Why Should We Care About Property Rights?

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Twerkteam Pizza: Sep 26, 2015; Grimey Drawer

jrodefeld posted:

I worded that imprecisely. What I meant was if you were a member of the police or homeland security who was investigating a purported plot by ISIS to attack Los Angeles, would you make the assumption based on the statistics that the attacker would be of Middle Eastern descent and also a Muslim? Or would you really think it is reasonable that you'd suspect the elderly Jewish grandmother just as much as the twenty-something guy who just flew in from Syria?

This would not be about impugning an entire race or religion but would be about looking at the facts regarding terrorism and ISIS membership in order to thwart a planned attack.

I didn't mean to imply it would be reasonable for average people simply to be nervous and uncomfortable around Muslims because of the existence of ISIS in the world. That would be prejudiced and probably bigoted.

You're a lying bag of poo poo, we caught you on your loving racism and now you're using THE STATE DEFENDING ITSELF AGAINST ITS CITIZENS as a justification?

Just to be clear, I capitalized the words that should really strike out to you. I spoke in your language and capitalized where I did so, and with your third grade knowledge of how english works I don't have the heart to tell you that capital letters have nothing to do with capitalism.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:03

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# ? May 17, 2024 20:08

Sephyr: Aug 28, 2012

Jrod, tell us how Timothy McVeigh was unfairly aggressed against by law enforcement officers who should have been chasing muslims, who were statistically better suspects!

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:09

Who What Now: Sep 10, 2006; by Azathoth

jrodefeld posted:

I worded that imprecisely. What I meant was if you were a member of the police or homeland security who was investigating a purported plot by ISIS to attack Los Angeles, would you make the assumption based on the statistics that the attacker would be of Middle Eastern descent and also a Muslim? Or would you really think it is reasonable that you'd suspect the elderly Jewish grandmother just as much as the twenty-something guy who just flew in from Syria?

This would not be about impugning an entire race or religion but would be about looking at the facts regarding terrorism and ISIS membership in order to thwart a planned attack.

I didn't mean to imply it would be reasonable for average people simply to be nervous and uncomfortable around Muslims because of the existence of ISIS in the world. That would be prejudiced and probably bigoted.

I would suspect neither unless and until I had good reason because I am not a bigot. Racial profiling is wrong. Always.

And you're a loving moron if you think I'm gonna believe that's what you meant from the start. You lying sack of failed donkey abortions.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:14

jrodefeld: Sep 22, 2012; by Shine

Nolanar posted:

Yeah, it's kind of sad to see someone so tied to holding the same positions and being Right about Everything Forever. The thought of having the same opinions I had as a teenager is loving terrifying to me. I'm actually going through somewhat of a philosophical ~~meltdown~~ exploratory period right now, due in some small part to the better-quality posts in this thread introducing me to things I hadn't considered before. It's actually part of why I'm curious to hear from honest libertarians. I want to find the strongest arguments from each political tradition and see what I make of them, and what they make of each other. I'm already trying to reconcile ideas I agree with from the liberal, socialist, and anarchist traditions, why not add more to the mix? But I genuinely can't find libertarian thinkers beyond Nozick who aren't absolutely vile, and I have trouble finding any conservative philosophers at all (Burke? Maybe?).

I don't think it's true that I haven't admitted that I've been wrong at times in the past and I don't have any aversion to doing so in the future. And let me add that I do appreciate your post because I think you've got a respectful tone and are interested in a respectful discussion.

I have evolved my thinking in many ways over the past five years or so. I'm still a libertarian, but as with leftism, there are so many conflicting views among libertarians and different schools of thought within the broader tradition, that there is plenty of room for growth and evolution within the umbrella of "libertarianism". I'll continue to try to learn more and evolve in my thinking as I acquire new information.

You know, I did list an awful lot of libertarian thinkers a few pages back and, not to let anyone else make my arguments for me, but I would indeed be curious to hear your assessment of them. I think you could learn a lot about the broader tradition by exposing yourself to some of these thinkers. If you have a strong revulsion to the Rothbard/Hoppe/Lew Rockwell brand of modern ancapism, there are so many other traditions within libertarianism that you could explore.

I hope I'll be forgiven for posting an entire article here, but the most compelling recent article I have written is by Jeff Riggenbach and I think it offers a good jump off point to explore the classical liberal/libertarian tradition. You did ask for some libertarians that you won't think are "absolutely vile" and while I can't make any guarantees about your response to Riggenbach, I still think you might find it interesting:

quote:

Many libertarians say the traditional Left/Right political spectrum has become meaningless and useless. But to the extent that this is true for them, this is only because they have allowed themselves to be befuddled by political fraud and, perhaps, by a weak background in political history. The spectrum is just as useful and meaningful as it always was, which is very. It is necessary only to clarify one�s thinking about the past century in American politics to see that this is so.

But let us begin at the beginning � with what the left/right spectrum meant when it was created during the French Revolution. Murray Rothbard has written that 18th Century �liberalism� was �the party of hope, of radicalism, of liberty, of the Industrial Revolution, of progress, of humanity; the other [party] was Conservatism, the party of reaction, the party that longed to restore the hierarchy, statism, theocracy, serfdom, and class exploitation of the old order.� And according to Will and Ariel Durant in their book The Age of Napoleon, it was in the French Legislative Assembly in the fall of 1791 that the terms Right and Left were first used in this political sense. As the Durants tell it, when the assembly convened, the �substantial minority dedicated to preserving the monarchy � occupied the right section of the hall, and thereby gave a name to conservatives everywhere.� The liberals, meanwhile, �sat at the left.� Some fifty-odd years later, after another French Revolution (the one that took place in 1848) had unseated the last French king, Louis Philippe, the same seating arrangement was revived for the newly elected legislative assembly of the Second Republic. As has often been noted, two of the newly elected legislators who sat together on the left side of that assembly in 1848 and 1849 were the free market economist and publicist for free trade Frederic Bastiat and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first man ever to publicly declare himself an anarchist.

This conception of the Left/Right political spectrum also guided the political understanding of the 20th Century libertarian activist and writer Karl Hess, who wrote forty years ago that on �the far right [�] we find monarchy, absolute dictatorships, and other forms of absolutely authoritarian rule,� while the Left �opposes the concentration of power and wealth and, instead, advocates and works toward the distribution of power into the maximum number of hands.� Just as the farthest right you can go is absolute dictatorship, Hess argued, so �[t]he farthest left you can go, historically at any rate, is anarchism � the total opposition to any institutionalized power, a state of completely voluntary social organization.�

Now, if we take this model of the Left/Right political spectrum and apply it to the politics of today, what follows from that? First, that all dictatorships, whether they are called communist or fascist, are on the Right. This is, of course, contrary to the doctrine set forth a few years ago in a ridiculous and unfortunately somewhat influential book called Liberal Fascism, in which the author, Jonah Goldberg, attempts to prove that fascist dictatorships like the one Adolf Hitler ran in Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s were and are Left-wing dictatorships, because they were socialist and socialism is a Leftist phenomenon). In fact, exactly the opposite is the truth of the matter. Fascism and socialism are the same thing, but they are both products of Right-wing thinking. Socialism has never really been on the Left. The original socialists, in the early part of the 19th Century, were advocates of the ideas of Henri Saint-Simon, a former monarchist and thoroughgoing conservative, a Right-wing defender of the ancien regime who had decided that the industrial revolution and the end of monarchy in France had to be taken into account by those who wanted a big government to run everyone�s lives as the kings of old had done. In effect, they transferred their allegiance from the king to a hoped-for technocracy, which could engineer the perfect society by applying �scientific� ideas to the job (but only if it had unlimited power to do so).

Two brief quotations from Ayn Rand seem relevant here. �Fascism and communism,� she wrote, �are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory � both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state.� And, again Ayn Rand: �There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism � by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.� And fascism, socialism, and communism are, quite evidentally, all �forms of authoritarian rule,� to refer back to Karl Hess�s words. So all three belong on the Right side of the traditional Left/Right political spectrum. Adolf Hitler was a Right-winger. So was Joseph Stalin.

And so are today�s self-proclaimed �progressives.� As Richard Ebeling pointed out recently, these �progressives� are, ideologically speaking, �the grandchildren� of Otto von Bismarck, the Chancellor of Imperial Germany in the last two decades of the 19th Century. As Ebeling writes, �Bismarck persuaded Kaiser Wilhelm to initiate a series of government programs and controls to gain political support of the �working class� population that became the basis and inspiration for the modern Welfare State around the world.� As Bismarck himself put it, �My idea was to bribe the working class, or shall I say, to win them over, to regard the state as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in their welfare. � Life insurance, accident insurance, sickness insurance � should be carried out by the state.�

Sound familiar? It should. For this is the song that has long been sung by both Republicans and Democrats. These two parties, widely and absurdly believed to represent Right and Left, respectively, in American politics, are in fact no more different from each other than are Lewis Carroll�s Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They differ only on which Bismarckian welfare state programs should be given the most money and on how much any given Bismarckian welfare state program should have its budget increased in any particular year. That all Bismarckian welfare state programs should enjoy annual budget increases is taken for granted by both Republicans and Democrats. Today�s America is really governed by a single conservative party with two wings: the Republicans and the Democrats; if we choose to vote for a major party candidate at all, we have no real choice but to elect someone who wants to expand government and reduce individual liberty, that is to say, a conservative, a Rightwinger. �Statism� is a synonym for conservatism. Statism is the politics of the Right.

But if both Republicans and Democrats, both conservatives and modern �liberals,� as well as self-styled �progressives,� are on the Right, who is on the Left? The answer is: libertarians. Libertarians are almost the only true leftists left in this country. When I interviewed the longtime anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin for Reason magazine back in 1978, he made some comments on the Left/Right political spectrum that are well worth rehearsing today. �The American left today as I know it,� he told me, �is going toward authoritarianism, toward totalitarianism. It�s becoming the real right in the United States. We don�t have an appreciable American left any more in the United States.� Before our conversation was over, however, Bookchin acknowledged that there was, after all, an American Left worthy of mention. �People who resist authority,� he said, �[people] who defend the rights of the individual, who try in a period of increasing totalitarianism and centralization to reclaim these rights � this is the true left in the United States. Whether they are anarcho-communists, anarcho-syndicalists, or libertarians who believe in free enterprise, I regard theirs as the real legacy of the left, and I feel much closer, ideologically, to such individuals than I do to the totalitarian liberals and Marxist-Leninists of today.�

Bookchin was convinced, he told me, that Marxism was �the most sinister � form of totalitarianism. � I don�t think,� he said, �that the Soviet Union and China are accidents, aberrations; I think they follow from Marxism-Leninism. I think that Leninism comes out of Marx�s basic convictions.� Still, he said, �I believe in a libertarian communist society.� On the other hand, Bookchin added quickly. �I believe that any attempt on the part of a libertarian communist society to abridge the rights of a community � for example, to operate on the basis of a market economy � would be unforgivable, and I would oppose the practices of such a society as militantly as I think any reader of your publication would. If [a libertarian communist society] assumed any totalitarian forms, any authoritarian forms whatever, I would oppose that. And not only that: I would join your [free market] community in fighting it. � If socialism, which is what I call the authoritarian version of collectivism, were to emerge, I would join your community. I would migrate to your community and do everything I could to prevent the collectivists from abridging my right to function as I like. That should be made very clear.�

In other words, what Bookchin was calling for was voluntary communism.

Some libertarians are in the habit of saying, �We libertarians are neither Right nor Left; we are libertarians.� But no matter how emphatically they thump their chests while saying this, they�re wrong. They have allowed themselves to be deceived and misled by a political confidence game foisted on the American electorate beginning in the 1930s, when an opportunistic demagogue named Franklin Delano Roosevelt began passing off as the newest kind of �liberalism� a package of homilies and government programs that had traditionally been presented to the American public by the Republican Party, the party of big business, the party that was in favor of capitalism but opposed to the free market. Roosevelt�s �New Deal� consisted mainly of government programs introduced by his Republican predecessor, Herbert Hoover, laced with a generous dose of the bribery of the electorate first popularized by Otto von Bismarck. Some will object that conservatives have historically been for individual liberty and free markets, but this view is uninformed and ahistorical. The Republicans who opposed the New Deal opposed it mostly because they weren�t running it themselves; they took their libertarian rhetoric from true liberals, the classical liberals who are labeled �the Old Right� today by the historically confused. These people, many of them publicists like H.L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, and Isabel Patterson, had joined the Republicans after being forced out of the Democratic party, apparently in the belief that only by doing so could they oppose FDR�s policies. The party adopted their rhetoric, but they employ it only to dupe that subset of the electorate that cares about such things; then, once in power, they do as FDR did, the precise opposite of what they claimed to believe in.

Many of the same libertarians who say the traditional Left/Right political spectrum is now meaningless and useless also say that, beginning in the 1930s (or, according to some, beginning around the turn of the 20th Century), the terms Left and Right changed their meaning. But in fact they did not. What happened is that popular usage of these terms changed, as more and more citizens with less and less education decided to follow the lead of confidence men in public office.

As it happens, while I was beginning work on this podcast episode a few days ago, I was reading the American philosopher Susanne Langer�s three-volume work, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, her swansong, an altogether remarkable discourse on problems in theoretical psychology and what you might call speculative anthropology. And in its pages, I ran across Langer�s remark that �popular usage � commonly confuses and degrades the real sense of words.� Yes, yes, I understand that popular usage ultimately determines the correct meanings of words. At the same time, however, there are numerous words whose popular usage is so confused and degraded that serious students and teachers of the disciplines in which those words need to be used have specified more precise meanings for them in their professional work. �Anarchy� is one of those words. �Capitalism� is another. �Selfishness� is a third. My advice to serious students of and writers on fields like political theory, economics, and ethics is to do just that � be precise with the meanings you attach to the words Right and Left as they apply to political theory. Follow the guidance of the traditional Left/Right political spectrum. Abjure the foolish attempts of people like Noah Goldberg to make sense of a modernized spectrum that puts Barack Obama and Rand Paul at opposite ends, with totalitarian communists and anarchists (who are nothing but fully consistent libertarians) to the left of Obama and with both Adolf Hitler and Gary Johnson to the right of Rand Paul. Clarify your thinking about this spectrum.

Just the other day, a libertarian wrote on Facebook that he couldn�t imagine what a Left libertarian would be since the left favors big government so the concept of a Left libertarian is a contradiction in terms. This is what the confusion and degradation that come with popular usage of ill-understood words leads to. Be clear in your own mind, at least, about what Left and Right actually refer to. Understand that we libertarians (along with those ancoms who favor a purely voluntary collectivist society) are the Left in the America of the early 21st Century. It is not the concept of a Left libertarian that is a contradiction in terms; it is the concept of a Right libertarian that is a contradiction in terms, that is logically incoherent, that is, in fact, laughable on its face.

I want to emphasize that I am not trying to engage in any rhetorical trick were I think that by adding the prefix "left-" to libertarianism I am somehow going to get you to accept the same ideas. However, I've noticed that when I speak about libertarians like Bastiat, or Spooner, or Sheldon Richman, I am generally ignored. But you (not you specifically but most posters) constantly bring up the same half-dozen controversial Rothbard/Hoppe/Lew Rockwell posts as evidence to how horrible all libertarians are.

I absolutely concur with Riggenbach that I feel much more ideologically close to left-anarchists like Proudhon and anarcho-communists like Bookchin than I do to contemporary conservatives and liberals.

If you'd like to have an exchange with me on this matter, I'll ignore the other posters and speak to you one-on-one. I'd be curious to get your assessment of the above article, as well as an assessment of the list of libertarian thinkers that I wrote several pages ago.

Do you have any views on the libertarianism of Scott Horton, Antiwar.com, Gary Chartier, and Jeffrey Tucker?

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:15

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Twerkteam Pizza posted:

You're a lying bag of poo poo, we caught you on your loving racism and now you're using THE STATE DEFENDING ITSELF AGAINST ITS CITIZENS as a justification?

Just to be clear, I capitalized the words that should really strike out to you. I spoke in your language and capitalized where I did so, and with your third grade knowledge of how english works I don't have the heart to tell you that capital letters have nothing to do with capitalism.

Twerkteam, please, he had a family.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:16

BENGHAZI 2: Oct 13, 2007; by Cyrano4747

jrode talk to me about minimum wage jobs

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:18

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Literally The Worst posted:

jrode talk to me about minimum wage jobs

Get back to your dishwashing, serf!

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:20

Ron Paul Atreides: Apr 19, 2012; Uyghurs situation in Xinjiang? Just a police action, do not fret. Not ongoing genocide like in EVIL Canada.

I am definitely not a tankie.

The 1% accumulate wealth due to unrestrained capitalism, as capital by its very nature seeks to acquire more. The political connections come after; the aggregation of money buys power, not the other way around.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:26

Ron Paul Atreides: Apr 19, 2012; Uyghurs situation in Xinjiang? Just a police action, do not fret. Not ongoing genocide like in EVIL Canada.

I am definitely not a tankie.

jrodefeld posted:

I worded that imprecisely. What I meant was if you were a member of the police or homeland security who was investigating a purported plot by ISIS to attack Los Angeles, would you make the assumption based on the statistics that the attacker would be of Middle Eastern descent and also a Muslim? Or would you really think it is reasonable that you'd suspect the elderly Jewish grandmother just as much as the twenty-something guy who just flew in from Syria?

This would not be about impugning an entire race or religion but would be about looking at the facts regarding terrorism and ISIS membership in order to thwart a planned attack.

I didn't mean to imply it would be reasonable for average people simply to be nervous and uncomfortable around Muslims because of the existence of ISIS in the world. That would be prejudiced and probably bigoted.

but... you were using this hypothetical to defend Zimmermann? You disingenuous gently caress

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:27

RuanGacho: Jun 20, 2002; "You're gunna break it!"

jrodefeld posted:

No, I don't care about people who VOLUNTARILY choose to live in a socialist society. What I am opposed to, as I've said so many times, is using aggression against people. Let's suppose that a voluntary socialist was able to convince all workers in a free society to quit their jobs at the same time, pool their resources, buy land on the market and open mutualist cooperatives where they would share all their resources and all profits they make on the market.

I wouldn't life a finger to prevent them from doing this. This is provided that their actions are voluntary and they don't steal any land. That is, they voluntarily quit their jobs but don't steal the legitimate property of their employer (i.e. the factory or equipment) and the land they buy is freely sold to them on the market. They don't coerce anyone into joining their cause against their will but instead try and persuade other working-class people to join them.

That would be absolutely fine with me. The problem comes if or when they use violence to prevent a laborer from freely trading his or her labor for wages to an entrepreneur and similarly prevent an entrepreneur from purchasing land and/or a factory and then employing laborers. Provided, as I continually stipulate, that all interactions are entirely voluntary.

There are very few socialists who are willing to maintain peace in their efforts to create their "worker's paradise".

If you ARE willing to keep the peace and work towards your socialist goals by respecting homesteaded legitimately acquired private property and using persuasion rather than aggression to get compliance with your values, then you will be entirely welcome in a libertarian free society.

You absolutely choose not to reciprocate this courtesy to the libertarian.

There he goes putting words in my statist mouth again, are you guys ready to admit you're trying to reason with a rock face yet?

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:28

Twerkteam Pizza: Sep 26, 2015; Grimey Drawer

Jrod, reply to our takedowns of your philosophy and admit that you would cry if you ever critically analyzed what a piece of poo poo you are.

Do you have friends in real life? because judging by your attitude I doubt you do. You don't deserve any.

I imagine you sit in your parents house, alone, wondering why your dad keeps asking you to get a job even though you had one just last year.

gently caress you.

Edit:

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

Twerkteam, please, he had a family.

Either he didn't deserve them or they failed him.

Twerkteam Pizza fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Feb 10, 2016

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:29

Tom Clancy is Dead: Jul 13, 2011

jrodefeld posted:

I worded that imprecisely. What I meant was if you were a member of the police or homeland security who was investigating a purported plot by ISIS to attack Los Angeles, would you make the assumption based on the statistics that the attacker would be of Middle Eastern descent and also a Muslim? Or would you really think it is reasonable that you'd suspect the elderly Jewish grandmother just as much as the twenty-something guy who just flew in from Syria?

This would not be about impugning an entire race or religion but would be about looking at the facts regarding terrorism and ISIS membership in order to thwart a planned attack.

I didn't mean to imply it would be reasonable for average people simply to be nervous and uncomfortable around Muslims because of the existence of ISIS in the world. That would be prejudiced and probably bigoted.

Which terrorist attack on a 1st world country since 9/11 would have been stopped or was stopped by the police being properly suspicious of a Middle-Eastern Muslim foreigner?

Though you do have a point, maybe all white boys in school should be viewed with extreme distrust, stopped and frisked, and have their communications monitored by the police & the NSA.

P.S. WTF does this have to do with anything? You were using the Muslim terrorist analogy to defend Zimmerman and being afraid of black people, so it pretty clearly isn't a matter of national defense. You very much meant to imply it would be reasonable for average people to be uncomfortable around Muslims and black people.

jrodefeld posted:

If Trayvon had a history of criminal abuse, that IS relevant to whether it is likely that during an altercation with Zimmerman, Trayvon became the aggressor and Zimmerman had legitimate reason to fear for his life. It is not unreasonable for the defense to bring up issues with Trayvon's past.

The idea that I am even bothering to defend multiple year old posts about a long resolved criminal trial is absurd. But what if I was concerned about an ISIS attack on Los Angeles? Would I be unreasonable in being extra cautious about Middle Eastern men who were also Muslims? Would that make me a bigot, even though the clear evidence shows that nearly all ISIS members are Muslims who are of Middle Eastern descent?

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:30

Goon Danton: May 24, 2012; Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

jrodefeld posted:

I don't think it's true that I haven't admitted that I've been wrong at times in the past and I don't have any aversion to doing so in the future. And let me add that I do appreciate your post because I think you've got a respectful tone and are interested in a respectful discussion.

Motherfucker I have been calling you a motherfucker for the past year and a god damned half, I'm the dude you literally just flipped out at for calling you a white supremacist, step right the gently caress off with that "respectful tone" poo poo. I am interested in respectful discussion, but you are not capable of it. You have long since lost any benefit of the doubt, and you are rapidly destroying my ability to extend the benefit of the doubt to other libertarians.

I guess I should buy an avatar, to make me more memorable.

quote:

I have evolved my thinking in many ways over the past five years or so. I'm still a libertarian, but as with leftism, there are so many conflicting views among libertarians and different schools of thought within the broader tradition, that there is plenty of room for growth and evolution within the umbrella of "libertarianism". I'll continue to try to learn more and evolve in my thinking as I acquire new information.

I do not believe you. What, specifically, is a topic you've changed your mind on in the past five years?

And I swear to god if it's some smuglord "I have lost some faith in the general public's intelligence" bullshit I will get your mom to change the password on the wifi you're mooching off of.

quote:

You know, I did list an awful lot of libertarian thinkers a few pages back and, not to let anyone else make my arguments for me, but I would indeed be curious to hear your assessment of them. I think you could learn a lot about the broader tradition by exposing yourself to some of these thinkers. If you have a strong revulsion to the Rothbard/Hoppe/Lew Rockwell brand of modern ancapism, there are so many other traditions within libertarianism that you could explore.

You think Tom E Woods is a person with worthwhile opinions. Your expertise in identifying non-vile thinkers is... suspect.

Anyway, let's get to the money post:

jrodefeld posted:

I worded that imprecisely. What I meant was if you were a member of the police or homeland security who was investigating a purported plot by ISIS to attack Los Angeles, would you make the assumption based on the statistics that the attacker would be of Middle Eastern descent and also a Muslim? Or would you really think it is reasonable that you'd suspect the elderly Jewish grandmother just as much as the twenty-something guy who just flew in from Syria?

This would not be about impugning an entire race or religion but would be about looking at the facts regarding terrorism and ISIS membership in order to thwart a planned attack.

I didn't mean to imply it would be reasonable for average people simply to be nervous and uncomfortable around Muslims because of the existence of ISIS in the world. That would be prejudiced and probably bigoted.

No, you don't get to get out of this with some non-apology about your bigotry being inartfully worded.

Despite your deranged conception of other ideologies, we don't reflexively scrape and bow when you invoke an agent of the government. Just because you made your self-insert a cop doesn't mean his racism is okay! I would want him chasing actual leads instead of running down the street ~~shooting~~ cuffing all the ay-rab looking dudes.

And aside from that, the original post before your idiotic goddamned ISIS scenario was this:

quote:

If I was walking down the streets of Compton in Los Angeles and I see a young black man who fits a certain description or is acting in a suspect way, I might legitimately concluded that he is probably a gang member, only because a majority of Crips and Bloods members happen to be black. I'm not going to make the same assumption about a middle aged white guy because there aren't any middle age white guys in the Crips and Bloods gangs.

There's no hero cop hunting the evil terrorists here. This is you, being scared of a black man, for being black and "acting in a suspect way." You try to justify this with some garbage non-statistics, and then straight up say that it's totally fair to assume that any black man who "fits a certain description" is probably a gang member. That is you judging someone by the color of their skin. That is you, as yourself, being a goddamned racist.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:31

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

No, not really seeing how these are related...

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:35

Tom Clancy is Dead: Jul 13, 2011

Cemetry Gator posted:

Although, if you did sell your worldview as a never-ending homosexual orgy, I think you might get a lot more support.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion: You Are Racist > Property Rights: A Never-Ending Homosexual Orgy

Nolanar posted:

I guess I should buy an avatar, to make me more memorable.

someone should make a GBS style one for the "Jrod hit squad"

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:36

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

Ron Paul Atreides posted:

The 1% accumulate wealth due to unrestrained capitalism, as capital by its very nature seeks to acquire more. The political connections come after; the aggregation of money buys power, not the other way around.

For jrode to accept this, he would also need to accept that he was not an ubermensch kept down by the false prophets of crony capitalism, but simply someone of too little value to bargain for anything on the free market. He would have to overcome his own inner narrative, when its much easier to satify it by engaging in eternal combat with the satantic statist forces, represented here by us.

Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Feb 10, 2016

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:40

Guilty Spork: Feb 26, 2011; Thunder rolled. It rolled a six.

jrodefeld posted:

The answer is that I've got some sort of a problem and I don't mind wasting my time writing thousands of words for an un-appreciative audience. I never really expected anyone here to actually be persuaded, though even if they were, they are unlikely to admit it to me.

Honestly, I build up a certain reservoir of frustration about politics especially during an election season. I think just working out what I believe by writing it down has value. What keeps me going on this website is that I receive push-back to what I am saying. Even through all of the substance-less replies and name-calling in my direction, there are enough of you who respond with substance to keep me coming back to this site when I feel the need to vent about politics.

However, I think I should be welcomed here as a libertarian contributor if only to enliven the discussion. It seems like some of you are just hoping I'll go away so you can have general ideological conformity. But what fun is that?

Granted libertarians by and large haven't fared well on SA in recent years, but I am absolutely certain that a libertarian who posts more like a functional person and good-faith debater wouldn't get the kind of reaction you do.

Of course, a libertarian who seriously considered the evidence people showed them might not remain a libertarian for very long.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:48

Twerkteam Pizza: Sep 26, 2015; Grimey Drawer

Hey Jrod, interesting question:

Why is infant mortality rates at birth highest in the U.S. compared to the rest of the developed world? With it's amazing privatized healthcare system, shouldn't birthing deaths be laissez faire'd away?

Maybe it's because the U.S. has a horrible habit of pumping a poo poo-TON of unnecessary drugs into mothers giving births so that insurance companies can make bank, or that Doctors often elect to do C-sections because insurance companies won't cover child-birth if it lasts more than 12 hours? Just wondering your response to this you piece of garbage.

Nolanar I can buy you an AV just message me what you want it to be you dork.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 02:49

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

jrodefeld posted:

I personally focus a great deal on the systemic racism and discrimination that the State and private citizens inflict upon minority communities in the United States. This is a passion of mine. I love black culture, black music, black comedy and so forth. And I'm not just saying that. Since middle school, I've idolized black role models and I've identified with civil rights causes as long as I was ever politically aware.

jrodefeld posted:

I worded that imprecisely. What I meant was if you were a member of the police or homeland security who was investigating a purported plot by ISIS to attack Los Angeles, would you make the assumption based on the statistics that the attacker would be of Middle Eastern descent and also a Muslim? Or would you really think it is reasonable that you'd suspect the elderly Jewish grandmother just as much as the twenty-something guy who just flew in from Syria?

This would not be about impugning an entire race or religion but would be about looking at the facts regarding terrorism and ISIS membership in order to thwart a planned attack.

Ahahaha astounding. If you hold the words of Mises (pbuh) in your heart and whisper in supplication "I love black people and support Black Lives Matter" then you can declare it's right and good for the state and its enforcers to use a paper bag test to decide who is probably a gang member or ISIS terrorist and discriminate against them accordingly.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:00

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Twerkteam Pizza posted:

Hey Jrod, interesting question:

Why is infant mortality rates at birth highest in the U.S. compared to the rest of the developed world? With it's amazing privatized healthcare system, shouldn't birthing deaths be laissez faire'd away?

Maybe it's because the U.S. has a horrible habit of pumping a poo poo-TON of unnecessary drugs into mothers giving births so that insurance companies can make bank, or that Doctors often elect to do C-sections because insurance companies won't cover child-birth if it lasts more than 12 hours? Just wondering your response to this you piece of garbage.

Nolanar I can buy you an AV just message me what you want it to be you dork.

What a loathesome egalitarian you are. Your short-sighted charity will only ensure that more and more posters allow their avatars to idle in hopes that one of the creators will pick up the tab for them.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:01

Who What Now: Sep 10, 2006; by Azathoth

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck I forgot that racial profiling is racist how do I fix this... Uhhhh... Uhhhh...! Oh! Police! Yeah, I meant that I think cops should racially profile! There's no way that could be racist!"

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:05

Twerkteam Pizza: Sep 26, 2015; Grimey Drawer

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

What a loathesome egalitarian you are. Your short-sighted charity will only ensure that more and more posters allow their avatars to idle in hopes that one of the creators will pick up the tab for them.

I feel like you and I are now friends, can we be friends?

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:10

Who What Now: Sep 10, 2006; by Azathoth

Jrod, a kid so lovely he brings people together. :kimchi:

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:11

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Twerkteam Pizza posted:

I feel like you and I are now friends, can we be friends?

Yes.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:14

Bryter: Nov 6, 2011; but since we are small we may-
uh, we may be the losers

jrodefeld posted:

I absolutely concur with Riggenbach that I feel much more ideologically close to left-anarchists like Proudhon and anarcho-communists like Bookchin than I do to contemporary conservatives and liberals.

Uhh, have you read Proudhon? Because this post:

jrodefeld posted:

No, I don't care about people who VOLUNTARILY choose to live in a socialist society. What I am opposed to, as I've said so many times, is using aggression against people. Let's suppose that a voluntary socialist was able to convince all workers in a free society to quit their jobs at the same time, pool their resources, buy land on the market and open mutualist cooperatives where they would share all their resources and all profits they make on the market.

I wouldn't life a finger to prevent them from doing this. This is provided that their actions are voluntary and they don't steal any land. That is, they voluntarily quit their jobs but don't steal the legitimate property of their employer (i.e. the factory or equipment) and the land they buy is freely sold to them on the market. They don't coerce anyone into joining their cause against their will but instead try and persuade other working-class people to join them.

[...]

If you ARE willing to keep the peace and work towards your socialist goals by respecting homesteaded legitimately acquired private property and using persuasion rather than aggression to get compliance with your values, then you will be entirely welcome in a libertarian free society.

Hints at a theory of property which he absolutely shat all over:

Proudhon posted:

Indeed, if, as is pretended, � and as we have admitted, � the laborer is proprietor of the value which he creates, it follows: �

1. That the laborer acquires at the expense of the idle proprietor;

2. That all production being necessarily collective, the laborer is entitled to a share of the products and profits commensurate with his labor;

3. That all accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its exclusive proprietor.

[...]

The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, �This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.� Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the people � who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have received none of the proceeds of the sale � will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor�s door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, �So perish idlers and vagrants!�

[...]

What have we shown so far? Things so simple that really they seem silly: �

That, as the traveller does not appropriate the route which he traverses, so the farmer does not appropriate the field which he sows;

That if, nevertheless, by reason of his industry, a laborer may appropriate the material which he employs, every employer of material becomes, by the same title, a proprietor;

That all capital, whether material or mental, being the result of collective labor, is, in consequence, collective property;

That the strong have no right to encroach upon the labor of the weak, nor the shrewd to take advantage of the credulity of the simple;

Either I've misinterpreted you or one of us has grossly misinterpreted Proudhon.

Couple more choice quotes which seem to go against pretty much the entirety of the philosophy you've laid out:

quote:

Just as the creation of every instrument of production is the result of collective force, so also are a man�s talent and knowledge the product of universal intelligence and of general knowledge slowly accumulated by a number of masters, and through the aid of many inferior industries. When the physician has paid for his teachers, his books, his diplomas, and all the other items of his educational expenses, he has no more paid for his talent than the capitalist pays for his house and land when he gives his employees their wages. The man of talent has contributed to the production in himself of a useful instrument. He has, then, a share in its possession; he is not its proprietor. There exist side by side in him a free laborer and an accumulated social capital. As a laborer, he is charged with the use of an instrument, with the superintendence of a machine; namely, his capacity. As capital, he is not his own master; he uses himself, not for his own benefit, but for that of others.

[...]

The civilized laborer who bakes a loaf that he may eat a slice of bread, who builds a palace that he may sleep in a stable, who weaves rich fabrics that he may dress in rags, who produces every thing that he may dispense with every thing, � is not free. His employer, not becoming his associate in the exchange of salaries or services which takes place between them, is his enemy.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:18

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Apparently as long as you say you hate the state then you can help the state racially profile and discriminate all you want and liberals are to blame for all that because they support the state.

I'm not sure how this works once we abolish the US government and it's Kristian Kovenant Kommunity organizations administering summary judgment on suspicions persons without due process, but based on the libertarian arguments in support of Afrikaner rule in South Africa or the Confederacy I presume it goes something like "well granted their methods aren't perfect and no one loves minorities more than I, but I can't risk my family's safety to please the left-progressive PC warriors"

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:22

Goon Danton: May 24, 2012; Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

I still can't believe JRod tried to freedom-witness to me without bothering to check if I'd posted here before.

Twerkteam Pizza posted:

Nolanar I can buy you an AV just message me what you want it to be you dork.

Aww thanks :3:

I'll work on coming up with a good av idea. Probably Danton related. I don't have PMs though

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:23

BENGHAZI 2: Oct 13, 2007; by Cyrano4747

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

Get back to your dishwashing, serf!

i don't do that anymore SIR

i sell comics and comic accessories

jrode talk to me about minimum wage jobs

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:23

Twerkteam Pizza: Sep 26, 2015; Grimey Drawer

Nolanar posted:

Aww thanks

I'll work on coming up with a good av idea. Probably Danton related. I don't have PMs though

uhh, then either post it here while quoting me or turn on PMs (unless PMs cost money now or you just don't want to)

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:27

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Bryter posted:

That all capital, whether material or mental, being the result of collective labor, is, in consequence, collective property;

I know libertarians are often anti-IP, and jrode certainly is when it suits him, but this bit in particular has me wondering. How you can claim that the world is a meritocracy that rewards people in proportion to how much they benefit society, when people long dead are still benefiting the living, without recompense? The discoveries of, say, Isaac Newton or Johannes Gutenberg have tremendously improved the world, but it's totally impossible for him, being dead, and even his ancestry, long since being diluted, to reap the benefits, even if you could somehow quantify them.

I know it seems petty and ridiculous to say "but how would you compensate the dead," but it's just such a straightforward example that you cannot claim that all proceeds of a discovery or endeavor go to its progenitor. That's just not how things work--nobody today can claim to be solely responsible for anything, because they're standing on the backs of Newton and Gutenberg and a billion other dead men and women.

So if we can admit that about the dead, why can't you admit it about living workers, too?

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:29

burnishedfume: Mar 8, 2011; You really are a louse...

As a white dude, cops having the power to suspect every brown person of terrorism is great, just like Martin Luther King Jr (my personal hero, so I'm Unracist) said: "I'm a black so I probably did something wrong, proceed with the beating officer."

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:30

Goon Danton: May 24, 2012; Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

Muscle Tracer posted:

I know libertarians are often anti-IP, and jrode certainly is when it suits him, but this bit in particular has me wondering. How you can claim that the world is a meritocracy that rewards people in proportion to how much they benefit society, when people long dead are still benefiting the living, without recompense? The discoveries of, say, Isaac Newton or Johannes Gutenberg have tremendously improved the world, but it's totally impossible for him, being dead, and even his ancestry, long since being diluted, to reap the benefits, even if you could somehow quantify them.

I know it seems petty and ridiculous to say "but how would you compensate the dead," but it's just such a straightforward example that you cannot claim that all proceeds of a discovery or endeavor go to its progenitor. That's just not how things work--nobody today can claim to be solely responsible for anything, because they're standing on the backs of Newton and Gutenberg and a billion other dead men and women.

So if we can admit that about the dead, why can't you admit it about living workers, too?

This one is actually pretty easily dealt with. Abandoned or long-idle property isn't considered owned if you're going by Locke, and property owned by the dead is abandoned in a pretty permanent way. The dead can't demand recompense for their ideas any more than they could for their old estates. This obviously brings up other problems, such as what counts as "laying idle" (hint: Locke's answer involved the word "uncivilized").

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:47

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Hey hey,
Rodefeld J,
How many uncomfortable questions about the real life applications and bogus intellectual underpinnings of your philosophy
did you skip today

# ? Feb 10, 2016 04:18

quickly: Mar 7, 2012

To add to Nolanar's comment, libertarians and classical liberals have a theory of idle property. Locke argues in the Second Treatise of Government (Chapter 5.27) that people are entitled to ownership of precisely those goods that they have transformed via work, provided that there is "enough, and as good" left for others. Nozick (Chapter 7.1) restates Locke's proviso as follows: "[any] process normally giving rise to a permanent bequeathable property right in a previously unowned thing will not do so if the position of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is thereby worsened." The canonical example is the owner of the majority of some resource acquiring the obligation to accomplish something productive with it; otherwise their ownership of that resource becomes illegitimate. The interesting question is whether this form of Locke's proviso requires larger redistributive measures than most libertarians would be comfortable with.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 04:35

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Twerkteam Pizza posted:

uhh, then either post it here while quoting me or turn on PMs (unless PMs cost money now or you just don't want to)

Now you're buying him PMs? Didn't I just warn you about this, statist filth?

# ? Feb 10, 2016 04:50

quickly: Mar 7, 2012

In my opinion, one of the largest problems with libertarian theories of distributive justice is their intractability. For example, suppose that a given distribution of goods is just whenever it arose through a sequence of just transfers from an initially just set of acquisitions. If a small number of people owned a majority of the goods, but their acquisition of those goods was legitimate according to the theory, then that distribution is just. However, any given distribution of goods in modern society is the result of some sequence of transfers, many of which are unjust, from an initial set of acquisitions, many of which are unjust. In order to rectify the injustice, the entire causal chain for each good must be traced out. Thus, justice becomes in principle impossible to determine. Furthermore, the notion that individuals should abide by the libertarian system of property becomes untenable: if we can't determine which distributions are just, we can't determine who has legitimate rights in any particular good. Since we have a general understanding of past injustices, however, we can implement redistributive measures until some agreeable distribution of goods is obtained. So my question for jrodefeld is why he doesn't support redistributive policies that would rectify these injustices, as they seem to be required by the libertarian theory of justice.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 05:08

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Literally The Worst posted:

i don't do that anymore SIR

i sell comics and comic accessories

jrode talk to me about minimum wage jobs

Looks like you just proved jrod's point! You clearly took the multitude of skills developed as a dishwasher and leveraged them into a more prestigious job selling comics and comic accessories, which I can only assume are polymer vaginas and suspenders.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 05:12

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

quickly posted:

In my opinion, one of the largest problems with libertarian theories of distributive justice is their intractability. For example, suppose that a given distribution of goods is just whenever it arose through a sequence of just transfers from an initially just set of acquisitions. If a small number of people owned a majority of the goods, but their acquisition of those goods was legitimate according to the theory, then that distribution is just. However, any given distribution of goods in modern society is the result of some sequence of transfers, many of which are unjust, from an initial set of acquisitions, many of which are unjust. In order to rectify the injustice, the entire causal chain for each good must be traced out. Thus, justice becomes in principle impossible to determine. Furthermore, the notion that individuals should abide by the libertarian system of property becomes untenable: if we can't determine which distributions are just, we can't determine who has legitimate rights in any particular good. Since we have a general understanding of past injustices, however, we can implement redistributive measures until some agreeable distribution of goods is obtained. So my question for jrodefeld is why he doesn't support redistributive policies that would rectify these injustices, as they seem to be required by the libertarian theory of justice.

GunnerJ already provided us the link wherein Hoppe supplies us the answer to this problem.

GunnerJ posted:

Theoretical history, that is, what you think must have happened based on what you already believe, is the method you're describing.

quote:

To determine what this state of nature looks like, Hoppe uses the following hypothetical question as an expository device:

"14[s posted:
888[/s]HHH"]
How would real, rational, peaceseeking people have solved the problem of social conflict? And let me emphasize the word �real� here. The people I have in mind, deliberating on this question, are not zombies. They do not sit behind a �veil of ignorance,� � la Rawls, unconstrained by scarcity and time. (No wonder Rawls reached the most perverse conclusions from such a premise!) They stand in the middle of life, so to speak, when they begin their deliberations. They are only too familiar with the inescapable fact of scarcity and of time-constraints. They already work and produce. They interact with other workers and producers, and they have already many goods appropriated and put under their physical control, i.e., taken into possession. Indeed, their disputes are invariably disputes about previously undisputed possessions: whether these are to be further respected and the possessor is to be regarded their rightful owner or not.

And then he answers this question:

"14[s posted:
888[/s]HHH"]
What people would most likely accept as a solution, then, I suggest, is this: Everyone is, first-off or prima facie, presumed to be the owner � endowed with the right of exclusive control � of all those goods that he already, in fact, and so far undisputed, controls and possesses. This is the starting point.

Short answer to the problem of tracing property rights to ensure the prevailing allocation is just: you don't. You pick right now as the starting point (conveniently right after you conquer all you want/are able to grasp, and enrich yourself as much as you can with centuries of expropriation and slavery) and from now on taking is wrong and you have to deal with me peacefully if you want any of the land or resources I somehow control.

Bryter posted:

So imagine the US becomes your beloved Free Libertarian Society, but the socialists somehow convince everybody to join up, and legitimately acquired all the land from coast to coast. If baby jrodefeld is born into the society that results and wants to be a Captain of Industry when he grows up, but can't because the drat mutualist cooperative keeps making him share his profits, what then?

Get a posse together, kill or run all the Jews, blacks, Japanese, Catholics, socialists, etc out of town, take all their poo poo, claim all the cooperative-held land is terra nullius because it's not privately owned then enclose it and expel all the communards, then say "gee all that violence five minutes ago was wrong, we know better now, you're all welcome to come back and bargain your labor for permission to work the land and man the factories, no redistribution talk now stealing is wrong."

# ? Feb 10, 2016 05:30

GunnerJ: Aug 1, 2005; Do you think this is funny?

Hoppe has a rather more elaborate and revealing answer here: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/09/hans-hermann-hoppe/smack-down/

Incidentally, jrod has attempted to address this himself and then gave up on addressing rebuttals: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3745862&pagenumber=36&perpage=40#post452903373

# ? Feb 10, 2016 05:37

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# ? May 17, 2024 20:08

BUG JUG: Feb 17, 2005

VitalSigns posted:

GunnerJ already provided us the link wherein Hoppe supplies us the answer to this problem.

I am a real life historian and I had never heard of Theoretical History until today. I now want to hate assign it to graduate students and watch them rip it apart.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 05:41

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