The Libertarian "State"

[piscator]

Gotta love the repetitive appeal to the American Constitution as the Eden of Libertarianism, where half of the "Founding Fathers" were slave owners and none of them advocated the right for women to vote.

You can only make those spurious accusations via the benefit of hindsight. The Founding Fathers were born into a British system that encouraged slavery and thought little of universal suffrage, and you would have little high ground to moralize were you born into those times and places.

That being said, the US Constitution is hardly a rigid "Law of the Persians and the Medes" or even a usually clear document. There is no such thing as an obviously "neutral" constitutional position, nor is there a such thing as an "understanding of the Constitution" beyond really basic principles. There is significant scope for interpretation. Anyone who isn't occasionally galled by SCOTUS isn't paying attention, but as the Constitutional final arbiter, the Court's decisions have weight of law until we amend said Constitution. At least their rulings are sometimes narrow, and they publish dissenting opinions that also carry weight of jurisprudence in some circumstances.
Those Americans who hold themselves to be "Classical Liberals" a.k.a. "Political Fundys" affect a knowledge of "Intent" which they do not possess, and like religious fundys, tend to lack the discernment to see things in other than monochromatic terms. Have some sympathy, they're doing the best they can with the propaganda they've been inculcated with.

[Seth]

The problem is, Seth.
Where do you draw the line between state control and personal freedom?

Libertarians become very vague when details are required.
We all would be happy to "let be" in an ideal world, but we don't have an ideal world.

The line is drawn at the point that the individual initiates force or fraud against others. What you need to understand is that "force or fraud" is a term that's capable of dealing with complex interactions, which is why I continue to suggest that you consider examples and allow me to describe how the principles of Libertarianism address them. That is the best way to get an honest view of Libertarianism in action.

OK. I live in a village where the only sweet water well is on my property. I sell the water for an exhorbitant price. The locals can walk 10km to the nearest river to draw water, which is polluted. They have a clear choice, get sick, or buy my water.

How does a Libertarian State deal with this?

By respecting private property rights and engaging in voluntary free market negotiations and contracting.

And if that doesn't work because you are simply being an asshole, then the community withdraws it's support for YOU, which means you can't buy food, you can't buy gasoline, you can't get medical care, you can't go to a movie, you can't buy toilet paper, you can't walk in a park or drive on a road or anything else because the people of the community shun you and refuse to trade or interact with you in any way, which means you can sit on your property and drink sweet water until you die of boredom.

Instead they will fund development of their own well, or a water purifying system, or a collective effort to transport large quantities of water for the community for use by those who cooperate and participate in the program.

What a Libertarian society will not do is presume that just because it needs or wants something that it has some right to use force or fraud to obtain it from the individual against his will, because it recognizes that the individual has no duty to sacrifice his labor or property to others against his will merely because they want or need it.

[Seth]

This is a poorly thought out example.
If the river is polluted then your ground water will be too.

Incorrect.

I have a spring on my property that produces the clearest, and purest water. It is not even a well, since I did not have to dig for it. It just bubbles out of the ground. Yet, less than 1 km away, the ground water is polluted to hell, and is rich in coliform bacteria.

The libertarian philosophy is not correct either, for the simple reason that humanity is a species that has always depended on mutual help. The concept of the liberated individual, self sufficient, is bullshit. We are all dependent on others, and we all extend our help to others. In a modern and humane society, this takes the form of some kind of socialism, in wich we pay taxes, and a part of those taxes is used to help out those who are less fortunate. This is the way it is, and it is also the way it should be.

The key concept you state is totally compatible with Libertarian principles: Mutual help. Cooperation. Altruistic and charitable actions made for reasons of rational self-interest.

The primary distinction between socialism and Libertarianism is the incompatible concept that the collective has moral authority to initiate force on behalf of the collective against the individual because the needs or wants of the collective are more important than the rights and autonomy of the individual. There are plenty of ways that a society can use social pressure to encourage socially-acceptable behavior short of initiating force. And in the end, if the individual refuses to be socially cooperative then the community simply rejects the individual completely and finds other ways to resolve it's problems without initiating force.

It is socialism that is wrong from first principles because it insists that quite literally ANY degree of force, up to and including lethal force, may be used, and is morally and ethically acceptable, to coerce the labor or property of the individual even when the individual has no duty to labor or sacrifice on behalf of the collective that might be created by his use or consumption of public amenities or services. In socialism the individual ceases to exist as an autonomous entity and becomes nothing more than a disposable part in the socialist machine that can, will, and often is disposed of in the most violent and horrific ways imaginable when it does not function as directed.

[Seth]

I've explored your "ideas" briefly and found them to have little regard for anything other than your personal interpretation of the intents of people you've never met and who died long before you were born, handwaving centuries of Constitutional authority, legislative action, and Supreme Court decisions as mere fallacies of common practice in your quest to insert your onanistic oughts into eminently practicable and organically derived iss.

What is and what ought to be are not inexorably the same thing.

True. In fact, it's a grave logical error to go from an is to an ought, and getting the is wrong in the first place only aggravates the flaw.

In the course of making some wild declarations like the US Government is constitutionally barred from possessing any lands, you implied the US Government arbitrarily takes certain (mineral) rights from private landowners. I pointed out you were seriously in error.

No, you ASSERTED that I am in error by committing the fallacy of appeal to common practice. Now all you have to do is build a rational foundation and argument to support that assertion and we can then continue to discuss the fine points involved. Except you don't want to do that.

In fact, you're usually fucked up whenever you open your mouth about US land law, a subject in which I have a particular expertise and hence, a certain authority.

I dispute your qualifications. Now you are using an appeal to authority fallacy, and you're claiming yourself as the expert that supports the arguments that you have not yet made.

This is not a true/false quiz about the state of land use law in the United States you see, it's a philosophical discussion about the motives, justifications, strengths, weaknesses and rationales involved in land use law in the United States. I say "This is what the Founders intended, and what exists now is in direct conflict with their original intent and here's why." You say "This is what the law is and it got that way because that's the way it got that way, so it must therefore be correct." That is a quintessential appeal to common practice fallacy.

When I produce evidence to support the claim that you are batshit on a certain issue, you further my case when you repeat, 'Neener neener! Fallacy!!' ad nauseum. What's more, this behavior offers continuing strong support to the general proposition that "Seth is a gobby git".

Wind your neck in, get on the page, and quit making a twit of yourself. That is all.

Go fuck yourself.

Now, once again, you substitute ad hom personalization for rational debate because, evidently, you have no rational argument to make in support of your fallacious appeals to common practice.

You can allude to stare decisis all you want but that doesn't make your argument valid, it just demonstrates that you haven't the wit or intelligence to engage in a rational philosophical debate that steps outside your narrow-minded preconceptions and hide-bound obedience to precedent.

Precedent, you see, is much more political than it is rational, which you would know if you actually had a working knowledge of how our court system actually works. But you're not interested in examining the strengths or weaknesses of how we got to where we are today, you just want to blindly claim that because the Supreme Court of the Congress said this or that it must mean that those decisions are inexorably morally, ethically or legally correct.

Here's a clue for you: They aren't. Rather often in fact. That they constitute the status quo isn't really an argument of any rational value unless and until you can demonstrate through rational and logical analysis how and why they are morally, ethically and legally correct. Anything else is, ipso facto a fallacious appeal to common practice or authority.

[piscator]

I dispute your qualifications.

I'm all busted up.


Why don't you take your wealth of standing and go and get my C. Fed. S. pulled?

[Seth]

I dispute your qualifications.

I'm all busted up.


Why don't you take your wealth of standing and go and get my C. Fed. S. pulled?

See, the thing about discussion groups that I love the most is that you are what you write. It's a very egalitarian meritocracy and it doesn't matter if your name is Richard Dawkins or Albert Einstein, if you can't, or won't put up a good argument you're just another pseudo-intellectual wannabe pundit. Fact is you're just as likely to be a 19 year old college student posting from his parent's basement in his underwear as you are to be qualified to do anything. You certainly haven't demonstrated the wit or intelligence to do more than toss out fallacy after fallacy and engage in diversionary ad hom.

Of course I could be wrong, but we'll never know as long as you refuse to engage the debate honestly.

[piscator]

You need to get out more, Seth.

[Seth]

You need to get out more, Seth.

You need to think more.

[rainbow]

The problem is, Seth.
Where do you draw the line between state control and personal freedom?

Libertarians become very vague when details are required.
We all would be happy to "let be" in an ideal world, but we don't have an ideal world.

The line is drawn at the point that the individual initiates force or fraud against others. What you need to understand is that "force or fraud" is a term that's capable of dealing with complex interactions, which is why I continue to suggest that you consider examples and allow me to describe how the principles of Libertarianism address them. That is the best way to get an honest view of Libertarianism in action.

OK. I live in a village where the only sweet water well is on my property. I sell the water for an exhorbitant price. The locals can walk 10km to the nearest river to draw water, which is polluted. They have a clear choice, get sick, or buy my water.

How does a Libertarian State deal with this?

By respecting private property rights and engaging in voluntary free market negotiations and contracting.

And if that doesn't work because you are simply being an asshole, then the community withdraws it's support for YOU, which means you can't buy food, you can't buy gasoline, you can't get medical care, you can't go to a movie, you can't buy toilet paper, you can't walk in a park or drive on a road or anything else because the people of the community shun you and refuse to trade or interact with you in any way, which means you can sit on your property and drink sweet water until you die of boredom.

Instead they will fund development of their own well, or a water purifying system, or a collective effort to transport large quantities of water for the community for use by those who cooperate and participate in the program.

What a Libertarian society will not do is presume that just because it needs or wants something that it has some right to use force or fraud to obtain it from the individual against his will, because it recognizes that the individual has no duty to sacrifice his labor or property to others against his will merely because they want or need it.

One big problem with your solution is that they will all be dead long before I run out of toilet paper. Plus I'll have all the money I need to go to the next town for my supplies.

[Blind groper]

To Seth

Charity versus socialism

You claim that a libertarian state does not require socialist principles because helping those in need will come from voluntary donations. I dispute this. My claim is that voluntary donations, or charity, is simply inadequate to meet the need.

Take the recent Philippines typhoon which has left millions homeless and desperate for food and clean water and medical supplies. In NZ, the Red Cross has set up a fund for voluntary donations to assist. So far, it has raised $ 500,000 (including $200 which I sent). In the same time, the NZ government, drawing on taxpayer money, has sent aid to the value of $ 5,000,000. The USA government, to its credit, has sent aid from its taxpayers to the value of many millions more.

If the Filipino people relied on voluntary donations, thousands would die unnecessarily from hunger, thirst and preventable diseases.

[Hermit]

Gotta love the repetitive appeal to the American Constitution as the Eden of Libertarianism, where half of the "Founding Fathers" were slave owners and none of them advocated the right for women to vote.

You can only make those spurious accusations via the benefit of hindsight. The Founding Fathers were born into a British system that encouraged slavery and thought little of universal suffrage, and you would have little high ground to moralize were you born into those times and places.

That being said, the US Constitution is hardly a rigid "Law of the Persians and the Medes" or even a usually clear document. There is no such thing as an obviously "neutral" constitutional position, nor is there a such thing as an "understanding of the Constitution" beyond really basic principles. There is significant scope for interpretation. Anyone who isn't occasionally galled by SCOTUS isn't paying attention, but as the Constitutional final arbiter, the Court's decisions have weight of law until we amend said Constitution. At least their rulings are sometimes narrow, and they publish dissenting opinions that also carry weight of jurisprudence in some circumstances.
Those Americans who hold themselves to be "Classical Liberals" a.k.a. "Political Fundys" affect a knowledge of "Intent" which they do not possess, and like religious fundys, tend to lack the discernment to see things in other than monochromatic terms. Have some sympathy, they're doing the best they can with the propaganda they've been inculcated with.

Apart from your claim that my accusations are spurious, I agree with everything you said. My post was aimed at Seth, who holds the utterances of the holy Founding Fathers as principles writ in stone as far as the liberty of the individual is concerned. Far from it, in practical terms a huge swathe of humanity - slaves - was excluded for about a century, and the largest majority of humans - women - for even longer.

[Warren Dew]

The problem is, Seth.
Where do you draw the line between state control and personal freedom?

Libertarians become very vague when details are required.
We all would be happy to "let be" in an ideal world, but we don't have an ideal world.

The line is drawn at the point that the individual initiates force or fraud against others. What you need to understand is that "force or fraud" is a term that's capable of dealing with complex interactions, which is why I continue to suggest that you consider examples and allow me to describe how the principles of Libertarianism address them. That is the best way to get an honest view of Libertarianism in action.

OK. I live in a village where the only sweet water well is on my property. I sell the water for an exhorbitant price. The locals can walk 10km to the nearest river to draw water, which is polluted. They have a clear choice, get sick, or buy my water.

How does a Libertarian State deal with this?

They allow someone else to dig another well, unlike a socialist state.

[rainbow]

The problem is, Seth.
Where do you draw the line between state control and personal freedom?

Libertarians become very vague when details are required.
We all would be happy to "let be" in an ideal world, but we don't have an ideal world.

The line is drawn at the point that the individual initiates force or fraud against others. What you need to understand is that "force or fraud" is a term that's capable of dealing with complex interactions, which is why I continue to suggest that you consider examples and allow me to describe how the principles of Libertarianism address them. That is the best way to get an honest view of Libertarianism in action.

OK. I live in a village where the only sweet water well is on my property. I sell the water for an exhorbitant price. The locals can walk 10km to the nearest river to draw water, which is polluted. They have a clear choice, get sick, or buy my water.

How does a Libertarian State deal with this?

They allow someone else to dig another well, unlike a socialist state.

They tried this, only found brackish water.

Meanwhile children are dying...

[Clinton Huxley]

According to James Streba on the Wiki page, here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_ ... rtarianism, the right of the rich not to be interfered with in the satisfaction of their luxury needs is morally trumped by the right of the poor "not to be interfered with in taking from the surplus possessions of the rich what is necessary to satisfy their basic needs".

ie, if they need your water, they are entitled to try to take it.

[Jason]

See, the thing about discussion groups that I love the most is that you are what you write. It's a very egalitarian meritocracy and it doesn't matter if your name is Richard Dawkins or Albert Einstein, if you can't, or won't put up a good argument you're just another pseudo-intellectual wannabe pundit. Fact is you're just as likely to be a 19 year old college student posting from his parent's basement in his underwear as you are to be qualified to do anything. You certainly haven't demonstrated the wit or intelligence to do more than toss out fallacy after fallacy and engage in diversionary ad hom.

Of course I could be wrong, but we'll never know as long as you refuse to engage the debate honestly.

False dichotomy!!!~!@!

Option the third: Idjut's rightin shit t'aint worth mah time.