"Freedom" thread or something

And Logan is absolutely right.  Many simple things we take for granted do not "work" (whatever that means in the context of a nation- some of our opponents refuse to define what is meant by "works," but continue to use the term anyway) if components are missing.  And an economy is far more complex than a toaster.

Similarly, you cannot condemn a free market because a sorta-free market had unpalatable results.

You cannot play a proper (not "decent"- compare the adjectives) game of poker with a missing ten of hearts.  A "television" without something to look at lacks the "vision" and thus is not a TV.  One may, of course, clutch at straws so long as there are two straws at which one may clutch.

Dudemanguy wrote: Enforcement of rules doesn't require rulers. Rules arise from social norms and culture. People and communities can enforce things that they see fit (and we can see this occuring in the historical example of the various nomadic people throughout history).

You didn't answer my question.  How are you going to enforce the rules?  WHO is going to enforce the rules?  Couldn't the argument be made that any form of enforcement is a form of rulers/government?

Dudemanguy wrote: Monsanto is a particularly poor example to make. I can explicitly say that Monsanto absolutely cannot exist as they are in a free market. Their disgusting and deplorable business model consists of patenting genomes of crops, spreading it around everywhere to infect the plants of independent farmers, grabbing subsidies from various local governments and the federal government, and then forcibly putting out of practice anybody who suddenly found themselves unknowingly growing their crappy genomes that they apparently "own." Monsanto is 100% dependent on IP law (which is a nonsensical concept to begin with) and cannot exist without it. I'm not the type to say that all corporations are evil, but Monsanto is literally the textbook example of an evil corporation that rules the market by directly utilizing state-backed violence. It's sickening and I hate them.

Sure, that may be.  But you're missing the point.  Even in a "free market" (which you admit doesn't exist ANYWHERE so how can we know what will or will not happen in such a thing?), you will have companies that sell products that are harmful but do not immediately appear to be so.  That is my point.  What do you do about the companies that sell products that cause great harm, but it takes a good deal of time before this becomes apparent?  These are the sort of things that government is for - complicated situations like this.  And YES, I agree 100% that our government is not doing its job.  I absolutely disagree when people try to use that as an argument for why we should HAVE a government.

dtguitarfan wrote: You didn't answer my question.  How are you going to enforce the rules?  WHO is going to enforce the rules?  Couldn't the argument be made that any form of enforcement is a form of rulers/government?

Well I'm not about to dictate how every place should govern themselves in a hypothetical anarchist society. You could have a volunteer force, maybe private police, neighborhood watch whatever works for you. To keep this in perspective, we are talking about anarchism here. You aren't going to actually need a large, active police force or anything like that (and I certainly wouldn't want one). The "rules" are just the usual: "Don't murder, steal, rape, etc." I'm not particularly concerned about the plants that the neighbors grow in their backyard.

dtguitarfan wrote: Sure, that may be.  But you're missing the point.  Even in a "free market" (which you admit doesn't exist ANYWHERE so how can we know what will or will not happen in such a thing?), you will have companies that sell products that are harmful but do not immediately appear to be so.  That is my point.  What do you do about the companies that sell products that cause great harm, but it takes a good deal of time before this becomes apparent?  These are the sort of things that government is for - complicated situations like this.  And YES, I agree 100% that our government is not doing its job.  I absolutely disagree when people try to use that as an argument for why we should HAVE a government.

I question the very notion that a government can actively prevent such harmful products from being sold in the first place. Your claim about Monsanto's crops being poisonous to a certain extent (which I have no idea if it's true or not, but I'm not about to defend those guys) exists right now while we have the FDA and has presumably been approved by them. Look at the prescription drug industry, the FDA approves all of the stuff. Do you really not think that those drugs are harmful? Just look at those side effects; they're horrifying. Drug addiction of prescription medication being at all-time highs is certainly no coincidence either. Why should I trust the FDA? I don't see any reason why these big R&D organizations can't just bribe them or "buy" them out to some extent and get some questionable stuff out there on the market. 

How on earth would you go about fixing the state to be fair and impartial? By the very nature of politics, it cannot be so.


Edited by Dudemanguy - August 22 2013 at 07:39

Dudemanguy wrote: Well I'm not about to dictate how every place should govern themselves in a hypothetical anarchist society. You could have a volunteer force, maybe private police, neighborhood watch whatever works for you.

Oh my gosh, this is SO naive.  REALLY?  HONESTLY?  You REALLY think having VOLUNTEERS and nothing but VOLUNTEERS will result in a peaceful society with very limited crime?

Dudemanguy wrote: When did I say that everything had to be volunteer-based?

You said "You could have a volunteer force, maybe private police, neighborhood watch whatever works for you."  The first and third item in that list are volunteer.  The second is going to end up being expensive, I guarantee you.

Dudemanguy wrote: I just offered that as a possibility among other things. Also, you seemed to be the naive one to me really. Police don't actually directly prevent crime or anything; they just clean up the mess afterwards.

See, that actually helps my argument.  No, police can't be there to stop bad things from happening - we wouldn't even WANT them to have that capability because they'd have to be watching us constantly.  But a publicly funded police department can be FAST and RELIABLE.  And that's what you want.  You want a police force that can get to your house fast when you're being robbed and your alarm system has alerted them.  I don't think that's going to happen with either a volunteer force or a private force will be satisfactory in that area - unless you're paying gobs of money for the private force.  And then the problem with private forces is this whole grey area of what happens when the offender's police force is bigger than your police force and they operate by a different set of laws than yours, so in their book what the offender has done is not unlawful?

Who says the neighborhood watch works for free?

dtguitarfan wrote: But a publicly funded police department can be FAST and RELIABLE.

More often than not, they aren't. Public police pretty much always arrive well after the crime (nothing I fault them for; it's just reality). I'm not sure what exactly you mean by reliable, so I won't comment on that.

dtguitarfan wrote: You want a police force that can get to your house fast when you're being robbed and your alarm system has alerted them.

Now, I'm confused. You earlier agreed with me in that the police get there afterwards and clean up the mess. So why does this particularly matter? Sure, you want the police to arrive quickly and start investigating, but there's simply no way they're going to show up in time to catch the robber in the act unless you happen to live right next to the police station.

dtguitarfan wrote: And then the problem with private forces is this whole grey area of what happens when the offender's police force is bigger than your police force and they operate by a different set of laws than yours, so in their book what the offender has done is not unlawful

Oh, I agree actually. I'm not really a proponent of private police forces or private law myself. I don't really see the need for the latter and large standing bodies of force will simply always bother me. Granted, there's nothing inherently wrong with private police, but the potential for abuse is definitely there.


Edited by Dudemanguy - August 22 2013 at 09:05

Dudemanguy wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: I am SO glad that it was a professional fire department and not a volunteer department in that situation. Why does it matter if the fire department is paid or not? What matters is the service they  deliver. There's nothing, to my knowledge, that indicates that volunteer firefighters are somehow worse than paid ones.

Do you know how a volunteer fire department works?  Ok, let me break it down for you as to why a professional fire department is better, because I had a roommate in college who was a volunteer fireman.  He would get paged in the middle of the night, or when he was in the cafeteria eating, or in class, etc.  So he would have to wrap up whatever he was doing at the time - because fire fighting was not his main vocation, his main vocation was being a student - get himself ready, and go.  That "wrapping up, getting ready, and going" process is the kicker.  If you're a professional fire fighter, that's all you do.  You live at the station when you're on duty and you sit around waiting for a call, and when you get one, boom, you get in the truck and go.  That's time.  And time is precious when there is a state of emergency.  I'd rather have professional fire fighters and professional policeman who don't have to do the whole "wrapping up, getting ready, and going" part before they can come to my house when I'm in a state of emergency.  Even if that "wrapping up, getting ready, and going" part is only 5 minutes (which is optimistic, I think), that 5 minutes is precious - that's the difference between me having delivered my daughter myself (and then not know what to do to get her breathing - she wasn't breathing at first, btw), and having someone who was either experienced or had at least been trained doing the delivery.  I am so, SOOOOO grateful that I had a professional fire department that had been trained on what to do and were able to arrive fast and deliver my daughter.  Like I said, she came out, and she wasn't breathing at first.  If I had been the one to deliver her, I would have had to have the 911 lady (by the way, what are you going to do for 911 in an anarchist society?) tell me what to do to get her breathing.  And when someone is not breathing, every second counts.  So if I had been going "what?  I don't understand!", that might have been the difference between life and death right there.