Neeksy posted:

Do libertarians have an answer for the concept of externalities, or do they have to reject its very existence?

If a company's activities poisons a local water supply, why would they, in their own rational economic self-interest, pay for cleanup when it's cheaper for them to do nothing?

The Mutato posted:

I know we have assassins. I'm saying it takes a very specific type of person who has the mental capacity to become an assassin, and it would be difficult and expensive to find enough of them to work for a violent DRO.

The Mutato posted:

No, but the DROs don't. Unless you want to subscribe to the hardcore IS DRO who charges an expensive premium for all the guns and weapons and bombs they are buying up. And once again, once one DRO becomes and obvious threat, the larger and more popular DROs will quickly band together to remove it.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Well slave armies are less effective but cheaper.

President Kucinich posted:

Guns and ammo are cheap as hell and easy to produce. Is metal, gun powder, and drugs suddenly hard to come by or something?

Valhalla DRO's cocaine fueled child army of God is pretty much unstoppable thanks to strategic location and an endless supply of malnourished easily led orphans ready to die for glory and honor.

QuarkJets posted:

You're giving way too much credit to the DRO, and you're assuming that one day the charges would suddenly increase. We're going in circles here: it's not necessary for the DRO to raise rates, they've either always been high enough to cover the cost of a standing army (for defensive purposes, we swear) or they can acquire investment capital through 3rd parties or through DRO customers who are interested in profiting from a nice glory-filled war.

Seriously, why should I trade with The Mutato Wonder Emporium if my DRO is 10x bigger, 10x better equipped, and already has a standing army for "protection" purposes? I'll send out a newsletter blaming the Jews talking about how The Mutato is price-gouging and is being wasteful with his natural resources, and we're going to go and optimize his operation for him. We're going to war with inefficiency, his overhead rates are just way too high and he's squandering his land. BUY WAR BONDS TODAY AND RECEIVE AN ADDITIONAL SHARE OF THE PLUNDER *begins plastering pro-war propaganda everywhere and leading xenophobic rallies*

shiranaihito posted:

Hi, I'm an AnCap/Voluntarist/Sane Person.


One of your members gifted me a membership, so I figured I might as well make your brains hurt a bit.

I'll try to keep this brief to avoid wasting way too much time.

Let's go straight to an example:

Suppose you support the war in Afghanistan. For whatever reason, you think it's good for mankind, or your fellow countrymen or whatever. You want the US military in Afghanistan, spreading the joy of democracy and you'll gladly participate in covering the costs of this noble endeavour.

I personally *don't* support the war in Afghanistan, but I'm perfectly fine with you supporting it: I have no right to decide how you use your money, and long as you're not violating anyone's rights, you're free to do whatever the hell you drat well please.

(Please refrain from de-railing the conversation with "externalities" etc. That's a separate issue)

Now then, here's the important part: Are *you* willing to let *me*, in turn, decide how to use *my* money? Are you willing to let me *not* support the war in Afghanistan, and refrain from participating in funding it? Or do you want me to be *forced* to support it, even though I don't want to?

You've got two choices here:

1) You insist that I should be *forced* to support the war.
2) You accept that I should be free to use my property as I see fit.

In the first case, you are advocating the initiation of the use of force against me, even though I've never harmed anyone. You are beyond repair and talking to you is pointless.

Otherwise, we've just established you're actually an anarchist - you just didn't know it yet. You see, every single tax dollar spent means that we've been *forced* to support whatever the dollar was spent on. If you accept that we all have the right to use our property as we see fit, then you cannot support the state any longer (because the state is based on violating that right).

It's not that complicated:
- A mafia threatens you with violence to get money from you.
- A government threatens you with imprisonment to get money from you.

The former is called by its right name: extortion, but the latter is known as "taxation".

They're exactly the same though: An organisation threatens you with <NOPE> to get money from you.

Even sociopaths know that extortion is immoral, they just don't give a gently caress. But if you're not one, it will be clear to you that:

- Taxation is extortion
- Extortion is immoral
- Governments are based on taxation (=extortion)
- Governments are immoral


Alright, I'll stop here. Don't be afraid of thinking for yourselves. It'll sting for a while, but you'll be glad you started.

ThirdPartyView posted:

Why are shocked? Look at Ligur and the True Finn party.

BrandorKP posted:

Except for those pesky Koch brothers who fund all those think tanks, and organize all those rich donors, and are all dumping all that money into the current election cycle?

http://www.kochind.com/Newsroom/EconomicFreedom.aspx

Want to Learn More? Followed by straight up link to Mises. That's as libertarian as it gets (and I can go into way more detail if you'd like). All those Freedom or Liberty PACs pushing GOP candidates are marginal?

There are different wings/denominations of Libertarianism and only identifying the Paulites or internet types as libertarian is a dangerous mistake.

VitalSigns posted:

Specifically


It's unjust for anything you do to benefit someone else. Ever.

This has important implications

jrodefeld posted:

You are missing the forest for the trees. Yes I was imprecise when I said Mises' Theory of Money and Credit came out in the "late 1930s" when in reality it came out in the mid 1930s. So I was wrong about that.

However, the reality remains that the English translation of The Theory of Money and Credit still came out too late to be properly absorbed and comprehended by Western intellectuals before the Keynesian revolution swept all that aside.

Remember, in Austrian, Mises' arguments had been comprehended all throughout the nineteen teens and the 20s, he correctly observed the dislocations and bubbles caused by World War 1 and warned about the unsustainable bubble that was generated during the 1920s. During the bubble formation, Mises was able to put his argument out and people could see his track record one the economic crisis occured.

In contrast, by the early 1930s, Keynesian style interventions had already become policy by the intellectual class and policy makers. Keynes was a well known economic figure before the General Theory was released.

In a speech Rothbard gave about Mises' legacy, he goes over this exact point about how Mises' arguments were not well known in the United States until the Keynesian revolution was already underway. Look at the 8 minute mark or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1T6WMerD9g

DrProsek posted:

Have y'all ever considered the argument that a benevolent fascist dictatorship would be better than democracy?

Really makes ya think

Muscle Tracer posted:

In reading about libertarian views on IP, stumbled across this gem:


Good to have a reminder that libertarians really do feel that those unable to work are unworthy of life

jrodefeld posted:

Remember that Bastiat quote?

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”

You think that because I oppose a system where the State violently expropriates us at the point of a gun and redistributes wealth in a political manner to supposedly provide for social services, you conclude that I oppose social services. This is entirely the sort of argument that Bastiat debunked more than a century ago.

I would like to replace violently funded social services with voluntarily funded social services. I would like the market to increase the quality and lower the cost which will make healthcare services more widely available and better distributed throughout society. I would like to see mutual aid societies and voluntary social service providers compete to best provide assistance to those that need it.

StandardVC10 posted:

It seems like a libertarian arguing that, since you aren't punching them in the jaw, that you must therefore agree to the premise of his argument, is really tempting a good punch in the jaw.

edit: is a punch in the jaw actually the most concise argument against libertarians? I think it might be, as it expresses the aspects of human nature that make libertarianism unworkable before you even get into their idiocy about praxeology and voluntary police and fire departments

Captain_Maclaine posted:

Fortunately, there's at least one politician out there who's sympathetic to such libertarian sympathies generally, and that issue in particular.

Juffo-Wup posted:

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199549269.do

Mr Interweb posted:

What if you're in a primarily White neighborhood in one of those not-so-tolerant states in the South, and say that there is an influx of minorities who start buying up houses and thus lowering property values. Should such a thing be stopped?

StandardVC10 posted:

How dare you accuse Ron Paul of racism. Surely we can agree on my definition of racism that gives libertarians the most possible benefit of the doubt. Here are links to the names of several libertarians who totally aren't racists (provided you don't do ten minutes of research on them.)

Bear Retrieval Unit posted:

I think I found AnCap.mp3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zMQtXP7F5k

Wolfsheim posted:

I love that even the avowed white supremacist puts "racist" in scare quotes. It really has just become some kind liberal attack word with no actual definition beyond 'bad guy' to conservatives, hasn't it?

LuftWaffle posted:

jrodefeld posted:

Providing that it can be irrefutably proven that your grandparents murdered the former property owners and stole that property, then I think the descendant should be entitled to the property that was stolen. It has to be proven incontrovertibly that the ancestors who were murdered had a legitimate claim to the property, or at least a superior claim to your grandparents.

If these things can be proven in a court, then you will have to forfeit your property because you are occupying stolen land. It is unfortunate since you didn't personally commit the theft and you surely deserve some sympathy but the fact remains that your claim to private property is not valid if the person who gave it to you didn't have a rightful claim to ownership. The earlier user of a resource has a better claim to ownership than a later user unless the earlier user voluntarily gives up ownership through sale, gift or abandonment.

Suppose someone steals a Rolex watch from you and then sells it to me on the street. I don't know the watch was stolen so I buy it. Now you take me to court over the watch and you can prove that the watch is yours and it was stolen. Even though I personally didn't steal it, you have the property right in the watch and I don't. I have been conned and I would be out the money I paid for the watch, but the watch still belongs to you.

Now if it were proven that your grandparents stole the property from someone but no descendants can be found or come forward to claim ownership of the property, you don't have to renounce your current ownership. It is hard to prove old theft like this and cases like this would probably be uncommon.

Does this make sense to you or do you think that you deserve the property title in the land even though it was proven that your grandparents murdered the original owner, stole the property and a descendant is now claiming ownership?

CommieGIR posted:

"Sorry, you didn't pay your bill this month, guess your rapist wins"

Your a moron if you ever possibly thought this could work.

Helsing posted:

The fact libertarians define "freedom" in such a way that Hong Kong and Signapore are the most "economically free" countries in the world should tell you something about the ideology itself. And that is without even getting into the questionable way that those statistics are aggregated into taxonomic categories or the fact they are confusing correlation and causation.

Caros posted:

The nice thing about the Kansas experiment is it should, in theory, give us final definative evidence to point to when people bring up the laffer curve in serious conversation. Right now people are able to argue that taxes didn't get reduced enough, or the time scale wasn't long enough, but if Brownback actually does keep going full retard he plans to cut the income tax entirely by 2016, and at that point it'll be pretty easy to point out that when you eliminate most taxes, you actually end up, shockingly, collecting far less taxes.

QuarkJets posted:

I'm fine with accepting Soviet Russia as a historical example of communism, the UK as a historical example of progressivism, and Somalia as a historical example of ancap libertarianism. That's basically what they are. History colors all situations.

But despite all of that, I still recognize that Soviet Russia is one example of a communist society. So when jrod says "there have been no examples of an ancap society", why is it unfair to point at Somalia as one such example?

jrodefeld posted:

My beef is with the way that this issue is discussed. My issue is with how people who have objections to vaccines, even eminently sensible objections, are treated as lunatics. I appreciate the science and the need to eradicate dangerous contagious illnesses. But I still look upon vaccine guidelines with skepticism. I suspect that in fifty years we will look back and be forced to concede that the medical establishment overused vaccinations. There can be too much of a good thing.

I recall in the 1970s (as it was a few years ago) the media hyped up the danger of Swine Flu as the next pandemic that we had to be afraid of. They marketed a vaccine but far more people died from adverse reactions to the shot than people even being diagnosed with Swine Flu. It turned out to be over hyped and over sold.

I'm not saying that doctors blindly give everyone a bunch of shots for no reason. My doctor uses vaccinations sparingly and frequently disagrees with the Washington vaccination guidelines. But many doctors are not so critical and don't think for themselves as much as they should.

The reason for bringing up this topic was what I consider to be overblown and ridiculous attacks against Rand Paul, who is by the way a defender of vaccinations on the whole. Yet if you voice any word of skepticism or critique of the guidelines, you are treated as a heretic. It's just uncalled for and it shuts down the possibility of important debate on the subject.

Why am I opposed to the FDA? I am opposed to the FDA because they are a government monopoly on which drugs and medical treatments I am permitted to receive. If I disagree with an FDA restriction or decision, I am out of luck. Experimental and basically safe treatments are unavailable to patients who are dying of cancer and other diseases.

I am opposed to the FDA because they are not immune from pharmaceutical lobbying. Due to lobbying pressure the FDA may approve a drug but ban an alternative but safe treatment because it would compete with the drug manufacturers who stand to lose out to competition.

jrodefeld posted:

Way to strawman my argument. No I don't think people are capable on their own of evaluating which drugs or vaccines they may or may not need. I would trust doctors to make those decisions. Doctors, not State-sponsored entities that may have conflicts of interest or taxpayer subsidized and propped up pharmaceutical lobbyists who use the State to push their drugs and profit from distorting the market to their advantage. Doctors who would have independence and who would use their best judgment to determine the best medical treatment for their patients.

In a libertarian society, medical research and testing would be done at private universities and private medical organizations who compete with each other for the trust and support of patients across the nation. We would surely have several independent, competing FDA-like ratings and testing organizations. When you buy a prescription drug or medical device, your first question no doubt would be "who tested this?" A highly well regarded medical testing and approval organization would put its stamp of approval on various drugs and treatments. Instead of "FDA approved" it would say "Approved and tested by the Medical Research Institute for the treatment of X". If one rating and testing agency were to permit too many dangerous and ineffective drugs or treatments to be approved by them, then their credibility would drop and people would seek out a better and more reliable medical rating and testing agency. And this is done in concert with trained doctors who you trust, who have a good track record.

What happens when your government FDA becomes compromised and corrupt? You have no recourse. FDA-approved drugs and products are recalled all the time, after they have killed a couple hundred people of course. And, like I said earlier, if they ban a product for any reason, you cannot choose to seek out that treatment. It is illegal. There are safe and effective treatments that are available in Europe and elsewhere that are illegal in the United States.

This is what I object to.

Captain_Maclaine posted:

Given how the cast keeps getting more and more obscure and low-rent, I anticipate the final installment will be mostly performed by sock puppets.

Captain_Maclaine posted:

Really? I thought they didn't actually complete the story in part III, and so were going to try for one more or something?

Rhjamiz posted:

Apparently Kevin Sorbo is not only a hardcore religious conservative, he's also an AnCap/Libertarian. As are Tuvok and Ensign Kim;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT2kVRKSyU8

I have never been more disappointed that I cannot watch a terrible film than I am at this moment.

Jrod, please write for us a review of this amazing movie. I am sure you have seen it, because Ron Paul has endorsed it.

Edit: Also, yes, those are FEMA agents with the shoulder-lights and Firetruck horns.

Mister Adequate posted:

You forget The Probability Broach.