kenandkids said:Fuck the mod note, Peacock described you with such a delicate brush...
Really, don't. Consider this a warning.
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kenandkids said:Fuck the mod note, Peacock described you with such a delicate brush...
obsidianavenger said:AdmiralPeacock said:Pfft - it's more than simply "emotionally charged language", but what ever. Just don't get butthurt when people use "emotionally charged language" to describe the libertarians position in return.
its not just emotionally charged though, its downright inaccurate. andiferous basically said that voluntary associations wouldn't exist under anarchy. thats not even close to true.
AdmiralPeacock said:No less inaccurate as the stuff presented by libertarians/anarchists.
obsidianavenger said:its not just emotionally charged though, its downright inaccurate. andiferous basically said that voluntary associations wouldn't exist under anarchy. thats not even close to true.
obsidianavenger said:AdmiralPeacock said:No less inaccurate as the stuff presented by libertarians/anarchists.
do you have an example of what you mean?
http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6800
Fundamentally there is a difference between social obligation and charity:
Social obligation stems from the semi-official contract you engage upon entering a given society (via birth or immigration) to which there is a level of give and take from the individual and the society. You utilize resources, services and facilities provided by the society and in turn you contribute to the means for the society to provide the resources, services and facilities. The only way to avoid any variation of this relationship is to live as a hermit in a remote corner of some wilderness and live a completely self sufficient lifestyle with no interactions with the outside human world. What a society can do is alter the ratio of the interaction.
Empirically speaking, the societies with the highest Social obligatory interactions - e.i. social services tend to have the best standards of living: The Human Development Index (HDI) found in the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Reports, formulates the HDI using a statistic composed from data on life expectancy, education and per-capita GNI. Consistently the highest ranking countries always offer social services to some high degree - and while some nations that do offer social services, almost all the lowest ranking nations do not. Now I'm not saying collation necessarily equals causation but it is interesting.
http://hdr.undp.org/
It's interesting that nations that provide for the poorest members of their society generally and consistently produce more overall wealth than nations that do not. There are many explanations for this; such as the in a capitalistic model, there are always power differences and the poor always constitute the majority - thus in a democratic (using the colloquial definition) type society, the majority loses trust in a negligent government and destabilization is inevitable. Hungry, cold and sick people are dangerous - and who can blame them? You're starving, your children are starving and your next door neighbour is having Steak... A countries success in the world is directly proportionate to the population's general education, before the introduction of public education the vast majority of the USA were illiterate and the nation in general was not exactly a world power at the time.
There's heaps more, but you (well some of you) will get what I'm talking about.
Charity on the other hand is things we do beyond our social obligations - out of sympathy, pity, tax purposes, or simply to feel good. I.e. not obligatory.
televator said:obsidianavenger said:its not just emotionally charged though, its downright inaccurate. andiferous basically said that voluntary associations wouldn't exist under anarchy. thats not even close to true.
Okay, my self exemption didn't last long... Anyway, can you explain how this is false? And if so, would such voluntary organizations be large enough to accommodate enough people to really be effective?
obsidianavenger said:meh. an implicit contract can't be considered binding in the same way as a normal contract, especially if its considered agreed to just by being born... on the other hand i would agree with you that taxes aren't as bad as robbing someone at gunpoint... the acts are of the same kind but different degree (kind of like how affirmative action is racism but not nearly as bad as sh*t like jim crow laws).
anyway, the anarchists point is that the government shouldn't have to right to threaten violence against you just because you don't want to pay into their organization.
There are more than one developed nations out there with a plethora of different political policies - so have at it.if you voluntarily sign a contract then you've agreed to pay a certain amount by a certain time or face consequences that are generally agreed upon beforehand. the "contract" that you "agree to" simply by being born isn't even in the same league. theres really no option for someone who doesn't want to be a member of any state except to go live in a marginalized area that no one gives a sh*t about.
AdmiralPeacock said:But in (post industrial nations at least) there is nothing implicit about the contract - birth certificates (and equivalent), residency visas and registers (of various formats) are legal documents; adherences to the contract - BUT even if were implicit contracts, they would hold the same weight as an expressed contract (the fundamental difference between the two is an implicit contract can be harder to enforce - which is obviously not the case in citizenship).
It is true that you can't agree upon the contact just by being born; but that's why your legal guardians hold responsibility over your actions until your reach majority (age of consent)- much the same way they have to sign with you on a variety of other contracts.
It would be interesting to consider minors "non-citizens" until they reach age of consent and then give them the opportunity to apply for citizenship... but that would inevitably lead to a clusterfuck of inequality.
If you use their services, then they have as much right as a corporation or individual to seek compensation. Besides, as I understand it - violence is only a very last resort - to hear you say it, the tax departments of the world's governments are kicking in tax dodger's doors and breaking thumbs.
There are more than one developed nations out there with a plethora of different political policies - so have at it.
(A reapplication of a common Libertarian argument for how the free market would correct sucky businesses - if you don't like how company A conducts it's commerce, go with another company.)
1> That's not really relevant to whether the contract is implicate or expressive.obsidianavenger said:AdmiralPeacock said:But in (post industrial nations at least) there is nothing implicit about the contract - birth certificates (and equivalent), residency visas and registers (of various formats) are legal documents; adherences to the contract - BUT even if were implicit contracts, they would hold the same weight as an expressed contract (the fundamental difference between the two is an implicit contract can be harder to enforce - which is obviously not the case in citizenship).
if someone isn't given the option to disagree, but rather enrolled without being asked, how is that equivalent to a contract entered into voluntarily with an understanding of the terms?
It is true that you can't agree upon the contact just by being born; but that's why your legal guardians hold responsibility over your actions until your reach majority (age of consent)- much the same way they have to sign with you on a variety of other contracts.
generally your legal guardians aren't allowed to make decisions on your behalf of that magnitude unless the problem is time sensitive/life or death.
It would be interesting to consider minors "non-citizens" until they reach age of consent and then give them the opportunity to apply for citizenship... but that would inevitably lead to a clusterfuck of inequality.
meh, non-citizens are still entitled to the same protections as citizens on most issues aren't they? aside from social programs, it seems like not doing so would be a pretty messed up. i would support something like that.
If you use their services, then they have as much right as a corporation or individual to seek compensation. Besides, as I understand it - violence is only a very last resort - to hear you say it, the tax departments of the world's governments are kicking in tax dodger's doors and breaking thumbs.
exacting fines is a form of violence. also children don't make use of government services, though in many cases no doubt their parents do.
There are more than one developed nations out there with a plethora of different political policies - so have at it.
(A reapplication of a common Libertarian argument for how the free market would correct sucky businesses - if you don't like how company A conducts it's commerce, go with another company.)
except there aren't any countries out that that don't create a tax burden of some kind, and there are often barriers to immigration that make it impractical.
Very nice, I somehow missed that side of the argument.AdmiralPeacock said:There are more than one developed nations out there with a plethora of different political policies - so have at it.
(A reapplication of a common Libertarian argument for how the free market would correct sucky businesses - if you don't like how company A conducts it's commerce, go with another company.)
ImprobableJoe said:Very nice, I somehow missed that side of the argument.AdmiralPeacock said:There are more than one developed nations out there with a plethora of different political policies - so have at it.
(A reapplication of a common Libertarian argument for how the free market would correct sucky businesses - if you don't like how company A conducts it's commerce, go with another company.)![]()
AdmiralPeacock said:It does illustrate just how flawed their arguments are. The only work if they conceptualize governments into some kind of abstract devil entity which is the exception to the rules - that is of cause if you don't forcefully liquidate their assets; ie the everyone's assets into a smaller collection of private ownership.
obsidianavenger said:its false because anarchists see no problem with someone having authority over someone else- so long as that person has agreed to the terms beforehand. an organization need not be 100% democratic or consensus based in order for it to work in an an-cap society. an-caps don't believe that people should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and damn everyone else. they advocate the non-aggression principle:
"No one may threaten or commit violence ('aggress') against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory."(murray rothbard).
generally its to people's advantage to cooperate in achieving their goals. a group of many people working together can accomplish way more than a single person trying to do everything. people are generally rational enough to recognize this and would voluntarily join together the same way they do now in the labor market and in other pursuits. its coercion that anarchists are against, not cooperation.
AdmiralPeacock said:1> That's not really relevant to whether the contract is implicate or expressive.
2> It works under the same principle that legal guardians can makes decisions for a minor without consulting the minor - enrolling them in a given school, inducting them into a religion, choosing where they live, whether or not they can own a mobile, access to the Internet, and so on. It may not be good parenting practices, but legal guardians have near full autonomy over their minors. Once a minor gain age of consent they can effectively choose their own circumstances.
I don't know the laws where you live, but in most places I've encountered (directly and indirectly) legal guardians have virtually complete control over their children's decisions - whether or not they employ these powers is up to them. (this isn't including child right laws, which are part of the social contract with the legal guardians.)
Sure children do - they go to walk on the streets, utilize medical care, can go to public schools... but even if they didn't, so what? The children don't pay taxes.
Not the originating government's problem - as i said, it's a reapplication of the Libertarian argument; if there is only one hardware store in town and it doesn't serve black people, what are you going to do?
televator said:obsidianavenger said:its false because anarchists see no problem with someone having authority over someone else- so long as that person has agreed to the terms beforehand. an organization need not be 100% democratic or consensus based in order for it to work in an an-cap society. an-caps don't believe that people should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and damn everyone else. they advocate the non-aggression principle:
"No one may threaten or commit violence ('aggress') against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory."(murray rothbard).
generally its to people's advantage to cooperate in achieving their goals. a group of many people working together can accomplish way more than a single person trying to do everything. people are generally rational enough to recognize this and would voluntarily join together the same way they do now in the labor market and in other pursuits. its coercion that anarchists are against, not cooperation.
I must say I'm pleased with your level of discourse compared to the people who were in here before.
I'm actually good friends with a libertarian here at work and I'm surprised by how he started out at one extreme only to end up today in a position where we can work out some agreeable grounds... He admits that government can do and has done good things, and to disagreeing with the yahoos who absolutely demonize government. We often end up where having options that INCLUDE public/federal options and some mandatory regulation is a good thing. He still says he's about "free market", but I'm not sure that's really what it is he's agreeing to at that point....
Ultimately where it gets a bit sketchy is how the Government gets its income to fund it's optional programs. He seems to claim that the government could make ends meet by actually taxing large businesses more whilst leaving it up to choice for the public to pay into the system. I'm not sure If I agree with it all (or if any significant amount of libertarians would too), but my biggest concern with all that is that I'm not entirely unsure of whether that could lead to some sort of separatist state and whether or not if that is a good thing. That's entirely different from what the US has always been, and it still wouldn't do much to address the differences in how we view laws that affect civil liberties.
2> It works under the same principle that legal guardians can makes decisions for a minor without consulting the minor - enrolling them in a given school, inducting them into a religion, choosing where they live, whether or not they can own a mobile, access to the Internet, and so on. It may not be good parenting practices, but legal guardians have near full autonomy over their minors. Once a minor gain age of consent they can effectively choose their own circumstances.
i agree. so shouldn't the minor be able to opt out as an adult?
on time sensitive issues yes (a child can't choose their school when they are old enough to make the decision). but citizenship can wait, since children themselves don't really make use of social services- their parents do, perhaps on the child's behalf.
exactly. so you can't say they are participating in government services at all until they become autonomous as adults. until then they only really participate in society by proxy, through their parents.
open your own hardware store; if you don't someone else probably will. if that were really the case, and there was a serious unmet demand by black customers for a hardware store, someone would open it. the incentive would be there, the market would be there... i suppose its possible such a situation could arise, but it wouldn't be stable, because racism or no, a business opportunity is a business opportunity.
theres no niche where a libertarian society could appear, no opportunity for one to arise.
every existing state makes it illegal for someone to declare themselves free of taxes or restrictions. the hardware store that only serves blacks doesn't prevent you or someone else from opening another hardware store elsewhere, nor does it prevent other hardware stores from serving blacks. and yes, i know you hate the term "the state" lol but it really is more convenient than saying "governments".
obsidianavenger said:uh, yes it is. simply writing it down without having the other person read over and agree to it doesn't make it an explicit contract. explicit means explicitly agreed to, not actually written down regardless of agreement.
obsidianavenger said:Andiferous said:Yeah, I tend to think pure anarchy is impossible. But most pure ideologies are impossible, because people are in no way pure to begin with.
The extreme of libertarianism / anarchy would be zero social and/or government influence. Technically, not even social clubs and cliques.
i've been avoiding this thread cause theres enough drama in it already, but it drives me crazy when people misunderstand the libertarian/anarchist position in this way. voluntary organizations, even ones that seem to exert control over their members, are perfectly ok. people working together/cooperating for a common good is not only ok, its desirable. the only thing not ok is some organization calling itself government forcing people to participate in such things. social influence is fine, social control (in the form of jailing/punishing people who don't hold up to some social ideal) is not. also note that refraining from stealing and murder are not "social ideals" they are requirements of the non-aggression principle which most anarchists (at least an-caps) see as the root of their position. influence still allows someone the option to choose differently. control/force does not.
Andiferous said:Also, political positions are often defined by their extremes, but as I say, pure political ideologies are likely impossible since I have not yet met a pure human being. This is to say that there is a hybrid near anarchy that may include some of the good stuff like social responsibility or influence; but these are not inherent to the political libertarian extreme "anarchy" but likely some tainted version, so rather shouldn't be included in its' definition.
I don't even fully understand what your position is, how can I misunderstand it? As Gnug said, you've argued against what I've said, but not fully defined what you are advocating.AdmiralPeacock said:Do you get annoyed when people like mustard misunderstand every other position?