The Libertarian "State"

[Blind groper]

Warren

You just have to look back at the last time England had a royal with genuine major power, and see how the ordinary people lived. The record is not inspiring. Royalty goes with poverty for all non aristocrats.

The biggest problem with government of any kind is to simply make sure those with power are not corrupt. We have done quite well here in NZ, but lots of nations with corrupt people in power have ordinary people who suffer badly. The ultimate corruption in government is to have a royal in charge.

[Jason]

'FSP annexes New Brunswick' - Reuters, AFP.

Libertarianism doesn't play nice with its neighbours.

[Seth]

To Seth

What you defined as 'rights' in the last post, I call inevitabilities. In the American declaration, you have 'the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' The latter is a misnomer. The pursuit of happiness is not a right. It is an inevitability, because even a man in prison will do whatever he can to improve his level of pleasure.


A right is something given by those in power. IF It is outside their ability to confer, it is not a right. It is an inevitability.

Wrong.

[piscator]

The enormous reservations of federal lands, some 60 percent or more, along with severing of mineral rights was extracted from the people of the states against their wishes by Congress, which demanded that the occupants of the new states surrender ALL right and title to unappropriated lands to the federal government as a condition of statehood, something that was not done in the eastern United States. This is why, for example, the federal government "owns" more than 80% of the state of Nevada, and therefore pays no taxes to the state of Nevada, putting Nevada at a substantial disadvantage economically from other states where the lands within the state's boundaries that are not privately owned largely belong to the STATE, not the federal government.

One of the solutions to the budget deficit and national debt is for the federal government to do as it has done before and sell off vast amounts of federal lands to private individuals. There is another movement that claims that most federal lands, like National Forests and BLM lands do not legitimately belong to the federal government at all, but belong to the State, under the Equal Footing Doctrine.

The federal government has no business owning ANY land at all except for those purposes explicitly authorized in the Constitution, which explicitly limits what the federal government may own: "and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings."

Please note that the Constitution REQUIRES that the Congress, only with the CONSENT of the state involved, is allowed to PURCHASE lands within a state for government structures, including post offices and post roads, from the states. The obvious implication is that the title to the lands within the boundaries of a state are the property of the STATE, not the federal government.

The coerced surrender of these lands by states in the west is a direct violation of the Equal Footing Doctrine, and a direct violation of the constitutional LIMITATIONS on the acquisition and ownership of property.

Another example of you googling up some silly shit from some objectivist website, and leaving totally fucked up about it...


If you're bent about inheriting some lands on federal mineral reservations which preexisted not only homestead claims, but certain states and which those states recognized in their eventual charters of statehood, the courts are at your disposal. Otherwise, pound sand - Just be sure you don't extract any valuable minerals in the process without sharing it with the US taxpayer.

[piscator]

Personal attack reported. And if you don't get time off I'll translate and rebut your slur in plain language.

[piscator]

Yes, absolutely. Individual rights exist irrespective of the existence of government. Government doesn't grant me the right to defend my life, or to find food and water, reduce it to my personal possession and defend it against others taking it from me. Government does not grant me a right to find a woman and procreate and defend my family from harm. I have those rights independent of government and as a function of my existence as a living being capable of asserting and defending those rights.

Oh yeah? Get locked up in prison and see if you still have those rights.

[Blind groper]

Seth has this weird belief that 'rights' are conferred by some divine source. Maybe by the nature goddess, Gaea.

In fact, 'rights' are only privileges granted to people by whoever is in power. We live in fortunate times, in that those in power grant rights to ordinary citizens. In times gone by, rights were restricted to royalty or to the nobility.

Back in medieval times, the humble peasant had no rights. He could be arrested, tortured, killed, or had his daughter raped, all by the nobility, without any come back. Kings invented for themselves the 'divine right of kings'. They had the power, so could give themselves rights.

It is only relatively recently that the ordinary citizen could receive personal rights. The code of rights is a mark of a modern civilised society, and is best exemplified in the United Nations declaration of human rights.

But there are no divinely bestowed "rights", whether by Yahweh or Gaea. Only those privileges given by those in power.

[JimC]

Blind groper wrote:

But there are no divinely bestowed "rights", whether by Yahweh or Gaea. Only those privileges given by those in power.

Agree with the first sentence, but I rather hope the second is dated. Civilised communities make (or should make) collective decisions about human rights; they should no longer have to trickle down from an elite...

[Jason]

Communities, countries, and corporations rise and fall. Systems of control are inevitably subverted by clever people who have agendas or idiots or clever idiots or all three. Even in a system where an auto-'correcting' feedback subroutine is introduced there is the question of the 'correctness' and who decides what is 'correct'. Never mind that 'clever' people can introduce their own feedback subroutines and augment the system to suit their agenda.

'Rights' and 'politics' are a blanket for the naive, a cloak for the malicious and clever, and a weapon for the revolutionary. Cloaks, blankets, and daggers. Smoke and mirrors. Power is an illusion. The most skilled magician wins.

You granted a government power over you and it granted you rights? Naive and absurd. You've granted yourself rights by choosing to live under that political system in return for a warm fuzzy blanket you can pull over your head when the world is scary.

Where do you get your information from? What are their sources? Is it information, disinformation, propaganda, or something else?

It is a medley of all four. The media in your face with advertisements, 24 hour news networks, video games, printed media, all sources of information, coalated, analyzed, tweaked, 'auto-tuned', spun, rewritten, and dispensed in an 'unstoppable' recursive function. 'Social' media is a tool. It can be used to model population trends and make adjustments to systems of control (e.g. governments). It can also be used to mold population trends to make changes to systems of control. The lone nut on the corner handing out mimeographs isn't necessarily alone anymore. Change is bilateral now. If you have the stomach for that kind of thing. Depending on where you live and who you know, or don't. Introducing 'noise' into the feedback system is a great way to effect small change. Once the 'signal' to 'noise' ratio is in balance.. GG.

Tabula eRasta. :tinfoilhat:

[rainbow]

Question : why is there no libertarian state anywhere in the world today?

Because individuals don't form states

Wrong. Somalia is a good example of a state without any government interference in the workings of business.

...what could go wrong?

Somalia is a good example of anarchy, not Libertarianism.

One man's anarchy is another man's Libertarianism...

One thinks of a Hobbesian "war of all against all"...

Perhaps Seth can explain how Libertarianism would not descend into Anarchy.

[MrJonno]

Perhaps Seth can explain how Libertarianism would not descend into Anarchy.

Seth would shoot all the rioting peasants and there wouldn't be any anarchy , or anyone to actually do any work and make life even remotely bearable

[Warren Dew]

Warren

You just have to look back at the last time England had a royal with genuine major power, and see how the ordinary people lived. The record is not inspiring. Royalty goes with poverty for all non aristocrats.

The biggest problem with government of any kind is to simply make sure those with power are not corrupt. We have done quite well here in NZ, but lots of nations with corrupt people in power have ordinary people who suffer badly. The ultimate corruption in government is to have a royal in charge.

So when you said:

Lots of people present a very cynical view of government, suggesting it is simply the whims of a bunch of idiots we call politicians.

In established nations that is not true. Here in NZ, we are the heirs of the British system, which is a system going back many centuries. I sometimes think one of the reasons the USA does so many less than civilised things is that it rejected the British system.

You didn't mean it? The main aspect of the British system that the U.S. has rejected is royalty, after all.

[JimC]

Warren

You just have to look back at the last time England had a royal with genuine major power, and see how the ordinary people lived. The record is not inspiring. Royalty goes with poverty for all non aristocrats.

The biggest problem with government of any kind is to simply make sure those with power are not corrupt. We have done quite well here in NZ, but lots of nations with corrupt people in power have ordinary people who suffer badly. The ultimate corruption in government is to have a royal in charge.

So when you said:

Lots of people present a very cynical view of government, suggesting it is simply the whims of a bunch of idiots we call politicians.

In established nations that is not true. Here in NZ, we are the heirs of the British system, which is a system going back many centuries. I sometimes think one of the reasons the USA does so many less than civilised things is that it rejected the British system.

You didn't mean it? The main aspect of the British system that the U.S. has rejected is royalty, after all.

I think you are wilfully misreading BG:

...a royal with genuine major power...

His point is that the royalty of old (in any country) was, in essence corrupt; the whole history of Britain involves the steady muzzling of royal power and its replacement by parliamentary power, until you are left with figureheads that please traditionalists, and draw tourists...

[Blind groper]

Thank you, Jim. A nice precis.

What Americans sometimes forget is that Britain had a democratically elected parliament long before they got rid of kings. Parliament and royalty coexisted for centuries in a weird juxtaposition, till the Brits turned royalty into tourist attractions, to suck in gullible Americans.

[Warren Dew]

Warren

You just have to look back at the last time England had a royal with genuine major power, and see how the ordinary people lived. The record is not inspiring. Royalty goes with poverty for all non aristocrats.

The biggest problem with government of any kind is to simply make sure those with power are not corrupt. We have done quite well here in NZ, but lots of nations with corrupt people in power have ordinary people who suffer badly. The ultimate corruption in government is to have a royal in charge.

So when you said:

Lots of people present a very cynical view of government, suggesting it is simply the whims of a bunch of idiots we call politicians.

In established nations that is not true. Here in NZ, we are the heirs of the British system, which is a system going back many centuries. I sometimes think one of the reasons the USA does so many less than civilised things is that it rejected the British system.

You didn't mean it? The main aspect of the British system that the U.S. has rejected is royalty, after all.

I think you are wilfully misreading BG:

...a royal with genuine major power...

His point is that the royalty of old (in any country) was, in essence corrupt; the whole history of Britain involves the steady muzzling of royal power and its replacement by parliamentary power, until you are left with figureheads that please traditionalists, and draw tourists...

But he's claiming the benefit is from "a system going back many centuries". The monarch had substantial power as recently as Victoria, which was less than two centuries ago.