Libertarian Thread #2: We Shall Never Die!

The T wrote: Your words go beyond my recent grasp of your culture...

The T wrote: Interesting. Though I don't know why you assumed it was the tin foil hat the thing you were wearing that went away

I feared that was the thing that went away. I rarely can be found with pants and a shirt on.

I was thinking of something. I was reading somewhere and the typical phrase "he abused his liberty" appeared. I realized how, in my view, this is impossible. Liberty can't be abused. Abuse is the wrong or improper use of something. How can you wrongly use your liberty? That would depend on tbe judgment of a third person who decides what is wrong and what is not, but that leaves decisions in external arbitrary hands, therefore the only reasonable way to decide if something is wrong is by the individual. But if the individual thinks somethings is wrong and still does it, he implicitly is ignoring the wrong of his action, and he is then not abusing his liberty. Improper? The same, improper according to whom? Only the individual can, if we are to avoid arbitrary impositions. And if improperly using liberty is impossible, since the only proper use of liberty is actually using it, exercising it, standing up for it, doing whatever one wants.

When one's actions harm another's, are we "abusing our liberty" or are we just infriging other people's rights (among them liberty)? I think liberty can't be abused. In a different definition, abusing, causing harm, can't be done to liberty by using it. You abuse your wife, your dog, your neighbour. You abuse things and beings that are not you. Hell, in a way, you can abuse your body, since you're not in total control of it (try stopping your heart or your digestive processes just by mere will), but you can't abuse your liberty, since it's yours, it's the one thing you have control over, the one that actually allows you to make any other kind of decisions. That the outcome of your use of your liberty are bad or harmful to you or others is secondary; they are consequences which you will have to face. Even if you face a prohibition or a law that penalizes something, and you go ahead and do the unlawful action, you're not abusing your liberty, you're actually using it as it should be, to give you the power to decide the course of your actions, though in this case the chosen path is obviously the wrong one or the one that will lead you to face negative consequences or punishment.

The basic rights, life, property, liberty: can they be abused? I don't think so. But then again I talk a lot of nonsense and I want the opinions of those much more well-versed in these matters and who also can put things in a clearer way than my incongruent ramblings...

Will the most blatantly unconstitutional parts of the Patriot Act finally expire? Maybe!

The T wrote: Damn, this is a simple yet informative brief explanation of anarcho-capitalism. Of course I'll do a larger study and I'll read Rothbard and others, but I can say I'm not leaning away but towards that direction... Btw, how can there be something called "anarcho-communism" or "anarcho-syndicalism"? If the economy is controlled (as it should be if we are to implement communism or syndicalism -whatever this last one means in this context-), the it's not anarchy, since some group would have to be making the decisions, thus needing power to make them and enforce them, thus creating a state again. Am I wrong?

Read the two excerpts, Rothbard - Police, Law and the Courts, David Friedman - The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism. Together they probably total 50 pages and are great introductions.

Anarcho-Communism can exist I think. I think the major problems come with it's universal existence. Obviously sects of willing people can form communities where goods are completely public. The problem comes when you want an entire country, or region of land, to behave this way. This will require the use of force to bring it about then, otherwise known as a government, which will of course grow in power and impede the system from ever emerging.

There tends to be a problem of what I guess you could call free-riders too. That is, you can't morally prohibit a private property person such as I, from walking onto your land and wanting food or to build a shed there. Of course, anarcho-communists tend to abhor private property and seek for the elimination of it. So a peaceful coexistence with people of differing beliefs probably wouldn't be possible.

It was my boy Russ Feingold, a Progressive Dem, who was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act originally 

Pat do you agree with the evolutionary view of Anarcho-capitalism? I frankly find it to be very reasonable one... 

The T wrote: Pat do you agree with the evolutionary view of Anarcho-capitalism? I frankly find it to be very reasonable one...

Yes. In fact, if it were a revolutionary one, I'm not so sure that it would work. I always talk about gradually changing the system. I do think some monumental event will probably spur the primary impetus towards freedom.

The T wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: The T wrote: Pat do you agree with the evolutionary view of Anarcho-capitalism? I frankly find it to be very reasonable one...  Yes. In fact, if it were a revolutionary one, I'm not so sure that it would work. I always talk about gradually changing the system. I do think some monumental event will probably spur the primary impetus towards freedom. I think Anarcho-capitalism is desirable. From a "I wish this to be the reality of my world" perspective, I would like it to be an anarcho-capitalist society of total freedom and private contracts forged by individual interests which in the end would lead to a "common good" (this is just previsible, not really a necessity). But it's quite impossible for it to just "happen". Only a gradual liberation in all fronts can eventually lead to the final changes: those having to do with private police, courts, and roads, and the eventual end of the state.  In a different way (not forced, not brought about by a guiding hand or group) but just as uni-directional, just like Marx and Engels theorized socialism to be the path towards communism (in a way they were right, they just failed to foresee the atrocious consequences -or they actually liked them), it's logical that libertarianism will end, finally, non-utopically (new word), and with no need for a tyrant hand, in anarcho-capitalism. Provided capitalism is protected throughout the entire process (which is obvious if libertarianism eventually becomes reality).

Then why aren't you an anarchist? Join the dark/lunatic side with me.


Edited by Equality 7-2521 - February 09 2011 at 12:46

"The basic principle which leads a libertarian from statism to his free society is the same which the founders of libertarianism used to discover the theory itself. That principle is consistency. Thus, the consistent application of the theory of libertarianism to every action the individual libertarian takes creates the libertarian society. 
    Many thinkers have expressed the need for consistency between means and ends and not all were libertarians. Ironically, many statists have claimed inconsistency between laudable ends and contemptible means; yet when their true ends of greater power and oppression were understood, their means are found to be quite consistent. It is part of the statist mystique to confuse the necessity of ends-means consistency; it is thus the most crucial activity of the libertarian theorist to expose inconsistencies."

Edited by The T - February 09 2011 at 13:01