Golbez posted:

One of the big things that got me out of libertarianism was realizing that they can and will redefine any word to fit their philosophy.

Tubgoat posted:

In fairness, I too define Yankee for my own purposes.

Goon Danton posted:

Bobby Digital posted:

Bobby Digital posted:

quote:

It is sad to report the death of yet another prominent libertarian science-fiction writer. Brad Linaweaver died on August 29th, just three days shy of his 67th birthday. ... One of his early articles – arguing for capitalism over socialism – was publicly praised by then president Ronald Reagan. Later in life, he wrote a book on how he had been wrong in supporting the Iraq War. Prior to its publication, he spoke at an LA supper club about his change in thinking. His patience was demonstrated – and certainly tested – as two attendees sat through his entire talk waving two small American flags and humming the “Star Spangled Banner.” He was calm and reasonable as he ignored them, winning over the rest of the audience in the process.

Wikipedia article on Doom (novel series) posted:

Arriving in Salt Lake City, Fly and Arlene learn that humanity is no longer the dominant species on earth, and that the United States government is working with the invaders. Salt Lake City is one of a handful of locations holding out against both the demons and the government. ... Multiple armed forces are sent to Salt Lake City to detain or fight the resistance, including the United States Army, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Internal Revenue Service 'revenue collection' strike force.

quote:

Fly and Arlene learn that the war is over, although humanity has become a communistic race, exhibiting extreme amounts of social atomism and an extreme fear of death. The marines discover that the Newbies are infecting the humans, existing at the same level as DNA. Fly figures out that a human with faith in something cannot be "infected", and stages a rebellion on the ship.

Golbez posted:

Because when literal demons from Hell (okay in the books they're aliens) attack earth, it's going to be the IRS that licks their boots first and becomes the front lines in fighting the resistance.

Golbez posted:

quote:

humanity has become a communistic race, exhibiting extreme amounts of social atomism

VitalSigns posted:

Hayek recognized that capitalism has injustices and market failures, and in order for the idea of a level playing field of negotiation for wages and labor to even be remotely defensible the government would need to provide universal basic income, so he's obviously a whiny loser and complete trash. If you cite him you have to be very careful that the people you're talking to don't know what he believed.

Guavanaut posted:

I can imagine the government departments of the Western imperialist nations siding with hellspawn/demonic aliens over the common people of the working class.

Guavanaut posted:

Oh, wait, does 'extreme amounts of social atomism' mean 'insufficiently racist/nationalist'?

JustJeff88 posted:

This is probably a little bit outside the pale in this thread, but in the process of choosing my health insurance through my new employer and it makes me want to die (ironically). I might be hypersensitive to it having grown up Not In This Bullshit, but every option looks terrible. I don't trust any of these loving companies - no sane person would - and I feel like no matter what I choose it will be the wrong one. I could bang on about this, but one thing that really stands out to me is that the most expensive plan, which presumably would be the most comprehensive, has such high co-pays that it's blatantly trying to discourage people from seeking care... 70 loving dollars just to see a specialist. Thing is, I'm afraid to get any of the two cheaper but not "emergency-only" plans because I presume that they will be even worse in their own ways.

The fact that people (who don't stand to make money off of this "industry") defend this bullshit versus any universal health care solution is disgusting. The NHS isn't perfect, but gently caress me if I don't miss it.

OwlFancier posted:

I dunno about the states but car insurance is legally required in the UK yet there is no public option, which is really loving stupid imo.

OwlFancier posted:

loving car insurance is a miserable experience, anyone who thinks people should have to do that for their loving life is a festering lunatic who should be shot.

happyhippy posted:

I had a friend shop for car insurance in Ireland here, and its common practice for them to lie about everything.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/why-are-so-few-libertarians-females/ posted:

I don’t wish there were proportionately more females, blacks, Orientals in our movement, because this would mean fewer white males, and I am indifferent to our proportional make up. I only wish there were more females, blacks, Orientals amongst us on an absolute basis, for that would mean we were growing.

On the other hand, don’t you realize there are now more than two genders? I think we’re now up to 34. Or, is it 57, like the number of varieties of Heinz products? Who knows? If the latter, I wish more of those 55 other genders joined us as well.

Golbez posted:

The wisdom of Walter Block:


Mm, yes, the best way to attract people to your side is to insult them. Always been a hallmark of libertarian outreach.

Golbez posted:

The wisdom of Walter Block:


Mm, yes, the best way to attract people to your side is to insult them. Always been a hallmark of libertarian outreach.

Angry_Ed posted:

Also using the word "Orientals" in 2019.

Golbez posted:

The wisdom of Walter Block:

quote:

I am aware that the majority of libertarians are male. I would predict that the composition of anarchists are skewed even more male, as we are even farther from the mean than limited state libertarians are.

Would you say this has been true from your own personal observations? Are anarchists even more male than limited state libertarians?

At the Mises Institute the few women that were there that I met were all for a limited state, not anarchy.

SlothfulCobra posted:

Flood insurance has one of the weirdest deals. Legally require people in flood zones buy insurance, but insurers don't want to provide insurance for that high of a risk, so the federal government goes around and heavily subsidizes the insurers, to the point that the federal government basically foots the bill for insurance payouts.

VitalSigns posted:

How old is Walter Block

"As long as our numbers are growing we have no need for stratagems to appeal to the Saracens, Huns, Hamites, Mongoloids, Elamites, and Chinamen"

Guavanaut posted:

Written by someone who has never been to an actual anarchist meeting. Or if he has it was in Greece and he left wailing "you're breaking the NAP!"

Goon Danton posted:

They're trying hard to steal the word "anarchist" for their movement like they did with "libertarian"

Goon Danton posted:

They're trying hard to steal the word "anarchist" for their movement like they did with "libertarian"

Captain_Maclaine posted:

Early in my time as a grad student, I was TA for a class on the history of US social movements. It took considerable efforts to get students to understand the difference between actual anarchists and the Ron Paul crowd (this was admittedly during Obama's first year in office).

Captain_Maclaine posted:

He'd have said "Chinamen" if he thought he could get away with it.

Neo Rasa posted:

Can someone repost the post of that libertarian kid who travelled to Europe and was confused, argumentative, and then beaten up when he went to a gathering of some actual capital A Anarchists and thought they were all for Ron and Rand Paul style libertarian ideals?

quote:

I was beat up by left anarchists in Greece.

I don't usually use forums or Reddit, I usually just post comments on Ancap blogs like Molyneux or Cantwell's blog, but they didn't seem appropriate places to post my story. So here goes, I just wanted to share this with all of you.

Nov 3 I flew to Europe for a Eurotrip type tour. Not a guide or packaged deal, just going around by myself. I paid for half of the trip with the wages I earned over the last two years, my dad paid for the other half. I am 19, I guess that is normal starting college and all. (Before that I worked for my dad's company part time, so I guess you could say he paid for all of it, lol).

I did France and then Italy and then Greece next. I am an Ancap so I wanted to see anarchists in these places. Yes, I know they are different kinds of "anarchists" and not really full anarchists like us. I went to an anarchist book store in Italy and it had a lot of English books, but no Rothbard or Ancap. Like I said, I expected that, not a surprise.

I went to Greece, which everyone knows is famous for its revolutionary anarchism, its economic crisis and everything going on right now. Here I found directions for a local anarchist center. I went and didn't see anybody, but it was covered in graffiti, mostly in Greek so I couldn't read it. Whatever, I started taking pictures. Then some people came out and confronted me.

This should have been my first warning sign something was not right, because photography is not a crime. They were not violent, but they were not friendly, like asking who I was, what I wanted. They all spoke good English actually. Not uncommon in Greece. I said I was a tourist and an anarchist and I just wanted to take pictures. Then they got friendly and told me I should have asked first (but pictures are no NAP violation so I don't know why, but I didn't say anything) and they invited me inside.

We hung out for a while and smoked hash (there is no good dank in Europe as you might find out like in Cali, everyone smokes hash with tobacco which isn't as cool as it sounds). We started talking about politics and anarchism. I was trying to talk about the state, they were like yeah no doubt the state was bad. But they wanted to talk about capitalism, capitalism this and that. This is when we started to get into a debate.

I told them that what they called capitalism is different from the free market. They said capitalism is free markets. And I said I agreed. That is what I am saying. Real capitalism is free markets. And they said yes, that is what we are trying to get rid of. And I said no, but we don't even have that right now. We need more free markets. And everyone at the same time was like "nooo" we are anarchists, we are against capitalism. Anarchists oppose capitalism.

And I said but not anarcho-capitalists. Anarcho-capitalists are the anarchists who support capitalism. I had a fanny pack (yeah, lame I know) for my camera and in that I had this yellow and black bowtie (also super lame, it was a joke but I wasnt wearing it). And I said look, these are the Ancap colors, yellow and black, like versus the communist red and black. Well, these guys had a lot of red and black in the building already so I thought they would get it.

I think that is when it started to get a really bad vibe, really tense in the air. The free market thing was funny, we disagreed but I think they thought I was just confused. Everyone was uncomfortable now. Then someone said markets wont work with democracy. And I said exactly, that's it, democracy is against anarchism. And they kind of agreed, and said yes, we don't have real democracy, just governments, and we needed more democracy. I said no, we need less democracy, democracy is the enemy. And we need to end democracy to have anarchy. Then they were all like "noooo" again. You know that thing people do in groups when everyone all says "nooo" or expresses some disapproval at the same time.

And one of them said "but we do want to stop democracy" and then they kind of spoke back and forth in Greek. I didn't really understand it. And they asked me what I meant.

So I said okay, I had the floor, I was going to tell them about ancapism. And I tried to explain to them some Rothbard and Hoppe. I said the natural order in anarchy is that the best rise to the top, the market picks who is the best. They compete and are peaceful. They said what do we want instead of anarchy. I said we want private owners to own their own land and businesses, and to employ people. They said that is what we have now. I said no, it would be even better. One of the guys said it was like feudalism. And I said it is not feudalism.

Eventually one of the guys spoke up and I thought he was Greek, but he spoke English perfectly so he may have not been. He said he knew what anarcho-capitalism was and that we were basically fascists. He asked me if I thought everything should be private. And I said yes. And he asked me if I thought people were unequal. And I told him yes. And that not everyone would have equal rights. I said everyone has the right to own property and not be done aggression against. But that not everyone had to be treated equally by the owners. He said what about immigrants and racism. And I said that would not happen in a free market, but yes property owners could be racist if they wanted to. They had to respect property.

Then he called me a fascist again, and someone else said I was a fascist. And then they basically all started shouting fascist at me, and one of them grabbed me by the wrists. They pulled me out the door, it was up three floors, and basically drug me down the stairs on my back. It hurt really bad and I remember yelling "you're breaking the NAP" and things like that. "Stop initiating force against me." Then they kicked me around on the ground in the hallway, before they took my camera and threw me outside. I was crying and stuff, I just sat there. I was in shock because it was so sudden. Looking back there were warning signs though.

I think they felt bad for me and gave the camera back, but when I looked later they stole the memory card with all of my Greek photos.

So they initiated force and theft. They broke the NAP. I knew the left anarchists were not real anarchists, but I never knew they would do something that bad.

I wasnt seriously hurt, just kicked around a little, lots of bruises and little cuts. I am fine guys so don't worry. Just needed to share.