Libertarian Thread #2: We Shall Never Die! - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Equality 7-2521 View Drop Down

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:23

thellama73 wrote:

I think a good war every now and then can be healthy.

Yes for the government.

"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:24

AllP0werToSlaves wrote:

Lol. I don't have a problem with materialism at all until it becomes the absolute focus of life as it is here in the states. The entire nation is brainwashed into over-consumerism.

I think this article sums it up nicely: http://www.verdant.net/society.htm

A little healthy consumerism is always necessary if you're to base your economy on supply and demand of stuff, isn't it? Making the accumulation of stuff the sole goal of your life seems rather empty to me, but again, who am I to judge? And can I really say that my life is fuller than the other people's?

Equality 7-2521 View Drop Down

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:24

thellama73 wrote:

Equality 7-2521 wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AkNEuJYNokY_v6FDaHDfT4t0fNdF?slug=yhoo-ept_sports_nfl_experts-319475

To answer the headline: No

Why are taxpayer dollars going towards funding entertainment like this? Should the NFL be paying for this sort of thing?

See the Roman Coliseum.

"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:25

Equality 7-2521 wrote:

thellama73 wrote:

I think a good war every now and then can be healthy.

Yes for the government.

And its friends in the military supplies world.

AllP0werToSlaves View Drop Down

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:26

The T wrote:

AllP0werToSlaves wrote:

I completely agree with you. My car, shelter, instruments and healthy whole foods are really all I need. I don't buy into escapism via materialism and entertainment. I enjoy studying the secrets of life and the universe, discovering myself and cultivating my spirit. Reaching my full potential as a human being is infinitely more important to me than having a 70" LCD flat screen TV hanging on my wall.

Other people escape through materialism. For other people materialism is not an escape. Not everybody can find enjoyment in philosophical questions. I know that material things can help turn you into a slave, but in the end, so can your own thoughts. Other people are so bloated on their own self-importance that they also lose perspective and the ability to find the great things in every little irrelevant aspect of life. Yes, including actual stuff. People is a much better way of escaping. Either the girlfriend, wife, family, friends.

And I couldn't agree with you more; being a serious thinker does require a certain amount of personal awareness and lucidity to wield. It's just as easy to plunge into cynicism and skepticism about ideals as much as any close-minded individual would, and you just end up with combative dualism which leads nowhere, trading one mental prison for another.

Without my girlfriend and musical accomplices, I'd probably go insane!

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:35

Equality 7-2521 wrote:

The more libertarian I've become the more I've noticed that I side with anti-war pro- [huge provide everything for everyone completely control the economy] people more than with pro-war pro-[free market] people. Does anyone else feel this way?

I definitely approached libertarianism initially due to my belief in the free market and letting people live their lives, but now that I'm here I see the most pertinent goal of libertarianism to eliminate the war apparatus. Although I find no moral value in redistribution of wealth and social-engineering via market controls, I find it decidedly immoral to worry about correcting these things before seeking an end to ongoing military activities. I think this is the more feasible approach also, but I must also advocate it for the sake of a clean conscience.

You agree more with pacifist socialists than with capitalist war-hungry people? I see a merit there but the socialist part of their beliefs will eventually bring an apparatus ready and hungry to make war. The second ones are just current republicans.

I am seeing libertarianism first and foremost as a means to let the free market and people live their lives and make their decisions. That means tearing down government, that means eliminating the need and the desire and the power for war. I'm sure there's no need to choose what goes first.

To redistribute wealth and exert market controls, you need some force (even legal, you need force to enforce legal decisions). And you have to make decisions centrally, not individually. So you need a centralized force power. Then this force power gets big the bigger the centralized power gets, then it's only a matter of time for violence in any way or against any target to ensue. Or am I wrong?

War will wear itself out... Even with our war hungry governments, war has been wearing out since WWII in industrialized countries. (I mean big scale nation-against nation war). Of course, the US has been quite adept at going to third world countries to find sparring partners... And lose thousands of lives in the process.

< ="utf-8">

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:41

thellama73 wrote:

Equality 7-2521 wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AkNEuJYNokY_v6FDaHDfT4t0fNdF?slug=yhoo-ept_sports_nfl_experts-319475

To answer the headline: No

Why are taxpayer dollars going towards funding entertainment like this? Should the NFL be paying for this sort of thing?

Stupid Bill Maher the other night (the last one I could withstand watching him... I used to watch his shows religiously...) compared the NFL to the nation and gave his recipe for success: the NFL is successful and the baseball league is not when you see stadium attendance rates for both. That much we can agree on. (besides the fact that baseball is insufferable and should be eliminated Tongue

). Then he mentioned why he thinks is that way: SOCIALISM. Yes, he said so. He said in the NFL the big central league gives money to all teams in the same amount, tv-rights and all of that gets split evenly, there's wealth redistribution, so that everybody has a chance; that's why last teams get first draft picks, too. That can explain why a damn team from Green Bay and another one based in unimportant Pittsburgh usually beat teams in mighty NY, Los Angeles or any other city. He said that in baseball, typical free capitalism exists: the richer teams get richer and buy every good player, the smaller teams can't compete, and then you have the NY yankees and the other big guns always on top, with minimal attendance rates because people are not interested since there's no surprise anymore. There's no "fairness".

And that, Maher explains, shows how socialism gives a better chance to everyone.

thellama73 View Drop Down

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:45

I think football has better stadium attendance because it is not as boring as baseball, end of story.

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:51

Right, baseball is unfair. You'll never see something like the team 4th from bottom in terms of payroll going to the World Series. Oh wait that happened last year.

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:52

The T wrote:

thellama73 wrote:

Equality 7-2521 wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AkNEuJYNokY_v6FDaHDfT4t0fNdF?slug=yhoo-ept_sports_nfl_experts-319475

To answer the headline: No

Why are taxpayer dollars going towards funding entertainment like this? Should the NFL be paying for this sort of thing?

And that, Maher explains, shows how socialism gives a better chance to everyone.

Maybe I'm missing the analogy, but I don't think the goal of the US is to increase its attendance. Pinch

https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:52

thellama73 wrote:

I think football has better stadium attendance because it is not as boring as baseball, end of story.

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:53

Epignosis wrote:

The T wrote:

thellama73 wrote:

Equality 7-2521 wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AkNEuJYNokY_v6FDaHDfT4t0fNdF?slug=yhoo-ept_sports_nfl_experts-319475

To answer the headline: No

Why are taxpayer dollars going towards funding entertainment like this? Should the NFL be paying for this sort of thing?

And that, Maher explains, shows how socialism gives a better chance to everyone.

Maybe I'm missing the analogy, but I don't think the goal of the US is to increase its attendance. Pinch

And actually, thanks to the freedom of capitalism, the US is increasing his "attendance" through his borders every year...

Equality 7-2521 View Drop Down

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 12:58

The T wrote:

The second ones aren't current republicans. They don't actually believe in a free market. I agree, the big government part of their beliefs will lead to war. Just as the war part of the conservatives beliefs will lead to big government. They're inconsistent.

Teo wrote:

The government won't be torn down with one stroke. You must start somewhere. I think that morally and feasibly it will be easiest to attack the war apparatus. It accounts for a lot of the spending, anti-freedom measures, and hatred of American which leads to further anti-freedom measures.

Teo wrote:

I agree. Economic and social freedoms can't be separated. The war apparatus and control of the economy can not be disjoint. I'm just talking about what to focus on destroying first.

Teo wrote:

< ="utf-8">

Of course. Because people don't want threatening wars. The US certainly hasn't been worn out with war. We've been at war for a majority of the 20-21th/st century.

"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "

Equality 7-2521 View Drop Down

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Posted: February 10 2011 at 13:00

The T wrote:

thellama73 wrote:

I think football has better stadium attendance because it is not as boring as baseball, end of story.

Baseball is awesome. I think it has a lot to do with the frequency of the games. There's only 16 football games a season. There's 162 baseball games.

"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "

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Posted: February 11 2011 at 12:44

Googling around for logic and the libertarian set of ideas, I found a couple of anti-libertarian articles that are quite fun to read. Though a little infuriating. Some points are stupid. Other points would easily capture someone in a confused state of mind... I had used ome of those in the past...

One

Two

Edited by The T - February 11 2011 at 12:45

thellama73 View Drop Down

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Posted: February 11 2011 at 13:10

The T wrote:

One

Two

Interesting. The first one is wrong on just about everything he says, but at least he makes an effort. The second one doesn't even really try to make an argument, but relies principally on insults. The joke proofs were entertaining, however.

Equality 7-2521 View Drop Down

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Posted: February 11 2011 at 15:58

I'll read through it all later today because this seems hilarious. Some of the points from the screen which opened when I clicked on the link.

Two simple rebuttals to this take widely different approaches.

The first is that property is theft. The notion behind property is that A declares something to be property, and threatens anybody who still wants to use it. Where does A get the right to forcibly stop others from using it? Arguments about "mixing of labor" with the resource as a basis for ownership boil down to "first-come-first-served". This criticism is even accepted by some libertarians, and is favorably viewed by David Friedman. This justifies property taxes or extraction taxes on land or extractable resources if you presume that the government is a holder in trust for natural resources. (However, most people who question the creation of property would agree that after the creation of property, a person is entitled to his earnings. Thus the second argument)

The second is that taxation is part of a social contract. Essentially, tax is payment in exchange for services from government. This kind of argument is suitable for defending almost any tax as part of a contract. Many libertarians accept social contract (for example, essentially all minarchists must to insist on a monopoly of government.) Of course they differ as to what should be IN the contract.

This is such terrible reasoning. Libertarians are wrong because they just assume that they have a right to their property. They don't. Government can tax them. Where does government right to property come from? Oh it comes from a 'social contract' which the government assumed existed. Wow I wish I could do things like that.

If you don't pay your taxes, men with guns will show up at your house, initiate force and put you in jail.

This is not initiation of force. It is enforcement of contract, in this case an explicit social contract.

Lol at the explicit social contract. The law is certainly explicit, but what exactly makes it a contract? Oh yeah the implicit, made up social contract, makes this an explicit contract. Nice word play there.

I'm excited to read the rest.

I read a little more actually.

"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years."

When you contract for government services, you are a customer, not a slave. If you think you cannot change with whom you contract, you have enslaved your self.

Why can't this author get it through his head that government services are not contracted. If they were, why do so many people disagree with a majority of what the government does? By the same token, one could justify murder on implicit contract grounds as long as the government is doing the murdering.

"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "

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Posted: February 11 2011 at 16:32

This is important though, because many people will easily fall:

Article wrote:

The foremost defenders of our freedoms and rights, which libertarians prefer you overlook, are our governments. National defense, police, courts, registries of deeds, public defenders, the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights, etc. all are government efforts that work towards defending freedoms and rights.

Yes exactly. Without governments there could be no police, courts, registries, etc (the case of national disasters might be a more difficult one to handle purely privately I'd be ready to concede). Without government there could be no Constitution? I'd assume the roles of the former were specified in the latter. Oh, and of course government has neer violated the rights that these institutions are meant to protect.

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Posted: February 11 2011 at 17:10

Oh, and:

"It would be foolish to oppose libertarians on such a mom-and-apple-pie issue as freedom and rights: better to point out that there are EFFECTIVE alternatives with a historical track record, something libertarianism lacks."

First, that hasn't peoved anything. Second, the "proven track record of EFFECTIVE rights' protection" needs some questioning, to say the least.

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Posted: February 11 2011 at 18:25

thellama73 wrote:

I think a good war every now and then can be healthy.

I will respectfully disagree with that LOL