"Freedom" thread or something

JJLehto wrote: Now, of course there is a role for government to play such as regulating hours, OT pay, child labor, making sure conditions are not horrifying. Like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where they used to bar the doors so people couldnt leave...and when a fire broke out they all were trapped inside and died. Im not sure anyone is so insane as to say "thats toally fine its the market baby let the comp do what they want!" So yes, I agree. There needs to be government beyond the essentials, to "soften" the harshness of the markets and even to provide aid (or jobs) to catch the leftovers and aid the truly needed.

dtguitarfan wrote: Anyways, my whole argument, which no one will ever listen to, is that you'd NEVER get a complete overhaul of the governmental system like Libertarians want.  Progress is only EVER made a little bit at a time...unless you get invaded and taken over by another country or something like that, and I'd prefer we have 0 wars.  So it seems completely stupid to me that anyone would adhere to a political viewpoint that can't show progress a little bit at a time.  You have to be able to make little adjustments here and there and then be able to show the benefits of those adjustments in order to keep people going towards the end goal.  If you adhere to a political view that says "well, it's never going to work until you give me everything I want", you'll never EVER get to the end goal because the general populace will be sure to kick you out before you even get close when they get sick and tired of all the misery you're putting them through on the way to the goal.

I'm failing to understand where this assertion is coming from. Literally every libertarian and anarchist I've ever encountered are gradualists. Certainly, there are big steps we immediately want to take right off the bat (such as ending wars, corporate bailouts, that kind of thing), but no one is advocating or advocates making the USA a "libertarian paradise" overnight Of course it's going to take time, I think we all realize this.

Also, what's so crazy about anarchism? Who do you think is better at running your own life: you or some guy elected by a bunch of strangers?


Edited by Dudemanguy - August 21 2013 at 14:26

dtguitarfan wrote: I've had enough of it.  SO I just pop in here every once in awhile to bug them.  I don't have the time to get involved in such pointless discussions, nor does it help my temperament or blood pressure.

You don't bug me.

dtguitarfan wrote: Ah, but see, here's the rub - I keep pointing out "well, when this happened, things got worse."

When and where?
 

dtguitarfan wrote: But instead, what I'm seeing is that rules and regulations are being removed (at least for the big banks and corporations - for the little guys, not so much) and things are getting much worse.

I don't know. Last time I checked, these guys got a whole buttload of money. However, I will freely admit that deregulation isn't inherently better for the people. It can't be given the nature of our economy where we have protections everywhere for everybody. The problem is though, that corporations get magnitudes more protections on the book than workers. So, let's say, you remove some of the stuff that workers benefit from, well that'd suck and people would get more abused by bad companies and employers. What about giving banks more freedom with their money, but leaving their endless supply of cash (the Federal Reserve) in place? Cue economic crash.

See, the problem with progressive-types is that they fail to give a true solution and instead believe that adding more regulations will solve the problem. Sure, if done well, you can have corporations operate reasonably and ethically in a state capitalist climate and workers can have good lives. I'd say that the Nordic model largely achieved this goal (although this isn't sustainable in the long run at all). This is but a band-aid, though. You fail to address the root cause which goes back to the numerous laws in place that all corporations to reign in the first place (subsidies, patent and "intellectual property" laws, business licensing, primitive accumulation, etc.). Libertarians do indeed recognize these root causes and seek to eliminate them. Government and corporations are absolutely dependent on each other. It certainly isn't moral to take up arms and take over Wal-Mart, but gut out transportation subsidies and make them really pay for all that damage they do to the road instead of externalizing the costs onto the taxpayer public and you'll see these guys either radically change or simply die out.

I also would like to point out that while social-darwinist type libertarians certainly do exist and are probably fairly common here in the states, they don't make up everybody (none of the regulars in this thread strike me as this kind of libertarian either). While I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a "bleeding-heart libertarian," I certainly do believe in a degree of positive liberty (i.e. having the ability to do the things you please) while being completely firm in my stance on having as much negative liberty (i.e. not being restrained by outside forces) as you possibly can. I'd assert that having large amounts of negative liberty goes hand in hand with positive liberty because you allow people to run their own lives and make their own decisions to better themselves.

Also, I'd still like you to answer this question if you don't mind taking the time.

Dudemanguy wrote: Also, what's so crazy about anarchism? Who do you think is better at running your own life: you or some guy elected by a bunch of strangers?

Edited by Dudemanguy - August 21 2013 at 14:55

See, what you just said, Dudemanguy, made a lot of sense.  And that's why I think you and others like JJLehto are making assumptions about me that are incorrect.  I absolutely think the subsidies, patent and intellectual property laws, and other such things have gotten out of hand.  But I also think that there HAS to be laws in place that protect little guys from big guys.  There has to be something keeping companies from mistreating their workers and taking advantage of the weak.  Now, you ask:

Dudemanguy wrote: Also, what's so crazy about anarchism? Who do you think is better at running your own life: you or some guy elected by a bunch of strangers?

That's just where anarchists slip into ridiculous hyperbole.  Because you can have rules without someone "running your life".  Example: anarchists think that having background checks would be tyranny.  I think it's utterly insane to have a situation in the US where Al Queda are actually telling their people to come to America and buy guns here because it's so damn easy to get them.  I think it's utterly insane that you can just waltz in and buy a destructive weapon without anyone ever checking to make sure you don't have a criminal record.  To which someone like Rob would deflect and start talking about how many people are unjustly jailed in America and how bad our prison systems are and it's our "right" to have those guns so we can overthrow this unjust system and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.  Yeah, we got problems.  Yeah, our prisons are overcrowded, and there are a lot of things that land you in prison that shouldn't land you in prison (marijuana, I'm looking at you).  That doesn't mean it makes any sense that an Al Queda member should be able to waltz into a place selling guns and buy one without anyone ever running any kind of background check.  When you go too far down the "any kind of enforcement is tyranny" ideology, I stop listening to your insane ass and start treating you like the idiot you are.  And then the reasonable people in this thread jump on me, instead of the crazy anarchists.  And that's when I decide that Libertarianism is just a bunch of wackos.

dtguitarfan wrote: See, what you just said, Dudemanguy, made a lot of sense.  And that's why I think you and others like JJLehto are making assumptions about me that are incorrect.  I absolutely think the subsidies, patent and intellectual property laws, and other such things have gotten out of hand.  But I also think that there HAS to be laws in place that protect little guys from big guys.  There has to be something keeping companies from mistreating their workers and taking advantage of the weak.

I'm trying to get your views down exactly. To me, you've come off as mostly a social democrat/progressive type and that's what I've been assuming. If I'm way off, feel free to point me in the right direction. I do not think there will really be a meaningful distinction between the "little guys" and "big guys" in a truly free society. Freedom and equality go hand in hand. Being suppressed always means that there's someone doing the suppressing, so they have more power than you and thus, inequality. On the other hand, everyone being free heavily implies that no one has any special powers or privileges other than just pure natural talent (which is just a bell curve). In other words, equality. Of course, people will never be truly equal due to genetics, environment, etc. and we shouldn't desire them to be. However, I don't support people having power over each other without sufficient justification (like teachers or parents). In short, authority needs to justify itself, not the other way around. And as a side note, I don't actually advocate capitalism, but free market socialism in the traditional anti-state, anti-capitalist anarchist sense. My idea of markets is based around worker cooperatives not traditional business firms.

dtguitarfan wrote: That's just where anarchists slip into ridiculous hyperbole.  Because you can have rules without someone "running your life".  Example: anarchists think that having background checks would be tyranny.  I think it's utterly insane to have a situation in the US where Al Queda are actually telling their people to come to America and buy guns here because it's so damn easy to get them.  I think it's utterly insane that you can just waltz in and buy a destructive weapon without anyone ever checking to make sure you don't have a criminal record.  To which someone like Rob would deflect and start talking about how many people are unjustly jailed in America and how bad our prison systems are and it's our "right" to have those guns so we can overthrow this unjust system and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.  Yeah, we got problems.  Yeah, our prisons are overcrowded, and there are a lot of things that land you in prison that shouldn't land you in prison (marijuana, I'm looking at you).  That doesn't mean it makes any sense that an Al Queda member should be able to waltz into a place selling guns and buy one without anyone ever running any kind of background check.  When you go too far down the "any kind of enforcement is tyranny" ideology, I stop listening to your insane ass and start treating you like the idiot you are.  And then the reasonable people in this thread jump on me, instead of the crazy anarchists.  And that's when I decide that Libertarianism is just a bunch of wackos.

This post is a huge example of this fallacy: http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

This is a highly unfair mischaracterization of anarchism. Anarchism means "without rulers" not "without rules." This distinction is essential. I ultimately oppose statism on both moral and utilitarian grounds, and history very clearly demonstrates that the state has been largely tyrannical and oppressive to the majority of the populace. However nowhere do I oppose voluntary governments or any other sort of voluntary organization. Hell, even as an individualist, I'll gladly encourage those things. While I definitely oppose coercion and think it is a terrible practice to be avoided, I don't draw a hardline on it and I think that it may occasionally be reasonable to use force on people against their will (such as stopping a person from committing suicide). However, I cannot rationalize any reason for a large state-apparatus that operates itself by the threat of violence and imprisonment in an arbitrarily geopolitical area it claims to rule.

As for why I bothered to ask that question (which you didn't really answer anyway), it's simply to demonstrate that anarchism is a logical conclusion. If you agree with any form of statism, then you, at some sort of level, accept that someone else ruling over you and making decisions for you on some sort of level. Whether it be finances, employment, whatever. I personally believe that I'm capable of living my own life and therefore, I conclude that a state, which by definition is oppressive and operates through violence, is not a necessity. 


Edited by Dudemanguy - August 21 2013 at 15:36

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).

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.


Edited by Dudemanguy - August 21 2013 at 16:13

dtguitarfan wrote: The main problem with Libertarianism - a point I keep trying to make but you guys are so stuck in your ideology that you'll never see it - is that you cannot prove your theories through experimentation.  Rather, you insist that it must be all or nothing.  Those who think you are insane - and we are many - point out "but when this policy was put into place, the results were not good", and your answer is ALWAYS "well, that's because you have to do EVERYTHING I want you to do before it will work."  That's complete and utter bullsh*t.  Until you can prove your theories on a smaller scale, no one with half a brain is going to listen to you!  I mean, it's like we keep pointing to various experiments and saying "dude, all the rats died."  And you go "oh, but see, that won't work unless all people in the entire world are part of the experiment...."  And we go "um...but what if all people in the entire world die?"  And you go "oh, silly you, you have to see my wisdom...." CULT.

Yeah, that's the problem with televisions too. We took away one measly screen and all of a sudden the whole thing fell apart! Clearly it will never work.

Few systems will work as intended when only implemented halfway.

Or, if you like, you cannot play a proper game of poker without a ten of hearts.

thellama73 wrote: I'm still struggling with this card metaphor, if I'm being perfectly honest.

It's an analogy predicated on his being absolutely certain he's won some sort of contest here.  If you don't believe he has, then his analogy is moot.