"Freedom" thread or something

Epignosis wrote: I am a Libertarian and I do not believe that people are inherently good.  If there are evil people, does it make sense to let them come to into governmental power by which they can put laws into place that benefit themselves and their friends at the expense of their countrymen? I don't see how having faith in a government (made up of people) is better than having faith in individuals.

Because the control you have over the government, while tiny, is not zero. The control you have over the hypothetical "evil overlord" in a completely government-less world is exactly zero.

Epignosis wrote: Gerinski wrote: There will always be powerful people, and money is a powerful source of power. Hard libertarianism would inevitably lead to some case, sooner or later, where one of the hyper-powerful people on Earth would be a mad evil lunatic who would unleash a nightmare, and we will not have a James Bond to stop him. And other forms of government have never led to this?

It has happened before, but part of the problem was that people elected or at least accepted those evil lunatics.

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: Epignosis wrote: I am a Libertarian and I do not believe that people are inherently good.  If there are evil people, does it make sense to let them come to into governmental power by which they can put laws into place that benefit themselves and their friends at the expense of their countrymen? I don't see how having faith in a government (made up of people) is better than having faith in individuals. Because the control you have over the government, while tiny, is not zero. The control you have over the hypothetical "evil overlord" in a completely government-less world is exactly zero.

Look in the history of the world.  How many of these evil overlords happened because there was no government?

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: Epignosis wrote: Gerinski wrote: There will always be powerful people, and money is a powerful source of power. Hard libertarianism would inevitably lead to some case, sooner or later, where one of the hyper-powerful people on Earth would be a mad evil lunatic who would unleash a nightmare, and we will not have a James Bond to stop him. And other forms of government have never led to this? It has happened before, but part of the problem was that people elected or at least accepted those evil lunatics.

So I have a tiny say in my government...but the majority may still elect or be potentially okay with evil lunatics?

You're not strengthening my faith in government.


Edited by Epignosis - June 17 2013 at 12:57

Epignosis wrote: Look in the history of the world.  How many of these evil overlords happened because there was no government?

When was there ever no government?

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: So I have a tiny say in my government...but the majority may still elect or be potentially okay with evil lunatics? You're not strengthening my faith in government.

Well, the alternative is that the evil lunatic can just do whatever he wants without even asking for power in the first place.

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: By the way Geoff, did you read the article I linked to in my reply to you?  It simply and effectively answers the question of why no libertarian countries exist.

I am not sure which one you're referring to now. I read one that either you or Rob posted that to be perfectly honest didn't answer anything - it just snidely asked questions.   Let's be clear - there is no such thing as a libertarian, republican, or democrat country.   But when I talk about healthcare and say socialized healthcare works, then point to Canada, England, etc., I am demonstrating that a type of system is actually being practiced with success.   Now Rob would like to distract from this by saying " the definition of 'works' is up for debate."   That's BS.   People in those countries pay pennies if anything at all for their healthcare, they don't wait in long lines (as the fear mongers would like us to believe it's a natural result of such systems), and implementing those systems did not cause the collapse of their economy (another scary story we're told by conservatives).   You have a better idea to fix our sh*tty healthcare system in America?   Tell me about it, and you MUST show me a country where it's being implemented and working better or I'll just point and laugh.   Those are my rules. I insist we be scientific.

Epignosis wrote: HarbouringTheSoul wrote: Epignosis wrote: Look in the history of the world.  How many of these evil overlords happened because there was no government? When was there ever no government? There you go.

What kind of argument is that then? "My idea has never failed because it has never been tried out" is a worthless statement, and in no way does it say anything about whether or not it will fail in the future.

Epignosis wrote: My point is that there will always be power-hungry thugs; government ultimately legitimizes and empowers them further.

It only legitimizes and empowers thugs if people explicitly choose to award them with power. Contrast with a government-less system where anyone can empower themselves unless people explicitly refuse and actively stop them. If you had no choice but to be enslaved (a rather crude metaphor because I don't believe government is anything like slavery, but apparently you do so let's go along with it), would you rather choose the person who enslaves you (in the hope of picking someone who will treat you relatively well) or submit yourself to whomever comes first?

Epignosis wrote: HarbouringTheSoul wrote: Well, the alternative is that the evil lunatic can just do whatever he wants without even asking for power in the first place. No, that's not the alternative.  That's what we have now.

Obama is the democratically elected president of the United States. He did ask for power in the first place and people awarded him that power. So no, that's not what we have now.


Edited by HarbouringTheSoul - June 17 2013 at 13:35

dtguitarfan wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: By the way Geoff, did you read the article I linked to in my reply to you?  It simply and effectively answers the question of why no libertarian countries exist. I am not sure which one you're referring to now. I read one that either you or Rob posted that to be perfectly honest didn't answer anything - it just snidely asked questions.   Let's be clear - there is no such thing as a libertarian, republican, or democrat country.   But when I talk about healthcare and say socialized healthcare works, then point to Canada, England, etc., I am demonstrating that a type of system is actually being practiced with success.   Now Rob would like to distract from this by saying " the definition of 'works' is up for debate."   That's BS.   People in those countries pay pennies if anything at all for their healthcare, they don't wait in long lines (as the fear mongers would like us to believe it's a natural result of such systems), and implementing those systems did not cause the collapse of their economy (another scary story we're told by conservatives).   You have a better idea to fix our sh*tty healthcare system in America?   Tell me about it, and you MUST show me a country where it's being implemented and working better or I'll just point and laugh.   Those are my rules. I insist we be scientific.

They were rhetorical questions.  They were supposed to point out that no libertarian countries exist because people don't want libertarianism because it's easier to just let the government take care of them.  This, in the author's view (and in mine) is a very bad thing.  G.K. Chesterton once said,

G.K. Chesterton wrote: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.

I say the same thing about libertarianism.

I actually do have an idea to fix the healthcare system.  First, you drastically decrease governmental interference in the private healthcare system and let the market do its own work.  Then, you return to the good old common law principles of people taking care of their own families.  Yes, this would have to be enforced by laws.  No, this isn't overly coercive.  Most libertarians would still agree that parents have a legal responsibility to take care of their kids.  This proposal would merely extend to an obligation to care for the rest of your family.  Brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, etc.  This system would help people afford healthcare (and life's other necessities) while discarding the ridiculous idea that everyone should be forced on threat of imprisonment to share their wealth with perfect strangers, and would take wealth-sharing out of the hands of the government and into its proper place within the family unit, and otherwise at the discretion of individuals and private institutions.  It would not be a perfect system, as some people have no living relatives (or only have impoverished living relatives) but it would eliminate much of the poverty and healthcare problem and create an easier problem to tackle for private charities.  And no, I don't know of any country where this system is being used, but, as I pointed out earlier, that's rather irrelevant.  We have social security and medicare, to a large extent, because people didn't want to take care of their parents.   Taking care of your family is difficult and annoying.  But it's still the right thing to do.

And similar systems have worked in history - for example Jewish law required children to take care of their parents in their old age.

Ambient Hurricanes wrote:   Similarly, in the case of business, many problems could easily be solved by replacing the many regulations exerted upon businesses by the government with one simple requirement: that businesses be honest about what they are selling to their customers.  The open market would then effectively temper the greedy and exploitative tendencies of businessmen; for although businesses may not have a moral incentive to serve their customers will, they would certainly have an economic incentive to do so.

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: They were supposed to point out that no libertarian countries exist because people don't want libertarianism because it's easier to just let the government take care of them.

You hit the nail on the head here. Governments make things easier for people. That's why they were invented, and that's why they will never go away. If you abolished all governments, people would elect new ones right away. If you radically reduced the power of governments, people would just give them back those powers over time. Governments are inevitable, and that's why I don't see the practical point of libertarianism. Is it a purely philosophical exercise? An alternative moral code that will never be commonly accepted because people don't want to accept it? I admire the philosophical consistency that lies underneath it, but I don't see the practical benefit. If you get down to the bottom of it, most people simply wouldn't choose ultimate freedom over everything else.

Jacob, the system you are proposing really isn't all that different than what I'm proposing, I've just taken the Bible to its ultimate logical conclusion and extended "family" to everyone - is this not the message of Jesus?
Also I find it interesting that you admit your system will not work without law enforcement.

And when you talk about the government backing off and letting the free market do its work for a while - know what's going to happen? A lot of death, that's what.   I'd like to skip over that part please.

Gerinski wrote: Epignosis wrote: Gerinski wrote: The 'liberty' to pollute the environment. Libertarians respect property rights.  Polluting the environment would encroach upon someone's property rights, would it not?  No one is allowed to dump their refuse all over your fields, just as you could not vandalize someone's car. All too often the polluted environment is nobody's property, or the affected parties are in such inferiority that they have no chance to defend themselves against the polluting big corporations. Have you not seen the (reality based) film Erin Brockovich?

But Erin won, right?  And those big corporations- did they live in a country with regulations or in a Libertarian fantasy land?

Gerinski wrote: I don't mind what working conditions you ever accepted, and I know and I understand that many people accept much worse conditions than you ever did, right to the edge (if not beyond) of what I would consider slavery. Offer and demand is simply not an acceptable justification IMO.

If I did not like the offer, I could have countered or looked elsewhere for work.  Turn it the other way around- would you be okay with the government telling you how much you were allowed to work for?

Gerinski wrote: Epignosis wrote: The 'liberty' to create your private army. What is wrong with a private army and how is it fundamentally different from a public one?  do I really need to answer to that? a (democratic) public army action depends on the population's votes, is that so difficult to understand? The existence of private armies (such as those by the Colombian drugs cartels) opens the door to chaos.

Many public armies have gone rogue and did bad things.  Or they followed orders and killed innocent people.

I am asking you to describe how private armies are fundamentally different than public ones.  I will tell you that the only real difference is where the money comes from.  That's all. 

Kings hired mercenaries all the time.  Were they public or private armies?

Gerinski wrote: Epignosis wrote: The 'liberty' to have more children than the planet will be able to sustain in decent living conditions. And that number is...what exactly? How do you propose we limit the number of children people are permitted to have? This is still green in our western world, and some see the Chinese law of 1 child per couple as unacceptably intrusive, but it will be coming, let's face it, human society can not survive with an exponential population growth, so at some point and with some rules procreation must be limited or the human race will suffer extreme pain for survival. How precisely this will need to be enforced I'm not the one to say, but I can just say that it's unavoidable ans society will need to decide how to enforce it.

I don't think we're anywhere near close to population overload, and I think abortion is reprehensible.

Gerinski wrote: Epignosis wrote: The 'liberty' of buying vital organs from people so desperate as to sell their kidney for a loaf of bread. Libertarians believe that it's your organ and you can do what you want with it...though if you sell your kidney for a loaf of bread, wouldn't you have been better off eating it?  Alright, libertarians think that this situation is okay, I don't.

Personally, I'm not okay with it, but if it's your organ, it's yours to do with as you please.