"Freedom" thread or something

Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: See, in order to be a good Libertarian, you basically have to be a jerk.  You have to not have an empathetic bone in your body. God, you people are stubborn.  <font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="3">I think you should take a break from posting here.

I think you should learn how to use logic and reasoning.   But that would threaten your Conservative Libertarian ideals, so you won't do it.

Gerinski wrote: I'm back

Good morning!  (Afternoon for you, I think)

Gerinski wrote: All those ideals sound nice, it's just naive to think that your libertarian society would evolve into anything much 'better' than what we have. It would either: a) evolve into a society so full of injustice and inequalities that it would eventually trigger a social revolution by the poorer classes, much as the French Revolution. When everything is really private, only profitable projects are undertaken and huge inequalities arise. No private company will throw an electricity line or will build a road with signs to your farm in the middle of nowhere or will build a train to connect 2 locations without enough traffic. So the same thing or service will cost 10 for somebody living in New York and 10,000 for someone living in the countryside, and when we talk about goods or services which are considered essential, a right that any citizen should have access to, this will start to be perceived by many as an injustice and inequality of rights and opportunities.

No private company would throw an electricity line to farms in the middle of nowhere?  Really?

Ours did. 

On March 15, 1940, a group of citizens from Robeson, Hoke, Scotland and Cumberland counties met at the courthouse in Raeford, and unanimously voted to form their own electric cooperative. Its purpose was to provide electric service to rural areas considered unprofitable by large power suppliers. About two weeks later, on April 4, 1940, D.J. Dalton was employed as coordinator and worked from a temporary office in Raeford.

The government doesn't run our electric services; in fact, we pay a sales tax on our electric service. 

Gerinski wrote: The reason why you can have roads and post and a fire department or perhaps an SOS helicopter in low population areas is because the government can afford building the small local road 'at a loss' and compensate it by the efficiency of the populated big roads. Only the government can see things as a package, where services and certain goods can be guaranteed at reasonable and similar costs to all the population without discrimination, winning a lot in some and losing a lot in some others and compensating among them. No purely private company would ever invest in providing services for the low-income people or for low-population areas because they would not return much profit. Currently private companies do invest in all those things because they have no choice, the government negotiates them as a package for all the population.

You assume that wealthy people and corporations would not be interested in patronage.  There are many people who seem concerned that poor people and single mothers would not be able to acquire fundamental services in a Libertarian place.  Let me address that here:

Public ownership need not require governmental involvement.  For example, the US is rife with public parks that were donated by generous people.  If people are willing to donate parks, how much more would people be willing to donate so that poorer people would have their needs met?

And don't say it wouldn't happen.  We have people who donated over $700,000 to a bullied school bus monitor.  Modern patronage exists in the form of Kickstarter- Russian band iamthemorning raised
£6,500 when they only asked for £2,400.  And that's not counting the money they raised from their other websites, like bandcamp.

If people are willing to finance a woman's vacation and a Russian band's next album, how much more would they be willing to voluntarily finance roads, schools, and other services for the unfortunate?

Gerinski wrote: A lot of culture would disappear (sorry but that's why the average 'quality' of European cinema is better than American, film-makers are subsidized, nobody wants to invest in a 'serious' movie when a Stallone blockbuster is much more profitable).

The advent of sites like bandcamp and Kickstarter like I mentioned above bring the arts back to the people.

Gerinski wrote: The rich would abuse from the poor (even more than now). Tensions among the population would become so great that a revolution would surely turn up at some point.

I disagree.  This is something I hope you and those opposed to Libertarianism understand:

Big government does not work for the people.  Like everything else, it is bought and sold to the highest bidder.  Nothing escapes capitalism, and governmental power is no different.  Do you realize that for all practical purposes, only wealthy people can run for a federal office?

Think about this, friend. In 2008, the average cost of winning a House seat was about $1.1 million and $6.5 million for a Senate seat.  If only wealthy people are representing all the people, then where is this protection for the interests of the poor we keep hearing about?

Big government is a tool for big money.  That's all it will ever be, because that's all it can be.  Take away big government, and you take away a tool for big money.

Gerinski wrote: b) evolve into the much the same as we have now: in some posts you seem to propose something like going back 300 years and organise many of your social activities (schools, hospitals, road building, postal service etc) among little communities. Gradually you would realize that you need to communicate and reach agreements with other communities, for that you would need to elect representatives who would communicate and agree in name of the community. You would need more and more of them to administer all sorts of stuff, and eventually they would become called 'politicians', and they would reach the conclusion that for certain things, it's better to act together because if each single community goes its own way, things are a mess. For those common projects, money would be required so taxes would need to start being collected. 300 years later you would have the same kind of society we have today.

http://https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

You seem like an intelligent guy who's actually willing to listen and think about arguments, Gersinki. I appreciate that.

As Rob pointed out, there exist many, many currently operating non-profit companies dedicate to doing the unprofitable things you assert would never be done without government. Much of your argument, however, rests on an assumption that you have a right to do whatever you want and expect other people to pay for it. Yes, it is less profitable to run a road and mail service and electricity to the middle of nowhere. You can choose to live in the middle of nowhere, but why should other people be coerced into subsidizing your choice and the inconveniences that arise from it?

If you choose to build a house in an area prone to flooding, isn't it fair that you should pay more for flood insurance than if you live on a mountain? Similarly, if your choice of dwelling requires the mailman to go way out of his way to deliver to you, shouldn't you pay a little more for that, or I should I pay for it because of the choice you made that in no way affects me?

It's pretty tedious to continually have people like dtguitar fan calling me a jerk without empathy. I do not think it is empathetic to steal from others to accomplish my own ends. On the other hand, he complains about people who earn money by providing a valuable service to society and then voluntarily donate some of that money to help others. Somehow that is less compassionate that forcing other people to do what he himself is unwilling to do. In my view libertarianism is THE most compassionate ideology out there, because it is the only one that doesn't involve bullying people by force to do what you want them to do.

Wonder how long til the NSA pulls down this thread...

And I will add something, which is obviously only a matter of preference:

thellama73 wrote: Gerinski wrote: I don't know for sure in the US, but the reason you can buy a Coke at similar price in New York than in Kansas is because the government has enforced regulations addressed to stabilizing the prices for all citizens, otherwise a Coke in Kansas would probably be quite more expensive than in NY. To my knowledge there is no such regulation in the U.S., but I find it very doubtful that the price of Coke would be higher in Kansas than in New York. I live in Washington, DC and have lived in New York and the prices are always higher in the big cities because a) incomes are higher there and b) the higher population results in more demand and more demand results in higher prices.

Things are much more expensive in big cities than in rural areas, this is true.  It's one of the main reasons we moved back to the country.

Epignosis wrote:   Things are much more expensive in big cities than in rural areas, this is true.  It's one of the main reasons we moved back to the country.

Gerinski wrote: Would you recommend libertarianism to a poorer country than the US because it's the morally correct philosophy?

Without question.  Do you think the poorer countries are poor because of their governments or in spite of their governments?

Gerinski wrote: Regarding all the things to be achieved by patronage and the goodwill of the wealthy, of course one advantage you have in the US is that you have many very wealthy people, so that may look realistic for your country. I come from Spain, and even if people are of a generous nature, few have the big fortunes as to make significant donations. Very few could be achieved there by relying on the generosity of the wealthy. Now you are in a pretty good economical phase in the US, but you run the risk that if a heavy crisis will strike in the future and you have based much of the maintenance of your society on patronage, all of that can quickly collapse. And Spain is far from the poorest land in the world. Would you recommend libertarianism to a poorer country than the US because it's the morally correct philosophy?

Did you ever wonder why we have so many wealthy people in the US and why Spain is not doing very well right now?

It is because of our more liberal history that allowed great wealth to be created. (I hope you will not interpret this as me putting Spain down. I have great respect for all the nations and people of Europe, even if I disagree with their policies.)

I would absolutely recommend the philosophy to poor countries, and I think they would find that they would soon become less poor as a result.

However, I do think there is a good point to be made that it is easier for libertarianism to succeed in a more developed country. Technology such as the internet allows consumers more information to make better informed choices, and this enhances competition and reduces the opportunities for fraud or abuse.

You say you prefer the European society, and that's fine. Under my preferred society, you would be free to set up a social democracy in the European style as long as you didn't coerce anybody to participating in it against their will. That way everyone who agrees with you can have what they want. Under your preferred society, I have no such option.


Edited by thellama73 - June 18 2013 at 09:41

thellama73 wrote: You seem like an intelligent guy who's actually willing to listen and think about arguments, Gersinki. I appreciate that.