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Many of you know me already. But before I write anything I want to please ask the moderators to allow me to engage on this forum. I will do my best to follow the rules. I will respond to recent replies on the last page of threads. I am passionate about these ideas and I have searched for good message boards to engage with leftists and I have found none that are as populated with knowledgeable and passionate leftists as SomethingAwful. I think it would be of benefit to permit me to engage in discussion with you all, for both you and me. I was banned last time and I assume it was because I abandoned a thread that I had created. I didn't abandon it, I had a major computer malfunction and I was without a PC for more than two months. I hope, as a paying member, you will permit me one thread where we can discuss the merits of libertarianism and compare and contrast it with various leftist ideologies. I am trying again with the best of intentions and I hope my good will is reciprocated. With that said, I will outline some principles that I have come to accept. I may repeat myself somewhat, but I think some of what I will say is new and is perhaps better said that what was posted before. I am a libertarian market anarchist. I believe in individual self ownership. What that means is that each of us have the right to determine the use of the scarce resource in our physical bodies. If we have a property right in our own bodies, then we should not have the right to use aggression against the physical body of another. For example, assault, rape and kidnapping are obviously illegitimate violations of self ownership. All civilized people accept the principle, I believe. In fact, I consider it an irrefutable axiom. The act of argumentation presupposes the right to exclusive control over ones body and mind. If a person owns their own body and thus has the right to make decisions about how they use it, then how can they justly acquire property outside of their physical body? The libertarian argues that the only just way to acquire property is through homesteading of previously unowned or unused natural resources, otherwise known as original appropriation. If you own your physical body, then if you mix your labor with natural land then that which you transformed becomes in essence an extension of yourself and becomes your property. If you are a frontiersman and you come across previously unowned and unused natural land and you build a house, build a fence, graze cattle and plant crops, then that which you altered through your labor becomes your property. That is, no one has a better claim to maintain final decision making authority over that scarce resource than you. Once property is first appropriated out of its natural state, the original owner maintains his right to exclusive control over the scarce resource until he either sells the land voluntarily to a second user, gives the property away as a gift or abandons it for someone else to claim. Any act of aggression against the property of the just property holder must be seen as illegitimate. Libertarian anarchists oppose the State because we oppose the act of aggression. We don't believe that aggression can ever be justified. Aggression is the initiation of force. Violence is morally justified in self defense, to defend ones own body or justly acquired property from an act of aggression. Violence can be morally justified to compel restitution to a victim of aggression, provided the criminal is proven guilty in a legitimate court of law. But this must be proportional violence, proportional restitution given the extent of the crime committed. The punishment can be anything up to and including the original crime but nothing more. If someone shoplifts a candy bar, he or she can be made to pay the cost of the candy bar. If someone murders a family member, the punishment can be anything up to and including capital punishment. However, the initiation of violence, that is assault against the self ownership of another or his property, is morally unjustifiable. The State must necessarily commit aggression. All States rely on compulsory taxation. If you stipulate a hypothetical State that relies on voluntary contributions to fund itself and it does not prohibit any market competition to its services, then it becomes just another free market service provider and no longer fits the historic definition of a State. The second reason we oppose the State is that libertarian anarchist believe that ethics should be universalizable. In philosophy, an ethic governing human interactions must necessarily apply to all members of a society not just to some if it is valid. You cannot propose that murder is immoral in California but not in New York. Or that rape is wrong for a poor minority but not for a rich white man. No, ethical rules governing human behavior must be universalizable to all members of society if faced with a similar situation. By creating a State, you are creating two separate moral rules that apply to those inside of government (politicians, bureaucrats, military people, CIA, and all special interests that are granted special privileges) and those outside of government. You and I are not permitted to steal our neighbors property. But politicians can steal 30% of their income each year and call it an "income tax". You and I are not permitted to counterfeit money, but the Federal Reserve is. You and I cannot commit murder, but the military can wage aggressive wars and use drones to murder people. And on and on and on. The examples are endless. How can such a situation be justified? What grants the State immunity from the moral laws governing the rest of us? How do they get this authority? Can you or I delegate to a third party a right that we don't possess? For example, I am not able to murder someone. But can I hire a hitman to murder them for me? What is wrong with this? The problem of course is that I don't personally have the right to murder, so I cannot ever delegate that right to someone else to murder on my behalf. Similarly since I don't possess the right to steal my neighbors justly acquired property, then I cannot delegate the right to steal their property on my behalf to the State. It cannot be justified logically or ethically. On the other hand I DO possess the right to self defense. Therefore I am perfectly within my rights to delegate the right to self defense to a security agency or police force. If a community wants to provide for collective defense of their property they can pay a security agency to keep them safe. These people are delegating a right they already have so there is no contradiction. Now, if someone stole my car I would be morally justified in "stealing" it back. The car belongs to me so I am free to take it. I have that right so I can delegate that right to a repo company to repossess my car on my behalf. Legitimate laws and social services work this way. People can collectively delegate to civil authorities rights they already have. If someone commits aggression against you or your family, you have the right to be compensated and "made whole" by the attacker. If someone kills your wife, you should be allowed to kill the person who committed the murder. Therefore you can have the criminal tried and then the legal system can execute the killer on your behalf. Now, if the victim is morally opposed to capital punishment (like I am) they should be able to determine that a lighter sentence should be enforced. Any rational system of justice should be centered around restitution and making the victim whole, thus they should have a say in the punishment and they should be free to argue for a lighter sentence than the maximum (equal to the act of aggression committed). In conclusion, I have found myself unable to logically refute the principle of self ownership. I can't argue for aggression without contradiction. And I don't understand how any moral principle can be considered valid unless it is universalizable and applies to all people equally. With these principles established, I have no other choice than to argue for libertarian market anarchism as the only moral and logically consistent way of organizing society. I really want to use this thread as a means of discussing these ideas and how they compare and contrast with various leftist ideologies. I hope the moderators will permit me to post and engage with you all on these important topics. Thanks.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:00
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lol E: No seriously, this gonna be good. EE: I mean, wow. Jrodefeld's back.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:08
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gas
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Aug 9, 2014 08:08
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Sometimes I read D&D for the discussions, other times to see the absolute madmen who come on here trying to further the idea that their flawed concept or belief is, in some way, viable. I read what you typed down here, every word. And I am incontrovertibly convinced that you are completely insane, even by my (very low and terrible) standards. Hiring hitmen? What kind of idea is it to kill someone? "Oh, so-and-so killed someone, I guess that makes it entirely okay for me to arrange for several more deaths due to petty grievances I've held." Go take a nap, stop posting, edit all your posts to single periods and gently caress a fruit basket, you'll get much farther in life.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:11
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I have a higher standard and expectation for society than revenge killings and material wealth. Please stop transgressing against the State's right to exist.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:14
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Jrodefeld, you're one of those people whose threads I immediately click on when I see them because I recognize the name of the OP and I know it's going to be bad, but I can't really remember what the gimmick is going to be. You're the one always replies to stuff pages late, right? e: I just bothered to look at that morass of words you called a post, and yeah you are. Grats OP, you were at least somewhat memorable to me. e2: just went hog wild on this thread Wanamingo fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 08:14
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Why didn't you just buy a new computer immediately? Don't your beliefs give you an advantage in the marketplace?
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Aug 9, 2014 08:16
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Aggression and the what you define as the initiation force is sometimes justified. Also, really-existing people who under stateless systems of mutual voluntarism a) use the initiation of force to settle the occasional dispute and b) live under systems of primitive communism, not market economies, which are a comparatively recent and less universally adopted invention.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:21
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StealthArcher posted:lol Actually, and I mean this in all seriously, I would like to get off the snarky stuff and not let this thread devolve the way the other ones did. I would like some serious rebuttals and engagement on these issues. I want to learn something from this exercise.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:26
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When someone says that they're libertarian this story immediately runs through my head:quote:I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:27
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jrodefeld posted:Actually, and I mean this in all seriously, I would like to get off the snarky stuff and not let this thread devolve the way the other ones did. I would like some serious rebuttals and engagement on these issues. I want to learn something from this exercise. My first post in this thread is not snark, it is devastating to your entire worldview. Look at it and answer it.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:30
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Also, in a stateless world who resolves disputes, from where do they draw their authority, and how do they enforce their decisions?
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Aug 9, 2014 08:30
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rear end-Haggis posted:Sometimes I read D&D for the discussions, other times to see the absolute madmen who come on here trying to further the idea that their flawed concept or belief is, in some way, viable. I read what you typed down here, every word. And I am incontrovertibly convinced that you are completely insane, even by my (very low and terrible) standards. Hiring hitmen? What kind of idea is it to kill someone? "Oh, so-and-so killed someone, I guess that makes it entirely okay for me to arrange for several more deaths due to petty grievances I've held." Go take a nap, stop posting, edit all your posts to single periods and gently caress a fruit basket, you'll get much farther in life. You clearly did NOT read my thread or your reading comprehension skills are seriously lacking. I said that I DON'T have the right to hire a hitman. I don't have the right to murder someone, so I don't have the right to ask someone else to do it for me. I was illustrating why the concept of democracy and the State are flawed. People ask the State to do things that they themselves are not permitted to do. Ethical rules for human behavior should be universal or otherwise they are not valid. Are all libertarian market anarchists insane or just me? I don't think its too much to ask that you actually read what I have written and not come away thinking I said the exact opposite of what I clearly wrote in plain English.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:34
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You are off to a bad start, you have had several substantiative responses so far and you are avoiding them.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:35
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quote:If you are a frontiersman and you come across previously unowned and unused natural land and you build a house, build a fence, graze cattle and plant crops, then that which you altered through your labor becomes your property. That is, no one has a better claim to maintain final decision making authority over that scarce resource than you. Who gets to decide whether a piece of natural land was unused before you built your house, fence, etc? If I decide that your front yard is unused natural land and place some cattle on it because you haven't mowed the lawn in awhile, how do you respond?
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Aug 9, 2014 08:37
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jrodefeld posted:Are all libertarian market anarchists insane or just me? No, you're pretty much all insane. I have an old friend who is an an-cap, and his "solution" for the poor to cast off the shackles of the evil oppressive statists and rise out of poverty is to... wait for it... distribute open source shotguns patterned from 3D printers. This is clearly a reasonable idea, and not at all dumb and/or insane.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:38
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QuarkJets posted:Also, in a stateless world who resolves disputes, from where do they draw their authority, and how do they enforce their decisions? You can't deny that constant low-level tribal warfare would be pretty metal.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:44
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RuanGacho posted:I have a higher standard and expectation for society than revenge killings and material wealth. A little more effort would be appreciated. Also, since I am putting it out there explicitly that I am a libertarian market anarchist, I would appreciate it if you could first tell me what your views are. Are you a social democrat? A Marxist? A left anarchist like Noam Chomsky (are there any of those on this site)? If someone murdered your wife or family member would you want that person dead? What punishment would you think is just? Maybe, like me, you oppose capital punishment on moral grounds. Then you should have the right to have the person physically removed from society as punishment for the murder. It's not about "revenge murder". I was making the point that the crime that was committed should establish the upper end of the scale of just punishment for the act of aggression. That doesn't mean that anyone who kills someone else must be killed. It means only that morality would permit capital punishment to be justified in such a case. You could never morally justify a punishment that exceeds the extent of the crime that was committed. Punishment should be proportional, in other words. Surely this is not controversial? As for you saying that you have a "higher standard and expectation for society than...material wealth", what does that mean? You don't want society to be wealthy? You don't want people to have high living standards? Would you honestly rather have a society where all are subject to grinding poverty? Whether or not society becomes too "materialistic" is an academic discussion and something for philosophers and gurus to sort out through persuasion. But a rising standard of living for all through increased production and greater abundance is incredibly beneficial to all people. Personally, I have a higher standard and expectation for society than to encourage and tolerate the initiation of force. Civilized people use persuasion and voluntarism when interacting with their fellow man.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:48
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Now we just need a new Eripsa thread.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:48
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What homesteaders were not supported by society? They didn't get to where they were without tools and division of labor. You don't get to just check out of society once you have looted enough from it to flee and pretend like you were born out of your mother's vagina with those tools. You owe a debt to society. This debt is levied in the form of taxation, which is a very reasonable burden compared to past obligations like military service or serfdom. You don't get to get out of it. If you find some land and make use of it we will be coming for our share because we gave you the ability to gain value from that land. This is not even getting into the issues of what constitutes land that is "unused" which is a whole other can of worms.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:50
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SedanChair posted:What homesteaders were not supported by society? They didn't get to where they were without tools and division of labor. You don't get to just check out of society once you have looted enough from it to flee and pretend like you were born out of your mother's vagina with those tools. You don't really owe a debt to anyone though if you don't feel like it to be honest
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Aug 9, 2014 08:53
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Tezzor posted:Aggression and the what you define as the initiation force is sometimes justified. Can you explain when and under what circumstances aggression is morally justified? I understand that there is a leftist and Marxist form of anarchism. My belief system is one in favor of anarcho capitalism, based on the work of the Austrian economists like Murray Rothbard. I think that these libertarian scholars corrected the errors of the left anarchists, which mainly involved an incorrect understanding of private property rights and aggression. I enjoy discussions with leftist anarchists. Are there any left anarchists on these forums?
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Aug 9, 2014 08:53
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StealthArcher posted:lol im gay posted:gas Let's give it a few pages, please.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:55
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tbp posted:You don't really owe a debt to anyone though if you don't feel like it to be honest Yeah, SedanChair's reasoning is fascist and anti-immigrant, portraying them as a bunch of FYGM leeches who break the social contract instead of enriching the state.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:57
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tbp posted:You don't really owe a debt to anyone though if you don't feel like it to be honest Comply! on the left posted:Yeah, SedanChair's reasoning is fascist and anti-immigrant, portraying them as a bunch of FYGM leeches who break the social contract instead of enriching the state. Comply!!
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Aug 9, 2014 09:00
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jrodefeld posted:Also, since I am putting it out there explicitly that I am a libertarian market anarchist, I would appreciate it if you could first tell me what your views are. Are you a social democrat? A Marxist? A left anarchist like Noam Chomsky (are there any of those on this site)? Why does that matter? The viewpoint of your opponent does not change the validity of their arguments. You need to be able to debate your position on its own merits. quote:If someone murdered your wife or family member would you want that person dead? What punishment would you think is just? Maybe, like me, you oppose capital punishment on moral grounds. Then you should have the right to have the person physically removed from society as punishment for the murder. What if someone murdered your wife and someone else's, and that other victim believes that capital punishment is the only suitable solution? What if he murdered 1000 wives and each person had an opinion on what was justified as a punishment?
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Aug 9, 2014 09:01
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SedanChair posted:What homesteaders were not supported by society? They didn't get to where they were without tools and division of labor. You don't get to just check out of society once you have looted enough from it to flee and pretend like you were born out of your mother's vagina with those tools. In a market economy everyone is compensated for their work when an economic transactions takes place. In the division of labor people specialize in tasks that they excel at, then they trade their goods and services for a medium of exchange. When I pay for tools, I have compensated the tool maker for his efforts. When I pay a toll road owner to use his road, I have compensated the road builder for the use of his road. When another person pays me for the crops I grow on my farm, they have compensated me for the effort to harvest food. Everyone IS compensated for the work they do in a market economy. The idea that I am forever in debt to a nebulous "society" even after I pay for each and every service that is rendered to me is absurd. That is not to say that I don't have an obligation, as a moral person, to help others and care about community and society. But no one should have the right to use violence against me if I don't voluntarily fund their concept of societal help. The State is not "society". The State represents a small minority of people who claim the ability to use aggression and have final decision making authority over a certain geographic area. The tool of government is inevitably used by the powerful against the rest of us. It is the one common enemy of humanity. Why can we not use voluntarism and cooperation to influence society rather than a tool of violence and oppression?
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Aug 9, 2014 09:06
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holy poo poo gently caress it, 1 am on a friday night? what better time to roll back into town?
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Aug 9, 2014 09:16
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jrodefeld posted:In a market economy everyone is compensated for their work when an economic transactions takes place. In the division of labor people specialize in tasks that they excel at, then they trade their goods and services for a medium of exchange. When I pay for tools, I have compensated the tool maker for his efforts. When I pay a toll road owner to use his road, I have compensated the road builder for the use of his road. When another person pays me for the crops I grow on my farm, they have compensated me for the effort to harvest food. Everyone IS compensated for the work they do in a market economy. The idea of a "market economy" is pretend. quote:The idea that I am forever in debt to a nebulous "society" even after I pay for each and every service that is rendered to me is absurd. That is not to say that I don't have an obligation, as a moral person, to help others and care about community and society. But no one should have the right to use violence against me if I don't voluntarily fund their concept of societal help. Your declarations of what is or is not absurd are irrelevant. Pay your taxes or go to prison. If you disagree with what your taxes are used for, participate in democracy. If institutions are undemocratic, participate in their reform. If prison is unjust, reform prison. quote:The State is not "society". The State represents a small minority of people who claim the ability to use aggression and have final decision making authority over a certain geographic area. The tool of government is inevitably used by the powerful against the rest of us. It is the one common enemy of humanity. We can, but it's not enough. The foundations of your pretend school of thought are propaganda funded by billionaires who got their money from the government. They would love you to believe that destroying all civil institutions would place you on equal footing with them. In reality, they want you for their serfs.
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Aug 9, 2014 09:16
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Duck_King posted:No, you're pretty much all insane. I have an old friend who is an an-cap, and his "solution" for the poor to cast off the shackles of the evil oppressive statists and rise out of poverty is to... wait for it... distribute open source shotguns patterned from 3D printers. This is clearly a reasonable idea, and not at all dumb and/or insane. Wait, so he wants to arm the poor for revolution? Is this guy a libertarian or a communist?
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Aug 9, 2014 09:22
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QuarkJets posted:Why does that matter? The viewpoint of your opponent does not change the validity of their arguments. You need to be able to debate your position on its own merits. I'm not saying it does. A discussion is a two way street though. But it is pretty easy for a critic to sit back and nitpick about every possible issue that could arise in a proposed political order, but what is their alternative? The way to critique a proposal is not to point out that some difficult issue might arise, but rather how does a proposed society compare to any other valid alternatives? The issue is one of comparison. I think my arguments stand on their own merits but I'd still like to learn about what you all think is a valid alternative at some point. I don't know why you would want to withhold that information. QuarkJets posted:What if someone murdered your wife and someone else's, and that other victim believes that capital punishment is the only suitable solution? What if he murdered 1000 wives and each person had an opinion on what was justified as a punishment? I don't know what the optimal solution is to this dilemma. Fortunately I don't have to know. In an anarchist society, private arbitration services will compete for your patronage. The justice system in a libertarian world will be geared towards restitution but each arbitration service will have stipulations and policies regarding situations like this. Maybe the most recent victim will have a greater say in the punishment. Maybe a democratic vote from the victims of the murderer will rule the day. There are many viable possibilities. I oppose capital punishment not because I think some people don't deserve death but because I believe that spiritually everyone should have the opportunity to make amends for their actions. Whether they make any effort to seriously repent is unknowable but everyone should have the opportunity in my view. Also, I think the idea of revenge is an understandable impulse but it is still not healthy for society. But if another victim strongly favored the death penalty and I couldn't convince them otherwise, I would allow them to make the final determination.
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Aug 9, 2014 09:23
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jrodefeld posted:In a market economy everyone is compensated for their work when an economic transactions takes place. In the division of labor people specialize in tasks that they excel at, then they trade their goods sand services for a medium of exchange. D_I fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 09:31
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Jrodefeld, why would private arbitration services compete for the business of people with no money? What happens when a person who has purchased an area of land the size of Pennsylvania goes up against a squatter who has pitched a yurt on a seemingly unused portion of that land? Plus, quote:I don't know what the optimal solution is to this dilemma. Fortunately I don't have to know. In an anarchist society, private arbitration services will compete for your patronage. The justice system in a libertarian world will be geared towards restitution but each arbitration service will have stipulations and policies regarding situations like this. Maybe the most recent victim will have a greater say in the punishment. Maybe a democratic vote from the victims of the murderer will rule the day. There are many viable possibilities. You mean you're not fundamentally opposed to solutions that appeal to the will of the majority? In that case, maybe you should defer to people who have thought about this a little bit more than you. That's called "government." woke wedding drone fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 09:32
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SedanChair posted:Jrodefeld, why would private arbitration services compete for the business of people with no money? What happens when a person who has purchased an area of land the size of Pennsylvania goes up against a squatter who has pitched a yurt on a seemingly unused portion of that land? So he doesn't want an elected body making rules for him but if it's a couple guys in a boardroom counting fat stacks then that is alright by him. D_I fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 09:33
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Please rename thread to The Libetarian Thread : Stop by and pitch a yurt
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Aug 9, 2014 09:38
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SedanChair posted:The idea of a "market economy" is pretend. The constant leftist refrain that libertarianism is simply propaganda pushed by billionaires to serve their interests has always been a ludicrous claim. The pretend libertarian Koch brothers had an influence but they simply co-opted and castrated the message. But who else? If the ultra rich all wanted libertarianism and it really served their interests, why haven't we had any libertarian presidents ever? Why isn't Congress full of Ron Pauls? The truth is that the ultra rich hate the free market. The free market doesn't serve their interests. Have you ever read a book called "The Triumph of Conservatism" by Gabriel Kolko? Kolko was no libertarian. He was a radical leftist historian and he saw that the supposed "Progressive" reforms of the early 20th century amounted to a capitulation of State power to the wishes of the largest business and financial interests. Those entrepreneurs who made their fortune in the Industrial Revolution feared their impending demise amid the competitive gales of the market economy and sought to create monopolies and protection from the market by taking over the central State, writing rules and regulations to hurt their competitors and creating a Central Bank that bails them out. The moral of this story is that competition on the market is the last thing that a businessman wants. The market serves consumers and allows the poor to overturn the wealth of the rich through out competing them. The idea that we would all be "serfs" to a perpetually wealthy class under market conditions is absurd. It is a constant sad reality that some of the most successful market entrepreneurs inevitably revolt against the very market that allowed them to become wealthy. The reason for this is that maintaining wealth in a market is very difficult. While the overall prosperity of a society rises slowly and steadily, the wealth of the very rich businessman is always at risk of huge losses due to a fickle consumer base and ambitious entrepreneurs who constantly chip away at the market share of the large companies. To stay on top for more than a few years is VERY difficult and takes a brilliant, innovative mind. The State provides an easy way out. Just buy off some politicians, pass some regulations, and grant yourself monopoly privilege through law. The libertarian anarchist argument is that this corruption of the leftist ideal of participatory democracy is inevitable. The benefits to lobbyists are very concentrated but the cost to each individual voter is very small. Therefore it is worth it for the Corporate lobbyist to spend all their time lobbying the government for beneficial legislation but it is NOT worth it for the average voter to spend any time lobbying to get these laws repealed. Thus the State grows and benefits an entrenched class of Corporate parasites more and more. Then social democrats call for more regulation of the economy and larger government to "solve" the problem which only ends up making the problem worse over time. We want to remove the State and take care of these businessmen through the market. Through competition and free choice by consumers, these super rich lose all their power to commit aggression and cartelize and monopolize the market. They are cut down to size and the consumer wins out. The poor win out. The rich that exist in the market have had to provide value to others such that voluntarily paying customers reward that person with profits.
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Aug 9, 2014 09:48
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Mnoba posted:Please rename thread to The Libetarian Thread : Stop by and pitch a yurt No but you see, private yurt manufacturers will compete for private citizens patronage because private patronage private patronage private patronage
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Aug 9, 2014 09:48
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How does libertarian anarchism explain the success of the great institutions of the state in Europe? For example the NHS? Pound for pound the most financially efficient, wide reaching (relative to cost) and quality healthcare provider on the planet, indiscriminate of wealth. How can a market economy ever hope to achieve this?
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Aug 9, 2014 09:48
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jrodefeld posted:Can you explain when and under what circumstances aggression is morally justified? Read this and you're good.
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Aug 9, 2014 09:49
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Goddamnit you fucker! I have to sleep! I was literally brushing my teeth, saw this thread and went. No. NO! And now since I have poor impulse control I have to come in here and refute your poo poo before XyloJW can see that you've come back and lock the thread. Okay, so lets start at the top: quote:Many of you know me already. But before I write anything I want to please ask the moderators to allow me to engage on this forum. I will do my best to follow the rules. I will respond to recent replies on the last page of threads. I am passionate about these ideas and I have searched for good message boards to engage with leftists and I have found none that are as populated with knowledgeable and passionate leftists as SomethingAwful. I think it would be of benefit to permit me to engage in discussion with you all, for both you and me. I was banned last time and I assume it was because I abandoned a thread that I had created. I didn't abandon it, I had a major computer malfunction and I was without a PC for more than two months. I hope, as a paying member, you will permit me one thread where we can discuss the merits of libertarianism and compare and contrast it with various leftist ideologies. I am trying again with the best of intentions and I hope my good will is reciprocated. You get banned because you do this. This thing you have here, this thread? This is why you keep getting banned. Look at your own goddamned rap sheet. quote:Gimmick or the stupidest person in the universe. If he comes back and posts a million words on a dozen topics and says "I look forward to debate" ban him again, because I warned him twice already. You fail to grasp that the SomethingAwful forums are not Gamefaqs, or reddit or some other shithole forums. Outside of maybe ask/tell no one really posts up 'personal' threads where people hop in to argue solely with you. In case you're curious we actually do have a libertarian thread. I should know, I made it. Do you know what its called? Libertarian, An Cap and Jrodefeld appreciation station. (We miss you!) Did it occur to you to post in a thread that both contains the word libertarian and your loving NAME? Anyways, thats just a pet peeve and an explination of why you can expect to be paying  again pretty soon.quote:With that said, I will outline some principles that I have come to accept. I may repeat myself somewhat, but I think some of what I will say is new and is perhaps better said that what was posted before. Your post is a giant word salad of nonsense, so you'll have to forgive me for breaking it down into individual chunks. For starters, how do you think any of this is new? As I said we have a thread regarding libertarians where we have discussed this stuff for seventeen pages. Do you think we are stupid? Do you think we fail to understand your point of view? Do you somehow believe that we would all simply come to the light if you show up and repeat the same talking points again? Also in regards to the bolded point, you do realize that the whole point of an Axiom is for it to be so evident that it is irrefutable? Saying an irrefutable axiom is redundant. Also again, the part I italicized does not follow. I know the argument that you are trying to set up, that since we choose to argue rather than punch you in the nose, that must presuppose that everyone prefers to talk over punch. Its argumentation ethics 101. My standard rebuttal to it is this: quote:Suppose there is a person who is so desperate to resolve a conflict with another that they engage in non-truth tactics which lead to false beliefs on the part of the other. They have polluted the mind of the other for their gain. They have violated the mind of the other and hence engaged in a subtle form of violence. Either before or when engaging in argumentation they chose other values for themselves which were likely not the norms chosen by the other participant. Thus two people were engaged in functional argumentation both with the meta-goal of conflict resolution but operating by different norms or instrumental values to achieve that end. If done carefully, the innocent participant did not recognize that the other did not agree to their norms and gave the appearance of implicit consent by continuing the argument. Its actually from a delightful article which covers what is wrong with argumentation ethics which can be read here. Oh, and you do remember our last talk on Herman Hans Hoppe and why he is a racist shithead and you probably shouldn't take him seriously right? Lets continue. quote:If a person owns their own body and thus has the right to make decisions about how they use it, then how can they justly acquire property outside of their physical body? The libertarian argues that the only just way to acquire property is through homesteading of previously unowned or unused natural resources, otherwise known as original appropriation. If you own your physical body, then if you mix your labor with natural land then that which you transformed becomes in essence an extension of yourself and becomes your property. If you are a frontiersman and you come across previously unowned and unused natural land and you build a house, build a fence, graze cattle and plant crops, then that which you altered through your labor becomes your property. That is, no one has a better claim to maintain final decision making authority over that scarce resource than you. Okay, so I'm going to sort of speed through some of this poo poo cuz it IS 2:20 and my wife will soon be in to give me funny looks. Lets start with my favorite intellectual quote on homesteading and self ownership. quote:Self-ownership sucks and homesteading is retarded. Oh wait... no, that isn't it. Ayn Rand posted:[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using.... What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent. Err.. nope, not that one either. quote:On an episode of The Simpsons, Mr. Burns built a sunlight blocking machine which cast the town of Springfield into darkness. According to labor mixers, this should be perfectly legitimate since one did not mix labor with the sunlight or at least that sunlight (since sunlight is a continuous phenomenon). Many immediately jump to the claim that their use involved sunlight and is harmed by the blockage. Unfortunately, they cannot make that jump because, to do so, would mean that they abandon the mixing justification and switch to a use justification. If one's willing to jump to that standard then what does it mean that the indigenous people were using land? It's also an example of "Is that your true rejection?" Do you believe that Mr.Burns is legitimate in blocking out the sunlight from the town of springfield with his giant metal disk. I know it isn't an accurate reflection of what might happen in reality, but it does reflect things such as building on a property in a way that blocks a view for example. Its a pretty simple question and I'd like to hear your answer if you can get to it before you are banned. quote:Libertarian anarchists oppose the State because we oppose the act of aggression. We don't believe that aggression can ever be justified. Aggression is the initiation of force. Violence is morally justified in self defense, to defend ones own body or justly acquired property from an act of aggression. Violence can be morally justified to compel restitution to a victim of aggression, provided the criminal is proven guilty in a legitimate court of law. But this must be proportional violence, proportional restitution given the extent of the crime committed. The punishment can be anything up to and including the original crime but nothing more. If someone shoplifts a candy bar, he or she can be made to pay the cost of the candy bar. I actually think I covered this in my thread, but if not I'll just mention it here. Almost everything in the national 'Libertarian' thought process is based off of southern demands for 'states rights' and other white supremacy jargon. As a prime example the Freemen on the Land got their start as Posse Comitatus, which in turn started as a way to get Northerners to gently caress off so they could go back to abusing freed slaves. Most of the top thinkers in your ideology who were born in the USA can be directly tied to Neo-Confederates, White Supremacists and so forth. Many libertarians 'oppose the state' insofar as they think it would be easier to oppress minorities without a strong federal government. Are you aware that Reason magazine, one of the premiere libertarian magazines published a series of articles, including one full front page issue of Holocaust denial in 1970, as well as Pro-Aparthied articles as late as 1982? Are you aware that when confronted with this they did not denounce the fact that they did it. I ask all of this because I have a feeling from all my reading and talking with you that you are an ideologically 'pure' libertarian as far as they come. I am curious if it worries you that so much of your ideology is based primarily around men who would be more than happy to enforce racist white culture under the guise of libertarian beliefs. I don't mean to suggest that you believe this, but the people you promote very much do. Does this concern you? quote:If someone murders a family member, the punishment can be anything up to and including capital punishment. This is hosed up. You should not support capital punishment, Libertarian or not. Seriously reconsider this viewpoint. quote:However, the initiation of violence, that is assault against the self ownership of another or his property, is morally unjustifiable. The State must necessarily commit aggression. All States rely on compulsory taxation. Citation Needed. I can dig up my big ol' talk on the social contract for you if you forgot it from last time. I was actually rather proud of that one. quote:The second reason we oppose the State is that libertarian anarchist believe that ethics should be universalizable. In philosophy, an ethic governing human interactions must necessarily apply to all members of a society not just to some if it is valid. You cannot propose that murder is immoral in California but not in New York. Or that rape is wrong for a poor minority but not for a rich white man. No, ethical rules governing human behavior must be universalizable to all members of society if faced with a similar situation. By creating a State, you are creating two separate moral rules that apply to those inside of government (politicians, bureaucrats, military people, CIA, and all special interests that are granted special privileges) and those outside of government. You and I are not permitted to steal our neighbors property. But politicians can steal 30% of their income each year and call it an "income tax". You and I are not permitted to counterfeit money, but the Federal Reserve is. You and I cannot commit murder, but the military can wage aggressive wars and use drones to murder people. And on and on and on. The examples are endless. Again I thought I'd covered this one in my OP in the real thread, but I didn't.  Okay first off, taxation is not theft. I know we've said this a lot but can I give you one bit of advice? Stop with this bullshit. You are preaching to the heathens here, and using jargon such as taxation = theft makes you seem like a lunatic because no one here agrees with you on that and you've made no effort to prove it in any meaningful sense that we don't also disagree with. For us its no different than you yelling the sky is green, its wrong to us on its face and discredits you. Anyways, all of this comes back to my social contract argument from the last thread. Here is how it works: You cannot steal golf clubs from your neighbor, that is absolutely right. But why can't you? There isn't some universal moral code that will smite you. There isn't some higher power, or if there is its beyond the scope of this argument. You can't steal from me because as a society we have determined that those golf clubs belong to Steve. We have a whole system built around determining who owns what, and if you violate that, then the police show up and arrest you. The police get to arrest you, something that would normally be kidnapping, because we as a society agree that they can do it. Society is like money, its all just one great big series of fictitious agreements based on what people collectively believe. It is subjective, not universal. Taxation works the exact same way, stealing is wrong! But taxation is an exception to the rule that we as a society have decided upon based upon the fact that we like not living in a hosed up mad max world. To give a simpler example, I can't cheat on my wife. My wife can't cheat on me. This is universal in our marriage. But we could agree to say... a five person list of freebees celebrity bangs, because we are human beings, not emotionless robots run by inviolable code. quote:Legitimate laws and social services work this way. People can collectively delegate to civil authorities rights they already have. If someone commits aggression against you or your family, you have the right to be compensated and "made whole" by the attacker. If someone kills your wife, you should be allowed to kill the person who committed the murder. Therefore you can have the criminal tried and then the legal system can execute the killer on your behalf. Now, if the victim is morally opposed to capital punishment (like I am) they should be able to determine that a lighter sentence should be enforced. Any rational system of justice should be centered around restitution and making the victim whole, thus they should have a say in the punishment and they should be free to argue for a lighter sentence than the maximum (equal to the act of aggression committed). You'll get there, don't you worry! Moral principles do not need to be universalizable because that doesn't make sense. Again, unless you are talking about god there is no such thing as universalizable morals, because morals are the way we talk about what is right and wrong when it comes to humans dealing with other humans, and despite how much you want things to be neat and clean people are anything but. You are trying to apply some physics concepts to the interactions of people in a way that makes no sense. You are trying to say that your one size fits all moral code is the only way to go, but if those morals were universal then they would not need to be proven, they would simply be. quote:With these principles established, I have no other choice than to argue for libertarian market anarchism as the only moral and logically consistent way of organizing society. Again, seriously reconsider posting like this. XyloJW will have you out on your rear end within a day if you keep this poo poo up. He literally only left the last thread open as long as he did because it was funny. I find your posts entertaining if neurotic and rather shallow, and I'd hate to see you banned because you are too autistic to learn how these forums operate.
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Aug 9, 2014 09:52
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