[Jean Valjean]

(04-29-2016 07:47 PM)MMX2010 Wrote:  

Food safety laws, child safety laws, and laws surrounding what is "science" all exist to curtail the most powerful.

That's a justification often used for why they exist, but that doesn't mean the state is the most efficient means of actually achieving these goals. For one thing, the state is usually controlled by the most powerful, who then use the state to entrench their privileged status. Minors, for example, have no vote in elections. When their freedom to be laborers and consumers is taken away, they have even less political power, because they can't donate to political causes, vote with their feet by moving to different jurisdictions, purchase access to uncensored Internet connections with which to become well-informed and voice their political opinions, etc. So if they were to prefer to be in a different spot in the continuum between freedom and paternalism, they would have no means of getting there.

Theoretically, mandatory, state-funded education empowers kids by laying the foundation for them to earn more and be better-informed citizens in the future, but of course state schools are also in an excellent position to indoctrinate kids to support the state's favored ideologies, and beyond a certain point, education probably doesn't prepare kids as well for most jobs as on-the-job training could. Forcing kids to spend their days sitting in a classroom also takes away time they might have spent on political activism, if they were so inclined. Instead of reading dissident works, they have to study the approved texts so that they can regurgitate for the exams the government propaganda they were taught in civics class.

It creates the same problem adults have, of being too busy to stay well-informed and active in the political arena. Sometimes the state will present kids with a few slightly-differing centrist political opinions, and ask them to choose the one they agree with the most and debate its merits in class. But the most truly revolutionary opinions, which are never talked about in debates among the ruling parties' candidates, will be outside the scope of these discussions. The state is teaching them to engage in controlled speech, as opposed to free speech.

As for food safety, it sounds great in practice, but government ends up overreaching by banning stuff like raw milk products and putting kids out of business who try to start unregulated lemonade stands. It tends to be the smaller businesses (i.e. the non-politically-powerful) that have trouble affording compliance with all the regulations out there.

[TooFineAPoint]

(05-01-2016 10:01 AM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

Ask the rural whites in various parts of Africa what they think about that sometime. Oh wait, you can't because they are dead, silenced, or in a hospital somewhere after being gang raped.

So their government didn't protect them then?

[Samuel Konkin III]

In reply to the O.P...

If anything, it's the “minimalist government” libertarians ala Ron Paul that are a bit wonky.

Their attempts to affect change via the electoral system have failed time-and-time again. Government is still getting bigger, more invasive, and freedom is evaporating.

You can't 'fix' a system that is inherently broken. The whole premise of government is control, and coercion.

But who is controlling what, and to what end? It's a beast with an insatiable appetite. And that's why any attempts to scale it back are doomed to fail.

Now, for those of you statists championing the NEED for government...

I think we can all agree that the most basic purpose of government is to protect it's citizens.

Objectively, how's this working out for us?

-The borders are porous. Hundreds of thousands of criminals seep through it ever year.

-Police response times are PATHETIC in much of the country. You can't count on them to rescue you in case of a home invasion. (Better buy a gun...)

-Millions of American boys have been drafted (ie..enslaved) since WWI fighting wars overseas that had NOTHING to do with them. Many thousands of them died.

-Thanks to a particularly egregious foreign policy in recent years, anti-Americanism is a global phenomenon.

Any rational chap would acknowledge that our government has done a shitty job of protecting the people, and has actually DECREASED our safety around the world.

So if government fails at this most basic of services, what the hell is it good for?

I could write an equally damning critique of government roads, healthcare, utilities, the postal service. There are ALREADY superior offerings to be found in the free market for these services.

Government isn't a “necessary evil”. It's just evil.

No other institution has been responsible for as much theft, murder, and tyranny. And the worst bit about it is that it's legitimized under the illusion of democratic representation.

People need to understand that there really is no such thing as government. They're just men looking out for their own interests.

The dangerous thing about them is they operate outside of self-correcting force of the free market. They don't need to create value. They don't need to solve problems. They just take. And the public is by in large too brainwashed to see through their con, and too docile to do anything about it.

Hopefully, America will wake the fuck up one day...

[Phoenix]

(05-05-2016 02:28 PM)Samuel Konkin III Wrote:  

Hopefully, America will wake the fuck up one day...

That doesn't mean anything though. The only way out is for an Article 5 convention that devolves more power back to the states, such as repealing the 16th and 17th amendment and most of the 14th. People simply won't 'vote for the right thing' at a ballot box -- there is a tragedy of the commons game at play where it's always best to loot all you're able. It is a constitutional question, not a legislative or executive question.

[Samuel Konkin III]

It's not the only way out...

The power the federal government wields is solely based on their ability to tax/print money. Without said money, they lose the ability to coerce via the military and police state.

Starve the beast, and it will die. Read up on counter-economics if you're intrigued.

[Kid Twist]

I haven't read the whole thread but I can tell you why I'm not a libertarian anymore, though I have major liberty leanings and generally like Rand and Ron Paul (I would call myself current just a "Constitutionalist").

It became recently more obvious that if you take the libertarian viewpoint all the way out, there will be a one world gov't/currency.

Trump basically exposed this. If you are trying to piece that together, the reason I came to the conclusion is that because of multinationals and disparities of standards of living and income, wealth disparities (which I'm not against to a degree) will become so egregious (we make something somewhere else and pay them 1/100th of the cost but sell it here for huge profit because our standard is so much higher) that there isn't even a point of having a country anymore (which is what we're seeing). Who cares if we can all buy 4K HDTVs for 1/3 the "cost" if our fellow citizens have not shot at creating a reasonable, hard earned, life through work? Yes, lots of variables at play but free trade in the existing international structure only exacerbates national problems and is making us closer to what India is like, not what we used to be like.

[heavy]

Am I the first to offer the difference between Federal powers and State powers? I'd argue most libertarians have, at their hearts, the issue against policing powers from the federal government. This may not always be transparent in discussions, as this and the previous 2 pages have shown, but I believe the idea would be generally well accepted by the most.

These United States (that is, a union not of people but states) were founded on an extremely limited federal government, meaning:
- Federal to protect from without (military, tariffs, trade laws)
- States to protect from within (policing, private property laws)

[MMX2010]

(05-05-2016 02:28 PM)Samuel Konkin III Wrote:  

I think we can all agree that the most basic purpose of government is to protect it's citizens.

I don't agree with this at all.

History and human biology have repeatedly demonstrated the Rule of 150, which states that the maximum number of people you can be acquainted with is roughly 150. Before governments existed tribes and groups of all kind were maximized at 150 unless religious indoctrination or government force was applied.

Thus, the purpose of government is to ensure that people can band together in numbers larger than 150, without splintering into faction wars and complete barbarism.

Before you give examples of wars and whatnot, bear in mind that the prehistoric murder rate was extremely high. And none of the modern examples you'll cite will match the prehistoric (read: pre-government) murder rate.

Either religion or government is inevitable, if you want groups larger than 150. So libertarianism, as a reachable social organization, will not happen in numbers larger than 150 - (unless you fuse libertarianism with some form of religion).

[Big Swinging Dick]

(05-10-2016 06:21 PM)MMX2010 Wrote:  

(05-05-2016 02:28 PM)Samuel Konkin III Wrote:  

I think we can all agree that the most basic purpose of government is to protect it's citizens.

Thus, the purpose of government is to ensure that people can band together in numbers larger than 150, without splintering into faction wars and complete barbarism.

You don't need a formalized government to "band together" in times of need.

Rome was conquered by tribes who had no notion of government. (By the way, those tribes numbers in the hundreds of thousands--not a measly 150).

When individuals in a community deem there is a common threat, they can and often do voluntarily come together.

Quote:

Before you give examples of wars and whatnot, bear in mind that the prehistoric murder rate was extremely high. And none of the modern examples you'll cite will match the prehistoric (read: pre-government) murder rate.

Rubbish. The greatest mass murderers in history have all been states. Just look at the Soviet Union and China, under Stalin and Mao respectively--about a 100 million people slaughtered between them. Those weren't even war-time scenarios. Governments/religions bent on enforcing their ideals upon the rest of us have always been the greatest threat to humanity...

[MMX2010]

(05-10-2016 10:30 PM)Big Swinging Dick Wrote:  

You don't need a formalized government to "band together" in times of need.

Rome

Every libertarian cites examples from over a thousand years ago to formulate their arguments, and every libertarian bristles when I say, "If all your examples come from over a thousand years ago, it means you've lost the argument."

Quote:

Rubbish. The greatest mass murderers in history have all been states.

The stated purpose of being a libertarian is to eliminate all governments. The above statement has been made hundreds of millions of times, and it has never convinced anyone to get rid of the government.

------------

As an aside, I do have some interesting things to contribute in alignment with Phoenix's request, but they'll take me some time to prepare.

[Big Swinging Dick]

(05-10-2016 11:16 PM)MMX2010 Wrote:  

(05-10-2016 10:30 PM)Big Swinging Dick Wrote:  

You don't need a formalized government to "band together" in times of need.

Rome

Every libertarian cites examples from over a thousand years ago to formulate their arguments, and every libertarian bristles when I say, "If all your examples come from over a thousand years ago, it means you've lost the argument."

Haha, you were the one going on about 150-people evolutionary group maximums from eons ago!

You think human nature has changed much in 1,000 years? Unlikely.

Quote:

The stated purpose of being a libertarian is to eliminate all governments.

Wrong, there are many different camps within the Libertarian movement.

The majority of libertarians are minarchists. They believe in a bare-bones, minimalist state--much like the Founding Fathers.

Personally, I think those libertarians are naive. The "necessary evil" argument is like saying, "just give me a little poison".

Quote:

The above statement has been made hundreds of millions of times, and it has never convinced anyone to get rid of the government.

Throughout MOST of human history, powerful,centralized government were extremely RARE. Most of humanity operated as tribal units, or loose confederations at best. That is the natural state of man. At the core, 99.9% of us just want to be left alone to seek our own happiness without tyrants or demagogues telling us how we should live.

Your arguments that we NEED government/religion frankly just don't hold any water. But I look forward to scrutinizing what you've "prepared". :-)

[Orion]

The most striking thing about American libertarianism is how Americans are transferring their trauma (present in the entirety of western world nowadays) with their central government, to include every kind of rule or hierarchy, creating nothing short of a certain type of spirit which automatically wants to subvert any order or dependency.

I will only propose the possibility that not every type of state structure is degenerate in nature.