Libertarians: You fire fighter lovers sure are good at debate!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Libertarians: You fire fighter lovers sure are good at debate!

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VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Just a reminder from earlier in the thread that the world's only Glorious Anarcho-Capitalist Libertarian nation: led by Captains of Industry, Borne of the Power of the Unfettered Human Mind, backed by the limitless genius and sagacity of the First Unenslaved Men, lost its War of Independence to twenty dudes and a four-piece brass band and was annexed without a fight to the mighty superstate known as the Kingdom of Tonga (population less than 1/2 that of Waco, TX)

BrandorKP posted:

Further, how do these regulatory standards come into being. Well bad poo poo happens and people die. But on top of that somebody has to pay out for the damages. When enough bad poo poo happens for the same drat reason repeatedly insurance companies get together and say we need to do something about this. They collaborate with government agencies, experts, politicians, and participate in coming up with those bodies of regulation they will later use and rely on to reduce risk.

Ah see, right there you've proven that the regulatory standards are agreed upon by private companies based on their experiences, who obviously have a rational interest in following those standards even without redundant and tyrannical enforcement by state power.

For example, take a couple of long-recognized basic insurance standards: insurance may only be taken out by someone who has a material interest in the insured item (allowing people to gamble on accidents natural disasters by insuring property they don't own increases risk rather than managing it because insurance companies could have to pay out dozens or hundreds of times over on a single asset), and insurance companies must meet minimum capital requirements based on risk determined from actuarial data to ensure the ability to pay out with some acceptable level of probability (say 99.5% over the next 12 months).

Since violating these basic rules is not in the rational self-interest of an insurance company that wants to maintain long-term solvency and profitability, it is unnecessary to impose them by force as statists wish to do (with the ulterior motive of gaining control of the industry). Rather than strangling insurance companies with regulations at the point of a gun, the market would be much healthier if we recognize that an established and venerable firm, like oh let's say, AIG, would never sell insurance on debt to people who don't even own it, and would certainly never rack up huge short-term profits by catastrophically underpricing their insurance by assuming based on zero real-world evidence that the risk of having to pay out was essentially zero.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Sep 30, 2014

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 18:59

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 21:59

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

DarklyDreaming posted:

If my house is on fire in Libertopia I feel I should not have to stop and make a rational decision to figure out who has the best fire department in my community. I am opposed to having the right to this decision because I know I will make the wrong choice every time, as my only criteria for "Best fire department" is the one that shows up first.

Eh, to be fair to Libertarians, this doesn't seem like that much of a problem. Banks already require mortgage-holders to carry insurance on the home or commercial property they're buying because banks don't like the idea of foreclosing on a pile of ashes. In a world where fire departments were private outfits, it's actually reasonable to suppose that your home insurance provider would have a pre�xisting contract with a fire department and pay rates negotiated ahead of time. The insurance company pretty obviously won't do business with poo poo fire departments and if the FD incompetence makes you lose your home, the insurance company would still make you whole and they'd have the deep pockets to go after the FD if they want much like auto insurance companies do now. Yeah if you own your home outright and you're caught without it, you're hosed and you'll never be able to afford their disaster pricing, but really you're basically just as hosed today if your home burns down and it's uninsured.

The real issue is what happens when a fire starts in that abandoned warehouse, or that blighted slum, or the shantytown just past the city limits, or in the nearby drought-ravaged wilderness with no burn ban in place. It's obviously in everyone's best interests to put out fires in abandoned buildings as quickly as possible before it turns into an uncontrollable city-destroying conflagration, but whichever fire department is the first to respond gets saddled with costs it can't recoup...

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 19:22

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

QuarkJets posted:

So even if the "safety improvement" is something as simple and cheap as "don't lock your fire doors", a lot of factory owners still hired thugs to stop a strike over spending money on improvements because the Pinkertons had secondary effects as a form of risk reduction. Free market!

"But the workers' DRO (union) would stop Pinkerton DRO from ruling that strikes are an illegal initiation of force against the property owner, and they'd protect the workers!"

Oh wait,

which DRO is more likely to be well-funded and well-equipped, the one that caters to the top 5% of the country that owns 60% of the wealth? Or the one protecting the bottom 40% that commands 0.2% of the wealth?

"Ah, but those wealth concentrations only exist because of statist coercion by monopolists. In a truly free society, the wealth would be much more equitable and no one could amass those kind of resources without the state initiating force on his behalf."

And then we remember:

jrodefeld posted:

SOME business owners collude with the State. There is a limited viability to any plan to retroactively redistribute all coercively redistributed wealth that occurred during a century of State control over the economy. Everyone is forced to deal with the system as it exists, to survive in the best manner they can. Now, as I've said before, if property was legitimately stolen and it can be proven to be stolen, then said property should returned to its original owner. However, the burden of proof must rest on those that want to overturn existing private property claims.
...
This will all get sorted out in short order during a transition to a free economy. The State protections and privileges including the entity called the limited liability "corporation" will fall to the side and these businessmen will no longer have a shield to protect them from liability for their actions. They will either satisfy consumers on the market, or go out of business and look for a new occupation.

That's right, the first step to a free society is to leave the wealth disribution almost untouched and then remove any restraint on the oligarchs who control the majority of the resources in the country from imposing their will by naked force. Eh, it will all get sorted justly with no private armies initiating force though, no worries.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Sep 30, 2014

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 20:08

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

AlternateAccount posted:

I see this sort of talk a lot in this thread. Most "Small-l libertarians" are not angling for a completely anarcho-capitalist stateless society. National defense is commonly held as one of those things you need a central government to accomplish properly.

jrodefeld is though. He argues that all taxation is theft and even a monopoly on force is immoral.

AlternateAccount posted:

Situations like this already exist. Small cities often do not have the ability or funding to maintain and keep up their own fire department. Or sometimes individuals live well outside any city limits. Typically, they pay a yearly fee, and there are examples of houses being allowed to burn for those who didn't or "forgot" to pay. I believe there was also an incident where a woman had her housefire put out without paying once, went on not paying, but it was allowed to burn down the second time.

Those cities pay other cities to provide their fire protection though. They don't leave fire protection up to property owners buying individual subscriptions from competing companies. The case you're referring to was a rural area, and the fire department did show up to protect the neighbor's property in case the fire spread. Dense cities don't have that luxury.

Maybe you'd care to address my earlier implied question for fire protection by individual subscription: what happens when a fire breaks out in an abandoned warehouse in the blighted slums where you can't just wait until the conflagration reaches a subscribers' property? It's in every fire department's best interest to put out the fire regardless, but whichever one actually does it just incurred an un-recoupable cost that its competitors don't have to pay.

AlternateAccount posted:

Interesting, was this a generalized vote in the county? How was the decision made to turn this down?

It was a county full of rich assholes with more land than sense who voted down tax-funded coverage because they figured they'd be better off avoiding a tax and just being smart enough to never have a fire. And if they did, they imagined the fire department would come out regardless and they could just pay their yearly subscription after the fact. Why pay an annual fee when the fire department is going to have to come out anyway to protect the neighbors and you can just sponge off of them? In other words Libertarianism.txt

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Sep 30, 2014

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 20:39

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

AlternateAccount posted:

I don't know, I figure the easiest thing to do with the non-subscriber but unowned properties like you mention would be to attach something like the Universal Service Fund for phones, where a small portion of an owner's bill to cover their own property also covers situations like that.

Ah, so you're saying since I know that the other fire departments will stop blazes in abandoned property before they threaten the city, then my new VitalSigns Fire Department doesn't have to worry about the whole city burning down, so I can forgo the costs of putting out those fires and pass the savings onto my customers by not charging the Universal Service Fee! Sorry Altruist Fire Department, you just can't beat my low prices!

AlternateAccount posted:

But to belabor the point, "What about fire departments?" is only slightly less cliche and functionally useless to a discussion of libertarianism as "What about ROAAAAAAAAADS?!" They represent a statistically insignificant amount of taxation and no direct utilization of force.

If statist whining about roads and fire departments is so negligibly easy to solve, why don't libertarians ever have actual workable solutions to those things? Even the most na�ve anarco-syndicalists actually put effort into their responses beyond repeating questions they can't answer in a mocking tone.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 21:50

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

AlternateAccount posted:

One of the best roles of government is to enforce private property rights. This would include issues regarding pollution.

Uh, what? How can you say this as a minarchist?! It's already been tried. Jrodefeld as a right-anarchist can at least can make the argument that statist courts are too easily bought off by industry, which could never happen in a free market where the court's very existence depends on the subscription fees paid by the petitioners (I'm sure that won't affect the court's judgment though). It's dumb, but at least he has the advantage of arguing for something imaginary that doesn't have real life counterexamples.

What you're suggesting has already been tried and failed here in America under a limited small 'l' libertarian government.

To wit,

Huckenstine's Appeal, Pennsylvania Supreme Court 1872 posted:

Brickmaking is a useful and necessary employment, and must be pursued near to towns and cities where bricks arc chiefiy used. Brickburning, an essential part of the business, is not a nuisance per se. It, as many other useful employments do, may produce some discomfort and even some injury to those near by. But it does not follow that a chancellor would enjoin therefor. The heat, smoke and vapor of a brick kiln cannot compare with those of many manufactories carried on in the very heart of such busy cities as Pittsburg and Allegheny. A court exercising the power of a chancellor, whose arm may fall with crushing force upon the every day business of men, destroying lawful means of support, and diverting property from legitimate uses, cannot approach such cases as this with too much caution.
...
In the present case the kiln of the defendant is situated on an outskirt of the city of Allegheny. The properties of the plaintiff and defendant lie adjoining each other, on the hillside overlooking the city, whose every-day cloud of smoke from thousands of chimneys and stacks hangs like a pall over it like a pall, obscuring it from sight. This single word describes the characteristics of this city, its kind of fuel, its business , the habits of its people and the industries which give it prosperity and wealth. The people who live in such a city or within its sphere of influence do so of choice, and they voluntarily subject themselves to its peculiarities and its discomforts for the greater benefit they think they derive from their residence or their business there.
...
With these views in mind, an examination of the evidence in this case discloses no ground to move a chancellor to enjoin against the use of the defendant's kiln, and thus to destroy his business and divert his property from a legitimate use. The gravamen of the plaintiff�s bill is that the smoke and gases from the defendant's kiln injured and partially destroyed his grape vines and fruit trees and make his dwelling uncomfortable In regard to the injury to the vines and trees, and make his dwelling uncomfortable. In regard to the injury to the vines and trees which is the chief ground of complaint, the plaintiff's case is doubtful on two grounds. In the first place, his testimony as to the injury from the causes stated is counterpoised if not outweighed by the testimony of the defendant both in the number and skilfulness of the witnesses. And in the second place it is rendered more than doubtful by the testimony of the defence that the true cause of the blight in the vines is the nature, and cold and wet condition of the soil.

It's got the libertarian :ancap:

trifecta: (1)Restraining pollution would hurt business profits :qq:

, (2)Well those people chose to live there so they're voluntarily breathing it; if they don't want to breathe soot they'd move somewhere else so they must benefit overall :wotwot:

, (3)Hmmmm can you prove that it was the smoke from this particular factory that killed your crops/damaged your property/gave you cancer, or could it have been anything else in the universe :smugdog:

Got any ideas that haven't failed miserably? Because here are the results of individual citizens trying to sue huge industrial pollutors like US Steel

It's going to be a beautiful day if the smog clears and we can turn out these streetlamps that we still need to keep lit at 9:30 in the morning to see through the heavy black clouds!

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Sep 30, 2014

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 23:47

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

And of course, a brickmaker right next door killing your crops is environmental lawsuit: easy mode. What do you do when a weather phenomenon traps all of the smog in the city like in London 1953 or New York in 1966 and it kills hundreds or thousands of people? Good luck proving specific damages and tracing the path of the specific particles that got in your dead kid's lungs back to the individual factories, automobiles, furnaces, and coal stoves that emitted them! I guess you could do a big class action lawsuit of Everybody v Every-loving-body, but any defendant could argue that since the wind normally takes their auto exhaust or chimney smoke harmlessly out to sea, there's no way to prove that this weather event trapped their specific smoke in the city. And even if you just assume everyone bore some responsibility, how do you measure the amount of pollution each person emitted in the past? Can you prove that John drives his car twice as often as Jim and owes twice the damages? Is Mary in the clear because although she normally burns her coal stove every day, she was on holiday the past month and couldn't have contributed?

Edit: haha nice, spoon0042 already posted an example of US Steel stonewalling with "well you can't prove it was definitely our smokestacks when it could have been those other ones maybe, good luck getting the money together to outlast us in court!"

In reality, of course, except for a few isolated events where these once-common killer smog clouds could be definitely traced to a few factories, there were no lawsuits as a result of general non-point-source smog events because it's impossible to prove damages, so we reacted to this by passing clean air legislation. I don't know, maybe you could work this all out with a court case if you're willing to make a bunch of assumptions to assign generalized responsibility and issue injunctions barring future polluting with exhaust cleanliness requirements and metering of pollution levels or face fines for violating those injunctions regardless of whether damage is proven or not...but now I don't see the difference between that and just passing a law.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Oct 1, 2014

# ¿ Oct 1, 2014 00:27

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Even theoretically I don't understand how lawsuits are a remedy against air pollution though. If someone's car or lawn mower exhaust or bbq grill smoke wafts over to my yard, is he aggressing against me or do I have to prove quantifiable damages from the trespass? If I need damages to sue him, then okay life goes on until a freak weather event traps everyone's smoke, exhaust, etc in the city and it kills or sickens thousands upon thousands of people, but now how does a court determine each person's individual contribution in order to assign damages? What about residents who were gone? What about travelers who passed through the city and may have contributed to the cloud?

Or we could go the zero-tolerance route and say any smoke that drifts onto my property is aggression and I'm justified in using retaliatory force to stop it. Sure, we have to give up all industry plus the taming of fire and return to a paleolithic existence, but at least we didn't compromise our principles!

# ¿ Oct 1, 2014 00:55

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Mr Interweb posted:

I'd like to explanation jrodefield's explanation for why Sam Brownback's massive tax cut policies over the past two years have not led to Kansas being a nationwide economic powerhouse.

Taxes are too high, discouraging entrepreneurs and driving businesses out of the state.

Babylon Astronaut posted:

Here's a good one about how a new disease was invented in the US by speeding up an assembly line to the detriment of the workers: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/hormel-spam-pig-brains-disease

You know, it's almost as if capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society.

That's only proof that the workers have different time preferences, because why else would they rationally trade up-front payment today for debilitating illness a decade from now. You're forgetting that the entrepreneur is taking the risk of forgoing today's payday* in the hope that it will pay off in the future with huge profits oh and also a life free of catastrophic nerve damage.

*Or giving himself a giant raise in executive pay in the midst of a strike over pay cuts for the workers, or whatever and whatnot

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Oct 1, 2014

# ¿ Oct 1, 2014 01:18

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

McAlister posted:

Without a state to protect the rights of children how will female children of adherents of various religious orders gain access to education?

What are you talking about, children are property, which is why

Murray Rothbard posted:

we must face the fact that the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children.
...
In the libertarian society, then, the mother would have the absolute right to her own body and therefore to perform an abortion; and would have the trustee-ownership of her children, an ownership limited only by the illegality of aggressing against their persons and by their absolute right to run away or to leave home at any time. Parents would be able to sell their trustee-rights in children to anyone who wished to buy them at any mutually agreed price.

However, if your sisters object to the actions of your ~~father~~ trustee and manager, don't worry your ~~sisters~~ assets-in-trust always have another option

Murray Rothbard posted:

But when are we to say that this parental trustee jurisdiction over children shall come to an end? Surely any particular age (21,18, or whatever) can only be completely arbitrary. The clue to the solution of this thorny question lies in the parental property rights in their home. For the child has his full rights of self-ownership when he demonstrates that he has them in nature�in short, when he leaves or �runs away� from home. Regardless of his age, we must grant to every child the absolute right to runaway and to find new foster parents who will voluntarily adopt him, or to try to exist on his own. Parents may try to persuade the runaway child to return, but it is totally impermissible enslavement and an aggression upon his right of self-ownership for them to use force to compel him to return. The absolute right to run away is the child�s ultimate expression of his right of self-ownership, regardless of age.

So there you go, your younger assets-in-trust are deemed capable to make their own education decisions the second they demonstrate self-ownership by running away from home and taking up a lucrative career in begging, prostitution, coal-mining, &c and so forth to put themselves through kindergarten.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Oct 1, 2014

# ¿ Oct 1, 2014 02:47

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

wateroverfire posted:

None of that is precluded by a "small" government unless you decide for some reason to define small that way, though.

jrodefeld, against whom the posts these last few pages have been made, is an anarcho-capitalist. He believes the very concept of a State with a monopoly on force is immoral by definition because it usurps without explicit consent the individual's right to use retaliatory force against aggressors. He believes that taxation is theft and therefore the State, simply by collecting the taxes it needs to run a government however "small" is the greatest mass violator of human rights.

If you want to propose some flavor of minarchism and debate that, then propose it and let's do it. But accusing people of strawmanning when they are attacking the actual positions of the only libertarian-leaning poster who has bothered to assert a positive definition of his ideal society is ridiculous.

Rather than quoting post after post aimed at jrodefeld's ideas and blathering about #notalllibertarians, why don't you actually be specific about what ideas you're defending instead of forcing us to guess how you differ from jrod.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Oct 1, 2014

# ¿ Oct 1, 2014 15:50

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011