, again, he's going to ignore the question, because answering questions like "Where does profit come from" is beyond his ideological blinkers. TLM3101 fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 17:38
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"it makes sense to hate the ideology i don't like, but to hate my ideology? preposterous!" you're a motherfucker, jrode
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Nov 20, 2015 17:40
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TLM3101 posted:This got lost in the shuffle, and since it's my example, I'm going to repost it, if only so we can all watch JRode ignore it for the fourth time in a row: how many times have you posted this now, without a single response? jrode, you motherfucker, why won't you respond to this post? is it because you're a motherfucker or because you're a coward?
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Nov 20, 2015 17:40
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Literally The Worst posted:how many times have you posted this now, without a single response? This makes it the fourth time. And I've made sure to post it whenever JRode's been around to see it. The fact that he hasn't attempted an answer is pretty much par for the course.
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Nov 20, 2015 17:42
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TLM3101 posted:This makes it the fourth time. And I've made sure to post it whenever JRode's been around to see it. The fact that he hasn't attempted an answer is pretty much par for the course. You have to post a picture. It's gonna end up being the white people.
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Nov 20, 2015 17:44
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TLM3101 posted:This makes it the fourth time. And I've made sure to post it whenever JRode's been around to see it. The fact that he hasn't attempted an answer is pretty much par for the course. what a motherfucker
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Nov 20, 2015 17:45
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Nevvy Z posted:Now you want to enslave doctors too! PUT DOWN THE GUNS!!!
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Nov 20, 2015 17:55
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jrodefeld posted:If I was a leftist, which I was and probably still would be had I not been persuaded by Harry Browne's writings and Ron Paul's presidential campaign in 2007 and subsequently through reading many of the important books written on the subject, I would nonetheless still appreciate the work of certain libertarian authors and commentators. So this has me really curious: how would you characterize your "leftism," what did "being a leftist" mean, and what arguments undermined those ideas?
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Nov 20, 2015 17:56
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jrodefeld posted:For the record, I support Murray Rothbard's opinion that voluntary slavery is an impossibility. In "The Ethics of Liberty", Rothbard writes: I had to read this Rothbard quote twice, because as far as I can tell this argument can be perfectly generalised to any contractual agreement where one person agrees to do something in the future. Observe: Bizarro Murray Rothbard posted:A man can alienate his labor service, but he cannot sell the capitalized future value of that service. In short, he cannot, in nature, agree to take any action in the future and have this agreement enforced—for this would mean that his future will over his own person was being surrendered in advance. For he cannot rid himself of his own will, which may change in future years and repudiate the current arrangement. The concept of “an agreement to do something in the future” is indeed a contradictory one, for so long as a person abides by a contract voluntarily, he is not yet bound to follow the contract since his submission is voluntary; whereas, if he later changed his mind and the other party enforced the contract by violence, the contractual agreement would not then be voluntary. Rothbard says that agreeing to slavery is only voluntary if you don't later change your mind, therefore "voluntary slavery" is impossible. How does this reasoning not apply to a contract under which I agree to pay you $100 next year? For extra credit: is this what going mad feels like?
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Nov 20, 2015 18:44
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bokkibear posted:Rothbard says that agreeing to slavery is only voluntary if you don't later change your mind, therefore "voluntary slavery" is impossible. How does this reasoning not apply to a contract under which I agree to pay you $100 next year? For extra credit: is this what going mad feels like? It's worse than that, it just straight up abandons the idea of self-ownership. It's like saying I can sell you my car and then later decide I want it back. Well, too loving bad for me, it's your car now and you don't have to give it to me unless you want to. Suddenly, when the concept of "self as own property" is carried through to considering the right to sell property, you are not your property, your rights are not the rights of a proprietor, they are the rights of someone with an inalienable will. Because if you were your property and all your rights derive from your self-ownership, you should be able to transfer your self-as-property to a new owner and with it all the rights you enjoyed as a self-owner. Otherwise you do not have property rights in yourself.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:56
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bokkibear posted:Rothbard says that agreeing to slavery is only voluntary if you don't later change your mind, therefore "voluntary slavery" is impossible. How does this reasoning not apply to a contract under which I agree to pay you $100 next year? For extra credit: is this what going mad feels like? Or better yet, let's say your DRO has gone to war with my DRO (One side violated the Nonaggression Principle, doesn't matter who). My side wins, and in exchange for not executing you we draw up a peace agreement where you and anyone who joined you works off the financial cost of the war. However I actually do not have the facilities for that many new workers so instead of direct work I sell your contract to another DRO 500 miles away. Oh whoops, that's not just slavery, that's exactly how the Atlantic Slave Trade happened.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:58
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bokkibear posted:I had to read this Rothbard quote twice, because as far as I can tell this argument can be perfectly generalised to any contractual agreement where one person agrees to do something in the future. Observe: A reasonable and consistent response is that it absolutely does apply to that contract. In signing the contract you give away some portion of your free will: you will either in the future: pay the $100, suffer the terms for contract breaking outlined in said contract, or successfully contest the contract and prove that it does not apply to you. This is not ridiculous, we do it all the time. Hell, our legal system is exactly this: you have implicitly agreed not to shoot anyone by living in society and taking advantage of our benefits. If you do shoot someone, you have to either suffer the consequences, or successfully prove that you fit in one of the loopholes that society acknowledges (self defense, being in the military during times of war, being a cop shooting a black person, etc.) Libertarians, though they don't acknowledge it, have the same thing about the non-aggression pact. However, this provides no argument against slavery. Since an-cap insists that all rights must be derivable from property rights, any right that doesn't spring from property can't exist. But rather than either owning up to it or accepting that their starting axioms are wrong, they kinda bullshit an answer.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:59
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Caros posted:Phone posting so I will keep this brief. In my mind there are basically two types of libertarians. There are the ordinary sort who believe some odd things but are basically just ordinary people (if like 99% white guys). Then there are the libertarian intellectuals, who are trying to develop logical underpinnings for libertarianism, and wind up proposing DRO dystopias, "race realism," or just obvious horse poo poo like HHH's argumentation ethics.
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Nov 20, 2015 19:00
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Caros posted:You called it a good question twice. That is weird. You are weird.  GunnerJ posted:Having skimmed the rest of your post, I'll say that your shilling for another libertarian makes me feel good about my decision. But I will return your favor of suggesting reading for me by suggesting that you read a case for reparations that shows how the legacy of slavery continues to the modern day better than I ever could: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
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Nov 20, 2015 19:00
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theshim posted:For the record, I posted that article a good thirty pages ago. He hasn't read it. He will not read it. 
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Nov 20, 2015 19:02
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Guilty Spork posted:Seriously, there are just so many cases where I look at libertarian proposals for how to set things up and go, "We tried that, and then we stopped because it killed people." Health care is complex and messy, but unless your only metric is adherence to Libertarian Magic Principles, socialized medicine as seen in the UK and Canada is just plain better for ensuring the greatest number of people are healthy. In those cases, suddenly the greater utility of UHC suddenly doesn't matter anymore and Jrod switches over to his morality argument where, regardless of how much better UHC (or anything else) is for society, it's intolerably immoral because he didn't consent
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Nov 20, 2015 19:04
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GunnerJ posted:It's worse than that, it just straight up abandons the idea of self-ownership. It's like saying I can sell you my car and then later decide I want it back. Well, too loving bad for me, it's your car now and you don't have to give it to me unless you want to. Suddenly, when the concept of "self as own property" is carried through to considering the right to sell property, you are not your property, your rights are not the rights of a proprietor, they are the rights of someone with an inalienable will. Because if you were your property and all your rights derive from your self-ownership, you should be able to transfer your self-as-property to a new owner and with it all the rights you enjoyed as a self-owner. Otherwise you do not have property rights in yourself. I've tried this argument with him at least three times. He will never respond, because he is a coward. bokkibear posted:I had to read this Rothbard quote twice, because as far as I can tell this argument can be perfectly generalised to any contractual agreement where one person agrees to do something in the future. Observe: This is correct, and hilarious.
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Nov 20, 2015 19:06
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Captain_Maclaine posted:In those cases, suddenly the greater utility of UHC suddenly doesn't matter anymore and Jrod switches over to his morality argument where, regardless of how much better UHC (or anything else) is for society, it's intolerably immoral because he didn't consent Funny, I was just sitting in traffic half an hour ago and jrod's MEN WITH GUNS fixation popped into my head. Since it's not just taxes, the paranoid schizophrenic sees statist tyranny everywhere. e.g. Why does the government think it knows better than me when I should turn left ? If I run a red light then MEN WITH GUNS etc etc
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Nov 21, 2015 00:44
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Lol jrod "Caros your close personal friend dying due to free market principles can't possibly be what turned you away from the ideology that promotes the free market above all else. Surely you must have been dumped by your libertarian girlfriend or something! Try reading these people I shill for. I will probably try to later disavow them or play them off as not significant to my worldview whenever it is almost inevitably shown they're a horrible piece of poo poo that promotes slavery or pedophilia or racism or, most likely, all three." Also lol you've called yourself a leftist, then said your so freedom loving that you supported Ron Paul for President, the man with one of the most hard-right conservative voting records in recent American history.
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Nov 21, 2015 01:01
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spoon0042 posted:Funny, I was just sitting in traffic half an hour ago and jrod's MEN WITH GUNS fixation popped into my head. Since it's not just taxes, the paranoid schizophrenic sees statist tyranny everywhere. Actually, you know who embodies this the most? The most Libertarian of motorists? The anti-helmet laws activists. You know, those fat assholes on lovely Hardly Ablesons who parade around on noisy aftermarket pipes because "loud pipes save lives." "Muh Fredum" they shout as they drive by, with little more than a bandanna - colored to look cool, but not to accidentally send any gang or homosexual signals. Despite all the research and facts that state otherwise, they absolutely refuse to wear a helmet, because that'd be oppression by the state! "loving cagers" and other random crap spewing from their mouths. They have popular advocates, too. Stars, like all those guys from TV shows building custom choppers. They're more charismatic than the fat old white rear end in a top hat riding around shouting "muh freedoms." They draw in the more passive, people like jrode. Finally, we get to the outermost layer of these guys. They don't go on parade with the angry fat white racist assholes with hidden 88 tattoos shouting "muh freedoms," but they'll echo the sentiment. There's two camps of these guys. The first are those like jrode, who will buy the Harley (or maybe a Goldwing or a Japanese cruiser), buy the leather, and putt up and down the road by themselves muttering "muh freedoms" to themselves. They're approachable, but if you ask, they'll regurgitate all that crap about "muh freedoms" and "oppression" that kept you away from the gang of angry fat white racist accountants who like to pretend they're bad-asses. The second group are the squids, the "import sport-bike" Libertarians. They're tolerated by the anti-helmet laws, because this is a younger group who appeal to youngsters, and the hope would be that they draw more fresh blood into motorcycling without helmets. "Suns out guns out!" is their rallying cry. They're really annoying pretentious idiots, and are secretly loathed by the innermost Harley riders because they don't ride "real bikes". If the angriest whitest HD driver got his way, the squids would get lined up with all the "cagers". The political force opposing them? ATGATT - All The Gear All The Time. Varying stripes of "you really should wear all your gear, otherwise you're an idiot" which is where most people sit, to those who do feel that wearing proper gear should be manditory. These are the bands of socialists and communists and statist traitors which are despised by the "muh freedom" types. They don't ride real bikes. They ride bikes that have letters and numbers for names, like SV650; or awful "furriner" bikes like BMWs, and Japanese bikes that aren't cruisers. They even go so far as to make fun of Harley Davidsons! :mootmoot:
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Nov 21, 2015 01:35
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Nolanar posted:
I am frankly astonished at the amount of time you all have spent focusing on this particular post and then inferring that it proves libertarians don't care about slavery. Caros was the only one that touched upon any actual substance regarding this claim, but even he didn't go into much substance. To be clear, we are speaking about immigrant workers who don't have enough rights vis a vis their employers (union leverage) which is being called "slavery". We are not, by and large, speaking about actual chattel slavery in which human beings are legally sold as physical property and cannot disassociate from their masters, correct? That is not to say that workers rights are not important, but you've got to have a pretty clear definition of what we're talking about when referring to a term like "slavery". And I am open to being educated on this topic because I admit to not knowing a great deal about the internal policies of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Also, how about you not "mock" anyone but instead try to have a good-faith discussion, okay? If you're only goal is to dig up the smallest detail to nitpick and criticize your opponent, it amounts to an admission that you are not debating in good faith. The single point I was trying to get across was that when we look at our un-libertarian world, the general trend is that those nations that have policies that are closer to laissez-faire libertarian free markets have greater prosperity, larger middle classes, less poverty, and higher general living standards. Hardly anyone has actually responded to this claim and this general trend. Instead all you want to talk about is the workers rights abuses of immigrant workers that you claim are occurring in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Okay, you've addressed two out of the two hundred or so nations of the world but this is a textbook example of missing the forest for the trees. You're so desperate to validate your view of libertarians as sociopaths who only want to prop up the very rich and stomp on the poor that you'll be as dishonest and disingenuous as needed to maintain that narrative.
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Nov 21, 2015 02:18
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"Here is a Cato freedom study that says what I want it to!"
"There are two slave states they rank as more free than the USA, and also Cato is a garbage organization for idiots."
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Wow yeah I really have to contort myself to present Austrian cultists as sociopathic
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Nov 21, 2015 02:36
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jrodefeld posted:Hardly anyone has actually responded to this claim and this general trend. Instead all you want to talk about is the workers rights abuses of immigrant workers that you claim are occurring in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Okay, you've addressed two out of the two hundred or so nations of the world but this is a textbook example of missing the forest for the trees. You're so desperate to validate your view of libertarians as sociopaths who only want to prop up the very rich and stomp on the poor that you'll be as dishonest and disingenuous as needed to maintain that narrative. It is rather difficult to imagine how a social organisation whereby power is accumulated purely via the acquisition of capital would do anything other than benefit those with a great deal of capital at the expense of those without. Whether that is the intent or not is rather beside the point.
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Nov 21, 2015 02:46
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jrodefeld posted:I am frankly astonished at the amount of time you all have spent focusing on this particular post and then inferring that it proves libertarians don't care about slavery. Caros was the only one that touched upon any actual substance regarding this claim, but even he didn't go into much substance. To be clear, we are speaking about immigrant workers who don't have enough rights vis a vis their employers (union leverage) which is being called "slavery". We are not, by and large, speaking about actual chattel slavery in which human beings are legally sold as physical property and cannot disassociate from their masters, correct? First off, you don't know about the situation in Qatar and UAE, despite people telling you, yet you've ignored them. It's not merely lack of union rights. It's the fact that employers limit freedom of movement, freedom of association, and even where you're allowed to take a poo poo. You can't even quit without your employer's permission. It's slavery, even if it's not chattel slavery. Also, we're focusing on the slave states because they are the most egregious examples. Otherwise, every British commonwealth is ranked higher than the USA and all of them have higher taxes, higher minimum wages, universal health care, and are further from "Libertopia" than the USA is. These are kinda "duh" examples. Also, the fact that you're holding up literal slave states as paragons of Libertarianism speaks volumes, even if you do so unintentionally. You also have failed to answer why slavery isn't a denial of economic freedom. I'd go further, but I'm phone posting from work, and better people than I have already addressed these issues, you're just too thick headed to realize it.
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Nov 21, 2015 02:55
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Caros posted:Walter Block is a racist Jrodefeld. And like many racists before him you should probably stop parroting him before people start verbally kicking you in the head and you run off like a baby. Walter Williams. Not Walter Block. Did you even read the post? Walter Williams is a black libertarian and economist who I have mentioned in passing before. It is patently absurd for you to criticize me for obsessing about race, when it was all of you who have been disingenuously lobbing the accusation that libertarians support slavery or at least are indifferent to it over the past half dozen pages. All I've been trying to talk about in this thread is why the principle of private property rights are important and how more generally laissez-faire nations enjoy greater average living standards than less libertarian nations. One thing that has been made abundantly clear though is that you all don't actually know the definition of the word "racist", which might be important for a group that lobs that particular accusation with such reckless abandon.
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Nov 21, 2015 03:05
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jrodefeld posted:
A standard arguement of slavery loving racists is to argue that "it's not slavery at all really". These people cannot quit and cannot leave, which more than satisfies the standards of slavery you yourself established not just a few loving pages ago. Also, you are now trying to make broad, authoritative statements about countries and systems you claimed to know nothing about loving YESTERDAY. You do not get to accuse anyone of being dishonest or insubstantive you loving disgrace to humanity.
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Nov 21, 2015 03:15
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jrodefeld posted:One thing that has been made abundantly clear though is that you all don't actually know the definition of the word "racist", which might be important for a group that lobs that particular accusation with such reckless abandon.
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Nov 21, 2015 03:44
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jrodefeld posted:Hardly anyone has actually responded to this claim and this general trend. Instead all you want to talk about is the workers rights abuses of immigrant workers that "You claim" Hahaha oh my god he'd rather just pretend reality doesn't exist than admit Cato might have given slave states good marks based on freedom from labor laws. Praxeology ladies and gentlemen
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Nov 21, 2015 03:47
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you claim
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jrodefeld posted:Walter Williams. Not Walter Block. Did you even read the post? Walter Williams is a black libertarian and economist who I have mentioned in passing before. And the criticisms that have been leveled at you have been: 1. The nations claimed to be top ranking nations generally have significant socialist policies in addition to free market liberties. 2. The bottom ranking nations are generally hellholes that neither socialists nor libertarians would claim. Combined with point 1, they essentially show the trend that developed nations are more free than undeveloped nations. Woop de loving do. 3. The liberty rankings have some unaccountable placements that suggest significant inaccuracy in their rankings. The inclusion of slave states shows that the rest of their scale is similarly doubtful and can't be trusted. Slaves have no economic freedom at all. Examination of their criteria show that the scale only judges the freedom of the wealthiest people in society. How can you not see this?
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Nov 21, 2015 03:50
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