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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZvUMmDF0I4 That video is the be all end all of this discussion. Feel free to read several hundred pages if you remain interested after listening to us snicker for two hours. Since there is currently a giant clusterfuck going on in the US Politics thread, it probably wouldn't hurt to have our quarterly Libertarian/An Cap/Unmedicated Sociopath thread, if only so that Xylo has a conveniently easy thread to gas. Frankly I'd been pondering starting up something similar to this since I've bumped into a whole bunch of 'interesting' libertarian media as of late that I thought would make for good discussion. So with that out of the way I'd like to introduce some of the many, many flavors of Libertarian thought to those of you who don't already know everything about this:  The Libertarian Party By far the most mainstream form of Libertarian out there. The Libertarian Party 'brand' is closest to what I'd call 'constitutional libertarianism' or 'minarchism'. Specifically they tend to occupy a space in american policy far to both the right and to the left of Conservatives and Democrats respectively. Libertarians believe in ending the prohibition on illegal drugs, supporting gun ownership, ending foreign wars, reducing the military and so on while at the same time lobbying for fiscal policies that include opt out social security, ending medicare and medicaid, abolishing all forms of welfare and so on. The libertarian party is the third largest party in the US, and has ironically been the only party to ever have an electoral vote cast for a woman (vice president), in 1972. Which is cool I suppose. Less cool is the noted addition of David Koch in 1980 as vice presidential candidate. The typical flavor of the american mainstream libertarian can be summed up as 'go away'. They want the government to be reduced to an extent that even republicans are unwilling to speak of publicly. This puts them in the weird position of being very agreeable to both liberals and conservaatives, though their harsh policies on fiscal spending tend to run them further away from left wingers than their social policies effect on conservatives. The libertarian party is typically the political banner for a variety of types of libertarian such as Minarchists (Get the government out of everything but security), Libertarian Conservativism (Ron Paul), and Objectivism which I will disucss.  Anarcho-Capitalists AnCaps are perhaps the most hardcore of the libertarian sub-groups, and certainly the most vocal. As suggested by their name, Anacho-Capitalists want a stateless society run solely according to principle of voluntary trade and what they call the Non-Agression Principle which I will get to below. As I mentioned, An Caps are very vocal online. Despite being a splinter group of an already slim minority the vast majority of internet libertarians seem to be of the An Cap variety. Typically they hold to a set of ethics based solely around the lack of coersion, and are of the belief that more or less any and every problem in our current society can be traced back to the state in some form or another. I could really go on for weeks about these guys, but I don't want the OP to be terribly biased against them. The most notable and cited An Cap thinkers are Triple H (Hans Herman Hoppe), Walter Block (Hey hey hey hey hey! Shut up!) and Murray (I can't believe I forgot him) Rothbard. Occationally included on this list is Lew Rockwell, but mostly because his website tends to host An Cap thinkers, while I'd personally put him as a Libertarian Conservative.  Voluntarists Often closely associated with rear end Cancer survivor, Men's Rights Activist and noted Cult Leader Stephan Molyneux, Voluntarists are more or less interchangable with An Caps. They tend to focus more on the Voluntary aspect of things (as befits their name) and those who follow Molyneux tend to be a little bit more into the 'philosophy' and ethics side of things. On a personal note for this one, I'll be honest. I do not like Molyneux. The man runs a borderline cult, holding just enough charisma to rope in followers with superficially bright ideas while extorting cash from them to support his lifestyle. Most recently he has been on a stint talking about how women use sexual currency in the form of makeup and pushup bras to take advantage of men, along with a video entitled "Why men don't want to get married." wherein it was determined that we don't want to get married because then our wife can hold us hostage with alimony. Yeah.  Libertarian Conservatives Also sometime known as paleo-conservatives and/or Neo-Confederates, this group is composed of the 'serious' libertarians in American politics. Most of the 'famous' libertarians you've heard of who are not Anarcho-Capitalists probably fall into this group. Libertarian Conservitives typically function much like the libertarian party, but with the exception that they prefer everything be brought down to states rights wherever possible, and that they are totally okay with segregating blacks, stopping abortions and so forth so long as it is done on the state level. Membership, such as it is, includes such luminaries as Ron Paul (Have your read the constituuuuushun?), Rand (totally not an Ayn Rand thing) Paul, Thomas (Lincoln was the real bad guy) DiLorenzo, Lew Rockwell (who totally didn't ghostwrite those newsletters) and so on.  The Austrian School Largely the brain child of Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian School of Economics is the dominant view of economics held by more or less every major Libertarian group in existence. The Austrian school of economics emerged in the late 19th century with the work of several major economists, such as Carl Menger and Freidrich von Wieser. During its early years it came up with several major contributions that we still consider today, such as the subjective theory of value, Price marginalism and the idea of the calculation problem in regards to centrally planned economics. The group that created those theories however, has little to do with the modern Austrian School. The 'modern' Austrian School for lack of a better term came into itself in the late 1940's with the publication of Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, which clarified his subjectivist approach he called Praxeology. Put simply Praxeology is the 'scientific' study of human action by which an observer can deduce a priori truths about how people act when dealing with one another in an economic sense. In Mises' own words: “Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual circumstances of the concrete acts. Its cognition is purely formal and general without reference to the material content and the particular features of the actual case. It aims at knowledge valid for all instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in its assumptions and inferences. Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts. They are both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts” Due to this anti-evidence based form of Economics, the Austrian School is largely ignored by the economics field. Despite this it is still a favorite of Libertarian groups the world over, with many of their beliefs, arguments and methods coming straight from Mises' work. The two most famous Austrian school economists of note would be Friedrich Hayek and of course Ludwig von Mises of the ubiquitous Mises.org.  Objectivists The disciples of likely sociopath Ayn Rand, Objectivists are really more of a complimentary line of thinking when compared to libertarians. Sort of a all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles squares sort of thing. Objectivism holds, more or less, that rational self interest is the best and most logical driving force behind all humanity. That selfish action is better than selflessness, that selflessness is in fact immoral an irrational. Furthermore Ayn Rand supposed that reality is in fact objective rather than subjective, that knowledge and values are something that can be logically reasoned out and ultimately determined to be real. Atlas Shrugged, her seminal work qualifies Objectivism as such: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." There is a whole lot more to the philosophy than can be covered in one post, frankly I think I've given it more attention than it deserves, but I know I'd get some complaints if I didn't include it in the OP. Noted Ayn Rand lovers include Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and every bookish teenager who never got to read lord of the rings.  Freemen on the Land Since I included Objectivists I might as well add these guys. Freemen on the Land believe that the government is illigitimate for... uh... reasons. They aren't so much an ideology as a psuedo-legal tactic that has never functioned in court. They typically get tazered, beaten or otherwise inconvenienced by police after a little while of trying to pull their poo poo. The big reason I include them is that we recently had a major incident in the US involving a form of Freeman on the Land. Cliven Bundy, Nevada rancher who knows at least two things about the Negro belongs to a movement called Posse Comitatus, a group that draws its name from a reconstruction era law meaning "Force of the county." Posse Comitatus is a group who believe in localism, that the county sheriff is the supreme authority. Many Freeman groups are offshoots of Posse Comitatus groups, which are of course offshoots of good old white supremacy. The Non Aggression Principle Also known as the NAP, the Non-Aggression Principle is the guiding light for An Caps, Voluntarists and some other minor flavors I didn't bother to mention. The gist of it is that force/coercion is never justified, under any circumstance. When coupled with their belief that the primary function of government is that it has a "Monopoly on force in a designated geographical area" An Caps use the NAP to argue that government is inherently illegitimate. They argue that all government intervention is based around force in one fashion or another. Don't pay your taxes and you'll get a letter, don't respond to the letter, police will show up, don't obey police and they will have to arrest you, don't let yourself get arrested and the police will use violence. Property Rights The issue of Property Rights varies from group to group in libertarian circles, but the general rule among them is that property rights should be inviolable. If you own something you should be able to do what you want with it, where you want with it provided it is not impacting others. The extreme of this set of beliefs is found most often in the work of Murray Rothbard. Rothbard loves to make every human interaction into some sort of transaction, and thus everything and everything must be property to be transacted with. All I know is that when you start talking about free flowing markets in children things are getting a bit... weird. Self Ownership Self Ownership is exactly what it sounds like. It is one of the beliefs typically held by libertarians that is also frequently held by liberals, anarchists and a whole host of left wing groups. The gist of Self Ownership is that you own your own body, and provided you are not hurting yourself, you should more or less be able to do whatever the hell you want. Many libertarian groups take the idea of self ownership quite literally. Since all rights are property rights, they argue, it stands to reason that you must own yourself, and thus everything produced by yourself. Who the gently caress is jrodefeld? JRod is one of the forms most beloved Libertarian posters, along with other alumni such as LolitaSama** and that other guy I can't remember. He 'terrorized' the forums several times over the last few years with page long diatribes and a wonderful habit of replying to each and every post in order, despite being up to a dozen pages behind. Don't be like him. Conversely, don't poo poo up the thread and be assholes if libertarians come in to discuss their viewpoints. Try not to anyways. Sept 30 Edit: It turns out that another of our libertarian forum dwellers, LolitaSama, has gotten off the crazy train of libertarianism. Huzzah! March 31st Edit: We now have a Wiki of our very own for Caros fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Mar 31, 2016 |
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May 23, 2014 00:10
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nutranurse posted:I've always wanted to ask a libertarian this (but I know few in real life because they're crazy fuckers and tend to be racist): Why would a minority want to forgo government protection of their rights in order to embrace the libertarian "get government out of everything so I can be a feudal lord" creed? I think it's an important question, as demographics begin to skew more in favor of non-whites libertarians will have to convince non-whites that their policies will actually benefit the traditionally disenfranchised. I actually had a discussion with a Canadian libertarian the other day on this very subject. The answer I got, more or less, was that they believe their ideas are so good and so self evident that why wouldn't a minority go after them? And if the minority is effectively bought out, then the libertarians simply need to focus on getting more people who they can readily sway. Incidentally the Canadian libertarian party earned 0.04% of the total vote in our last election. quote:They're right. This is hardly a controversial or even libertarian ideal. Mao said something similar. Its also a massive oversimplification of something that is complex, which in my experience tends to be the libertarian M.O. I'd argue in the taxation argument for example, that it would actually be the taxpayer who is initiating force by their definition by effectively stealing from his fellow citizens. Caros fucked around with this message at 00:26 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 00:21
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LogisticEarth posted:Sure, and while we're at it lets all wish that democratic control over capital would have a favorable outcome. Good Call. I've got a few other things including some videos I want to add before the end of the day.
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May 23, 2014 00:27
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LogisticEarth posted:I'd also suggest taking Mises and Hayek out of the straight-up An-Cap territory. While they're held up frequently by Mises.org and other an-cap havens, both of them were minarchists at the least. I think in a previous thread someone tried to argue that Hayek wasn't even libertarian and was instead a liberal when I cited him as a notable right-libertarian who supported a basic income. Did make the first change since I added a section on the Austrian school. Not sure what I'd add about market Anarchists or Mutualists since truth be told I've never encountered an example of either in the wild so I have no frame of reference for what to say about them.
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May 23, 2014 01:12
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Nessus posted:I believe they feel that the market will present a solution to such problems if we just get out of the way and cut back on regulations. Its pretty much this. They would be really, really bad at handling distributed problems like that. Even local changes like smog or polluted rivers would be a pain provided you couldn't solely identify one or more people.
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May 23, 2014 02:31
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BiggerBoat posted:Cross post from the ethics thread. I thought I posted but I don't see it here so apologies if it's a double post but: This part I believe is covered less by ethics and more by strong contract law in a libertarian society. Any place you buy, along with the standard title would probably include a series of agreements with everyone upstream of you on what the proper legal usage of the water is, and requirements by everyone downstream of you on what you can do with the water. It overly complicates the poo poo out of the title system, and has a bunch of huge flaws, but its at least theoretically workable. This is the traditional response to the libertarian problem of 'entrapment' as well, where a property owner could theoretically purchase all of the roads and land around your home, thus preventing you from leaving. The idea would be that any roads would come pre-packaged with contractual obligations to allow for reasonable public use when they are bought from the government at the start of libertopia.
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May 26, 2014 19:45
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Gantolandon posted:The same is with freedom - you are free to do something, but you still have to take the consequences. So if a libertarian definitely-not-government punishes you for the terrible crime of being a leftie, you are just suffering because of your terrible choice. And, of course, you can "voluntarily" renounce your rights and become a slave in all but name - irrevocably, because contracts are sacrosanct in libertarian utopia. Even doing this under pressure is fine as long as no one holds you at the gunpoint. Actually, Walter Block recently did an interview on a local libertarian podcast in which he stated quite explicitly that he thinks slavery in and of itself is okay, its the inability to choose not to associate with the masters that is the issue. Walter Block is actually fine with 'voluntarily' entered slavery contracts. His specifically cited example, is of course mindnumbingly  :"Lets say that your wife was sick, and needed an operation that cost five million dollars. Now you don't have that money, but say I do. Now this is just a classic exchange, you value my money more than you do your freedom, and I value the concept of owning you more than I value that money, so we make a trade, sign a contract and there we go. Doesn't really matter what I do after that, whether I make you pick cotton, or sing songs or whether I beat you or whatever, the important part that differentiates this from the slavery we used to have, is that you voluntarily chose to become a slave." How does someone think that is the example to use? I mean excluding the fact that his argument is bullshit, why the gently caress is that his example when it is a textbook case of someone being coerced into a contract, in this case being coerced by the threat of death of a loved one.
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May 29, 2014 23:53
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Gantolandon posted:Libertarians also redefine threat - unless they literally point a gun into your head, it doesn't qualify as such. Hoppe proposed, for example, exiling criminals into Sahara or polar regions. Hey, it's not that libertarians are going to kill those people, it's heat or cold! For liability purposes it is the sea that will kill you, not us. Arrr. quote:This is also, last I checked, the rationale buttcoiners use to justify the hiring assassins as morally valid within the framework of non-aggression. Specifically, this argument was used to excuse Ross Ulbright, AKA the Dread Pirate Rogers of Silk Road fame of any moral culpability for his five attempted murders on behalf of his drug empire. Originally the thought was simply that it wasn't his fault because government interfeared with the market, but then that simply wasn't enough. The specific argument I heard was actually from the same local podcast as the Walter Block comment. I can link it if people want, but it is pretty local (though carried on the same network as Peter Schiff's garbage) and I don't much want to give them the views. The 'logic' goes like this: Ross Ulbright decided he wanted to kill someone, so he paid $200,000 to a hitman (who was actually an FBI informer). Paying the hitman was not an immoral act, and even if the hitman had actually done the job, Ross Ulbright wouldn't have been responsible for his crime, because he personally did not engage in any sort of aggression against anyone. The hitman, being his own person, could have chosen not to take the money, and/or not to commit the actual act of aggression, and thus Ross Ulbright himself did not engage in Aggression against anyone. Yeah... The whole argument is pretty similar to the underpants gnomes, in that its possible to follow the logic right up until the point where someone having the choice not to do it somehow absolves you of the fact that none of it would have ever happened had you not provided the incentive. I argued with this asshat for like a week over this, and never once figured out how it was supposed to work. quote:It's not slavery, it's indentured servitude! Actually no. Walter Block makes a big deal about differentiating between indentured servatude and slavery in the same podcast. The host attempted to make the argument that there were more white slaves in the US than black, a Neo-confederate bullshit position based on the fact that a lot of the Irish, Scottish and other immigrants were indentured servants for a period of years upon their arrival. Walter Block made a big deal of pointing out that he was discussing slavery and why it was okay so long as you chose to become a slave.
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May 30, 2014 01:04
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Pththya-lyi posted:I'm on the mailing list for Impact Weekly, the Ayn Rand Institute's email newsletter, because I bought the ebook version of Atlas Shrugged just to please my father. (I imagine ol' Ayn would be ambivalent about that - on the one hand you shouldn't do anything you find distasteful just to please someone else, but on the other hand AS is the Greatest Book Ever Written and I should read it.) Every week, the ARI encourages me to buy books and lecture videos, attend events, and read articles on current issues as seen through an Objectivist lens. Why am I bringing this up? I do wonder if they are aware that J.K. Rowling is a huge fan of the social welfare state: "I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles. A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr. Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug." Edit: Beaten. Bah.
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May 30, 2014 04:09
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Nintendo Kid posted:So are literally thousands of other authors, but they don't all hit the mega big time like her. Hell, when they finally got around to a US release, the US publisher, Scholastic, only did a small print run because they didn't expect the series to be popular at all. Then it turned out people actually really liked it Those authors didn't actually benefit from that infrastructure however. Its the same argument that walmart benefits substantially more from our existing infrastructure because they use the roads more, they hire more people who were educated in public schools etc. J.K. Rowling benefited more from those systems than did the guy who can't sell more than one or two copies of his book. That isn't to say that her work doesn't matter, far from it, just that its a reminder that no one, not even the incredibly successful succeed on their own. On a less fun note, I finally got banned from the Libertarian Party of Canada's facebook page for my 'trolling'. Apparently the last straw was my reply to this meme: quote:"All this talk about banning guns because they're killing people... We should just make murder illegal and people will stop getting killed." I asked if that meant that the libertarian party was in favor of removing all laws against murder. Since they clearly aren't 100% effective there is no point in having them, just like there apparently isn't any point in having gun safety laws unless they stop every possible murder. It is a sad day for trolling libertarians.
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May 31, 2014 23:39
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:The NSSF, which is actually funded by the gun industry, brings in $27 million per year according to their latest financials, compared to the NRA's $250 million. The NRA recieves less than half its funding from members dues. Anywhere from 30-45% of remaining NRA funding comes from the gun lobby in one fashion or another, whether it be ad revenue, direct donations (such as trace donating 10% of all revenue to the NRA for laser sight sales), sponserships etc. The NRA is completely intertwined with the gun lobby.
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Jun 1, 2014 07:39
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El Pollo Blanco posted:Exactly, except you're slightly wrong about Libertarians desire for deregulation of labour laws resulting in child labour. For Libertarians, child labour is an economic necessity to drive down the cost of labour for ideal wage conditions, rather than an unfortunate side effect of eliminating labour laws. I actually don't agree with this post all that much, if only because it comes off as mustache twirling cartoon villainy, something you don't actually see from many libertarians. While it is true that certain libertarians (Murray Rothbard) have argued for a "Free flowing market of children" the idea was never suggested that it was for labor or abuse, but instead as an alternative to existing adoption programs. Its a dumb way to handle things, but it is in no way a suggestion that we should just be putting children back to work in the mines. Child labour would fall under the 'unfortunate side effect' aspect for every libertarian I've ever met or spoken to.
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Jul 8, 2014 14:59
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kelvron posted:For anyone who's missed it, Jrodefeld has returned. And then left again. He's flighty.
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Aug 15, 2014 08:36
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In the same vein:Matt Taibbi, Griftopia posted:Foreshadowing alert! In any case, during this same period Greenspan drew closer to Rand, who as self-appointed pope of the protocapitalist religion had become increasingly unhinged, prone to Galtian rants and banishments. One of her rages centered around Branden, a handsome and significantly younger psychotherapist Rand met when she was forty-four and Branden was nineteen. The two had an affair despite the fact that both were married; in a cultist echo of David Koresh/Branch Davidian sexual ethics, both spouses reportedly consented to the arrangement to keep the movement leader happy. Ayn Rand, among other faults, was a massive hypocrit.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:20
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Cemetry Gator posted:Can anyone explain Stefan Molyneux to me? Like, I try to watch his videos, but it's literally just a man babbling for at least 30 minutes at a time. It's literally the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. I was just scanning through his video on Robin Williams, and somehow, we get to "Men are primed to have sex with fertile women, and women are primed to get stuff from men as resources to raise their children." Which makes no loving sense in the context of the video. Other posters have sort of run down on this, and I covered it a little in the OP but I can explain the Molyneux world view. Molyneux and the FDR crew are 'Voluntarists' which are more or less Anarcho-Capitalists. There are some small differences between the two groups, but I think the differentiation is largely just an attempt to jerk off about how they are the real believers in freedom. Voluntarists follow the Non-Aggression principle, which boils down to 'Don't initiate force'. This isn't to say they don't believe in using force, its just that it has to be 'defensive' force. Such as 'defensively' having your privately hired thugs beat the poo poo out of the homeless guy who refuses to leave your property. They get their name because they believe that "Voluntary transactions without the use of force will lead to the greatest prosperity." Note that the Voluntarism followed by many of the real FDR (That belongs to Franklin D. Roosevelt, you give that back!  ) doesn't necessarily related to voluntarism as discussed in earlier centuries.Past all of that however... its a cult. Free Domain Radio holds all of the traditional hallmarks you'd find in a destructive cult. It has a 'charismatic' leader. It has an insular atmosphere. It has its own words and meaning of words... things like the word force take on meanings for FDR adherents that they don't for other people. They have their own made up words for cult like behavior. Beyond all of that it has the creepy brainwashing and disconnection from family that makes it truly dangerous. Stefan Molyneux actively advocates the idea that all parents are abusive. Much like a carnival psychic or the cult leader that he is, Stefan will twist the words and minds of people who call into his show until they actively admit that their parents abused them, which feeds into his bizarre ideas about parenting and how you should DeFoo (Depart Family of Origin) because you can never have a sane relationship with your abuser. Also while you do this you should become a funding member of Free Domain Radio and Stefan will help you on the path to learning the truth about our society. He believes that we would end violence forever if all parents decided not to ever 'abuse' their children. Creeped the gently caress out yet? The outright misogyny is actually a pretty new thing. It's always been there mind you, he's always had people like Warren Farrell or Paul Elam on his show as part of the men's right's movements, but it has ramped up substantially in the last year. My guess? There is money in it. Molyneux is a failed actor. He couldn't make money doing his acting, so he turned to become a guru, and I personally believe that he wasn't getting enough from the Voluntarist cult crowd and is now pivoting to the creepy MRA violence against estrogen based parasite crowd.
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Aug 17, 2014 01:13
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blugu64 posted:I'm not sure how new it is really. I remember Molyneux ranting about how single moms were parasites in like 2012/13~ While it isn't completely new, the scale of it is. Prior to the last year or so MRA issues were really vauge background issues for most of his videos. They came up but only occasionally and they were rarely the focus of whole videos. Since the beginning of this year in particular he has been hammering away at this particular garbage.
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Aug 17, 2014 03:25
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:I know jrod just ignores the consequences of turning security over to for-profit private armies, but really what response do libertarians have when you bring up the nightmare society of DROs? Is there anything more than LESS GOVERNMENT = BETTER THAN? You have to remember that their whole philosophy is based around the concept that 'voluntary' interaction in the form of the free market is morally preferable to government based coercion through 'force'. It really doesn't matter if DRO's suck to many of them. I poo poo you not, I had a libertarian defend the idea that DRO's would have access to nuclear weapons. I've had one defend he idea that contract killings were morally okay so long as you pay someone to do them, since the person who does the actual killing is the only one morally responsible. Many an-caps are not utilitarian, they don't care if it results in a freakish totalitarian state, so long as it is a 'free' totalitarian state. The few that do care fall back on the idea that because the voluntary options are morally preferable, they clearly must also produce preferable outcomes. This is the wing that says that government can't ever reduce poverty (despite social security) or provide healthcare (despite recorded history) better than the private market, even when evidence flies in the face of that assertion. Typical Pubbie posted:Why the gently caress would a DRO that is in the business of keeping subscribers ever rule against its own customers? God loving drat that is stupid. The idea is supposed to be that either both victim and villain are under the auspices of one DRO, or under an umbrella of DRO's who agree to impartial third party negotiators whenever there is an issue. Now if this scares the crap out of you, because of the lack of any unified justice system or because the DRO's by the nature of needing to have agreements with one another have massive incentive to collude, well it should! DRO's are the stupidest thing on the face of the world because either you live in a society where everyone agrees to have a series of them cover every aspect of their lives in a way that is far more intrusive, or the coverage is spotty at best and justice is up to the person with the bigger DRO. Caros fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Aug 17, 2014 |
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Aug 17, 2014 07:44
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Nintendo Kid posted:Sorry, everything you posted indicates it still takes days for most people in the time period to be able to get mail and get home.Additionally: So you're being absolutely pedantic and ignoring the substance of his quote for the literal reading of it? Spooner's Postal Service competed wat all with the US postal service because the USPS has to serve a massive number of remote and unprofitable areas rather than focus all of its business between the four most heavily populated and easily travelled areas in the US. Do you actually deny that fact? Because that is the important part of the discussion.
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Aug 18, 2014 18:19
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blugu64 posted:Ah but see by kicking them off your land you're not initiating force, you're acting in self-defense by defending your property since clearly they are the aggressors. I know the exact article you're talking about. Annoys me that I can't find it either. But I did come across these gems in my search: quote:Prohibits All Pollution – As I noted in my last post, Rothbard himself recognized that industrial pollution violates the NAP and must therefore be prohibited. But Rothbard did not draw the full implications of his principle. Not just industrial pollution, but personal pollution produced by driving, burning wood in one’s fireplace, smoking, etc., runs afoul of NAP. The NAP implies that all of these activities must be prohibited, no matter how beneficial they may be in other respects, and no matter how essential they are to daily life in the modern industrialized world. And this is deeply implausible. The third one I especially like because his example of Russian roulette is actually an amazing one.
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Aug 19, 2014 07:00
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Here is part 1.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:18
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Mr Interweb posted:So I was watching a debate between Robert Reich, Mark Zandi vs. Art Laffer and Glen Hubbard, and goddamn, Art Laffer has to be one of the worst debaters I've ever seen. He spent the entire time making the most simplistic, childlike arguments for tax cuts (low tax rates = more revenue; low taxes = more job creators!, etc). The guy's supposed to be an economist, but I've seen Glenn Beck make more substantial defenses for SSE than this dude did. Considering this is the guy who arguably created the Republican Party of today when it comes to economics, you would think he'd do a little better job when it comes to bullshitting at the very least. I know the exact debate you're talking about, and yeah, sometimes you just want to punch him in the head for his bullshit arguments. I mean it isn't surprising considering he is the architect of the 'laffer curve' when used in modern political discussion. The man doesn't know a goddamned thing and its honestly painful to listen to him talk and talk despite being so utterly wrong. Edit: While I'm at it, I'll link both to the debate and to this wonderful PBS piece with Richard Epstien. Marvel as he drops some of the most absurd and disgusting turds: quote:PAUL SOLMAN: Don’t you have to pay people, workers enough so that there will be enough aggregate demand so that they can buy what other people are producing? quote:RICHARD EPSTEIN: It turns out functions that most people don’t understand, namely, how you maintain continuous liquidity in a complicated economy, is, in fact, such a difficult task that we pay people a great deal of money to become middlemen. Caros fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 03:19
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Cemetry Gator posted:Where does anyone even begin... The irony of this is that Joe Rogan has had Molyneux on his podcast multiple times. I am happy to find out that Rogan has realized that Stefan is an idiot however, since I always kinda liked Joe Rogan.
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Aug 30, 2014 03:10
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QuarkJets posted:Back to the argument about businesses being shortsighted, I'd like to point to the housing crisis as a prime example. Banking executives received huge bonuses for making loans while housing prices were still rising, and this spurred them to want to make as many loans as possible. Lacking regulation to stop them from making horrible decisions, these guys started making so-called "liar's loans", where they'd sell a mortgage to anyone with a pulse without bothering to check their income. Even in a healthy economy, these kinds of loans are pretty awful products; they can produce a slim profit margin so long as home prices continue rising, but if prices stagnate or heaven forbid crash then everyone gets hosed. Banking executives making these loans surely saw the writing on the wall, that housing prices would eventually stop rising, but that didn't stop them from making a decade of poor decisions for immediate financial gratification. Hahahahaha! You actually think that having a pulse was a requirement for liar's loans. The good folks at Countrywide gave out a number of loans that I'd call NINAP (No income No assets or pulse) because if you end up getting a $3000 commission who cares if someone gets hosed further up the food chain. It is important to remember that there was actually regulation in many, many places that these banks were breaking, as well as standard customs practices. These banks routinely moved titles or falsified loan documentation, mortgage brokers provided services that would tie your credit score to that of someone who had a good one so as to artificially inflate yours to bypass the usual checks that they had to do. At the end of the day it is no different than the Free Rider issue with healthcare or unions. If we assume that people are infinitely rational individuals (Mind you they aren't) then they are going to gently caress over other people at the expense of the group wherever they can get away with it.
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Sep 8, 2014 22:04
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Mr Interweb posted:What is the libertarian explanation for how removing min wage laws will lead to higher wages? Depends on who you talk to. In my experience most don't believe it will necessarily lead to higher wages on the aggregate, just that it will offer more 'choice' and open up jobs that are being crushed out of existence by the minimum wage. Most libertarians believe that the minimum wage kills jobs. They suffer under the delusion that businesses actually pay workers what they are worth, that if you make $9.00 for the business and the minimum wage is increased to $9.25 you will lose your job because you are no longer profitable. This is of course, untrue since most workers earn far more for the business than their wage, and/or are required for the business to be functional. A business that has only a single cashier working the till is going to need that cashier there whether his wage is $7.25 or $15.00 since otherwise their profits would be exactly $0. They also ignore the fact that a job at $5 an hour is more or less worthless. Walter Block did an interview with Sam Seder where they discussed the minimum wage, and he tried to use the argument that since 6 as a number is greater than 0, a job at $6 an hour is better than no job at all, so the minimum wage should be removed. This of course ignores the facts that a job at $6 has no real value if you are not capable of living on the wage provided. Or that the minimum wage provides a floor, any many people who currently have $7.25 an hour would see their wages drop over time to $6. A second, sometimes overlapping subset believe that individuals who are currently working at minimum wage jobs are poorly served by the minimum wage because the wage prices out 'better' jobs that might only be offered at $5. The typical example is that if the minimum wage were $5, or $3 or not existent at all then people might offer jobs that offer the potential for growth. You might be able to get work as a carpenter's assistant at $4 an hour where you pick up the skills that will get you a job worth $20. This of course is without any factual evidence to support it, but they don't let that stop them. The TLDR version is that they don't necessarily think it WILL lead to higher wages for everyone. A thing to remember is that most libertarians are more concerned with the rights of the individual than with society. Sure a bunch of people might receive starvation level wages, but having a minimum wage impacts on the FREEDOM of employers to offer poverty level jobs, and that isn't right.
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Sep 27, 2014 21:46
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Hey Jrodefeld. Welcome back. I'm going to disect your reply shortly, but, and I mean this with all honest to god sincerity. Thank you for using the dedicated libertarian thread. A big part of the reason you get dogpiled so badly is because you create a big sweeping thread that is all about you, and that pisses a lot of people off since its completely contrary to the spirit of D&D or the atmosphere thereof. This might sound like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. I'm genuinely glad you've decided to take the advice of some of the posters on these forums to heart when it comes to joining the discussion.
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Sep 30, 2014 06:02
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jrodefeld posted:I've returned from hiatus. I can't locate my other thread so I'll start on this thread. Real life intruded and I don't have the luxury of posting on random internet forums as much as I might like. In any event, I actually like this forum. While I disagree with most of you, I genuinely find it to be especially well run and the discussions are substantive and interesting. And, evidenced by this thread, you all seem to having more than a passing familiarity with libertarian ideas. Believe it or not most of us actually don't dislike you or necessarily dislike talking to you either. We're all nerds who post in a debate and discussion forum on the internet. Since this is not Ender's Game, we understandably aren't doing so for unlimited world power but out of a genuine desire to actually talk about things.  I apologize in advance for cutting your post at odd places, but I'm trying to keep like with like when it comes to ideas so that I don't repeat myself. quote:With that said, I want to discuss the subject of a minimum wage (or even minimum basic income). From what I have read on this thread, most of you are in favor of a minimum wage and/or basic guaranteed income. I find that support for either belies an ignorance of basic economics. I'd love if you could prove me wrong however. I'd critique you for calling us all ignorant right after saying we make substantive replies, but someone called you a shitheel so we don't exactly have a the moral high ground. quote:I favor an immediate abolition of all minimum wage laws. I don't understand how anyone could imagine that creating an artificial minimum legal wage rate could actually improve anyone's standard of living.A few points. In the first place, a worker will receive an income that is determined by the market. His marketable skills are valued based on the marginal productivity of his labor. If a worker can only provide $9 of value to an employer per hour, why on earth would that employer pay him $10 an hour? Businessmen are not running charities. The businessman is seeking profits which can only be done by satisfying consumer demands on the market. Therefore wages must be lower than the productivity of the labor. The marginal productivity of a laborer provides the upper limit of the wage rate that he or she can expect to receive. What makes you think that most workers have a wage that comes anywhere near what the 'value' the provide to their employer actually is? I touched on this earlier in the thread, but I'm curious why you think that this is the case when historical evidence disagrees with that assumption. For example, we know what productivity was in the 1970's and we also know what the minimum wage was in the 1970's. Most studies suggest that productivity now, per worker, is double or even triple what it was in 1970, yet wages remain stagnant. If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity, it would be at roughly $25 an hour. So how do you explain this? If most workers were paid something approximating their value to their employer, shouldn't wages have been steadily increasing for decades? The amount each worker makes for their company, and thus their value has increased nearly three fold in four decades, but adjusted for inflation wages have barely increased at all, and the minimum wage is even lower than it was in 1970. If on the other hand, most workers are NOT paid anywhere even close to the value that they bring in, that is to say a worker brings in $20 or $30 or $50 while making minimum wage, then we would see what we statistically do see when minimum wage is increased, which is little to no effect on employment. Most businesses simply do not make hiring or firing decisions based on the minimum wage unless we are talking a theoretical minimum wage that is totally out of wack with current conditions like a hypothetical $100 minimum or something. Similarly, what about a worker such as Ben, my local hobby store clerk. He opens the store every sunday from 10-6, and without him the store would not be open. Do you really think that the owner is simply going to close down his store for an entire day because of a $1-5/hour increase in the minimum wage? Do you think that even significantly factors into a budget where roughly 70% of his cost is inventory, 15% is fixed cost and perhaps 10% is labor? quote:I can anticipate that some of you will argue that without a supposed floor for wage rates, the greedy businessmen will simply push wages as low as possible forcing workers to work for 50 cents an hour. The reason this won't happen is that competitive firms, in their competition with each other, will be in need of good workers. If an employer is paying his workers too little for their abilities (i.e. too much lower than the marginal productivity of their labor) then a competitor will bid them away from their current employer. Thus the wage rates for workers will inevitably rise towards the level of their marginal productivity but never exceeding it. This sounds well and good in theory, but the mechanics you are talking about do not exist in a vacuum. People frequently refer to sweeping generalizations like this one as the frictionless surfaces and perfect spheres of the economic world, ie, the 'I took econ 101 and nothing else' effect. The problem is that these basic models where everyone competes and the market is a perfectly functional self regulating machine don't work outside the textbook because people are flawed, flawed creatures. Take for example, the recent Google/Apple Antitrust lawsuit. The short version is that several of the largest silicon valley firms colluded together to depress the wages of their employees by simply refusing to poach or entice employees of their competitors in order to keep the costs of labor down. This real world example flies in the face of everything that you hypothesise would happen and more stunningly occurred in a field of specialized and educated labor. Moreover the issue was only resolved by the intervention of the ever hated 'state'. quote:It is an intellectual error to simply claim that all workers are worth, say, $10 an hour. Frankly I think it is an intellectual error to assume that employers will actually most pay employees what they are worth when recorded history proves that this is not the case. quote:How could you possibly know that? Only a free market for wage labor can possibly determine the per hour value of labor services. What minimum wage laws amount to really is compulsory unemployment, period. The take of most of the posters in this thread would be that the minimum wage for a full time job should be enough for someone to live with dignity. That is absolutely a condition that society is capable of placing upon the marketplace by whatever means at our disposal, be it a mincome, or a minimum wage or whatever. quote:In a free society without a State that erects barriers to economic activity, all economic actors will have far more options than they do today. Just to be clear, you do understand that the state is only one of the myriad of reasons that there can be barriers to entry. I think you do understand that this is true but I want to be absolutely sure. Other examples are things like natural monopolies such as telecommunications where start up costs for simple hardware could be in the hundreds of millions and so forth. Moreover, this is a feel good statement with no real substance. The government puts up barriers to entry and once we knock them down people will have far more options to... not have fire extinguishers on the property? Not provide occupational health and safety protections. Not pay overtime. Fire employees without cause. Brutally suppress unions with everything shy of physical force? Sexually harass employees? quote:So it is furthermore wrong to assume that workers will have no recourse but to work for wages. On the contrary, each worker will have an ability to become an entrepreneur himself, risking his capital for the potential greater reward of future profits. It is a far riskier proposition than trading his labor for wages but without the regulatory barriers and bureaucratic red tape, the cost of entry into the market will be exponentially lower than it is today. Again, this is why I'm asking if you understand that barriers to entry are not the primary fault of government. As just one personal example. In 2010 I briefly flirted with the idea of opening a business before deciding it was unsuitable in the current climate to do so. Do you know how much 'barriers to entry' actually figured into my business plan? Perhaps 1%. Of greater concern were things like, 'eating' and 'massive risk due to debt burden'. To suggest that if we just eliminated the minimum wage and other regulations people would suddenly jump into the market creating businesses is naive at best and disingenuous at worst. You suggest getting rid of all sort of government intervention, but do you think people would be more or less likely to start a business if they knew that they had a social safety net? How about if they know that they have healthcare? When I was pondering my business I didn't even have to consider it, but can you imagine the extra risk I'd be taking if we'd first eliminated my access to universal healthcare and THEN suggested I start a business? quote:A third option would be for workers to organize together and form mutualist coops, where workers pool their resources and collectively own the means of production. This would be an intermediate step between being a wage laborer and an entrepreneur. The potential for return on investment would be greater than that of a wage laborer but less than that of an entrepreneur. However the risk to a personal capital would be far lower than an entrepreneur. It would be, in a very real sense, voluntary socialism or even voluntary Marxism. We do this now. Nothing about this would be unique to your suggested 'minimumwageless' world, so I'm not sure why you are bringing it up here other than in an attempt at trying to appear centrist and open minded. Also I've snipped out a quote here and moved it to the bottom because it deserves special attention. quote:Minimum wage laws are immoral, they hurt the least skilled and most vulnerable in society. No they are not, and no they do not. Making sweeping moral generalizations isn't going to win you an argument and I wish you'd understand that. If you said "I feel minimum wage laws are immoral..." I wouldn't even be commenting on this, but you're trying to frame the argument as if you've already won on a point that we BOTH know that you we disagree on. quote:The only genuine way to sustainably raise the standard of living for workers is to improve their marginal productivity, thus allowing them to command a higher wage rate on the market. To this end, it is valuable to encourage young people to gain more work experience when they are younger, develop on the job training and skills that improve their value to employers. Improved skills expand ones economic opportunities. How do you account for the fact that marginal productivity has been going up for decades with no associated increase in wealth for the workers. I'm genuinely curious as to your answer on this issue. Moreover, are you aware that minimum wage jobs are not just for 'young people' anymore? They haven't been for over a decade. The median age of a minimum wage worker is 28. Because of the poor 'trickle down' economic garbage we were sold for a generation many people will be working service jobs like this until they retire, so suggesting they simply increase their value to employers (god does that sound creepy by the way) is not a real fix. quote:I thought this would be a good topic to get back into this discussion. Where am I going wrong? How can you rationally defend minimum wage laws and/or mandatory basic minimum income in light of economic law and logic? Well, in the face of logic... gee I don't know. How can you rationally defend the abolition of a current pillar supporting the poor when recorded history shows that employers can and will abuse works for less than subsistence wages if they can get away with it? quote:All of these economic relationships are valid provided no one uses aggression against any other peaceful person. Okay, this got brought up in the last thread after you left so I'm going to assume you haven't read it. The whole crux of your argument boils down to the idea that aggression is bad, and taxation is theft because its your money, government is aggressing against you etc etc. Libertarians do this in an attempt to frame the debate as them the plucky pacifist up against the big forces of everyone else who wants to impose on them. But when is it okay for you to use force? Well in your theoretical society it is okay for you to use force when someone does it to you first. Typical examples aren't really 'force' per say, but interacting with property. If I walk onto your land and stand there, you have the right to remove me, we both agree with that. You link this in with a whole weird homesteading philosophy, but at the end of the day I propose that the only reason your land is your land in this example is because everyone agrees. Admittedly they agree that your homesteading idea is the basis of property, but it is that communal weight of society that justifies your force as defensive. If everyone didn't agree that the land was yours, then you wouldn't be justified in using force. We know its not simply your philosophy because philosophy doesn't carry that weight. If it did then we'd have examples of real world people using the homesteading philosophy to justify force. So in the above example, if I went onto your land and stood there you could remove me. If I were bigger than you, you could call someone to remove me. If I resisted and say... hurt one of them, I could be put in a cage and if I really resisted I could be killed. Sound familiar? It sure does to me. The difference between Libertarians and 'statists' is not a matter that one things aggression is justified and the other does not. The issue is a matter of who owns what, in the 'statist' case we simply believe that a certain portion of income belongs to the state. And we can do that, because what belongs to who is entirely a subjective issue determined by the rules of the society. Caros fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 07:04
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Hey guys, I know we all want to jump on the 'a ton of libertarians are racist fucks' bandwagon, but can we keep it out of this thread? It got done to death round in circles in the last thread and I'd really rather see something new and exciting. Just a request.
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Sep 30, 2014 07:08
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jrodefeld posted:Do you know the percentage of the US labor force that earns the Federally mandated minimum wage? The answer is 4.3 percent. The problem with your statistic is that is is JUST minimum wage workers. A guy who makes $7.26 doesn't get counted in those statistics, nor does a guy who makes $7.30 etc. If you actually account for those people, then Obama's proposed raise to $10.10 would raise 27.8 Million americans, or roughly 8.8%. Or roughly double the impact you're suggesting. Raising the wages of what is essentially the bottom 9% of americans is a pretty good goal in my opinion, though I'd prefer a higher wage. quote:If workers are so helpless and businessmen so all powerful, we don't we see far more people being paid the minimum? Why are any workers being paid salaries of $30 to $40 an hour and higher? Why aren't theses businesses pushing down their wages to subsistence levels? Because they are skilled workers and thus don't need the benefit of the minimum wage. Its an apples and oranges thing. The reason why the minimum wage exists is to protect unskilled, uneducated labors who would otherwise be exploited, especially in situations like the one we have now where there are multiple job openings for every open job. You suggested in earlier posts that you don't expect the wage to go down, in which case the question would be, whats the harm. If you don't think that employers would drive wages down and thus pay $4 or $6 then the minimum wage must have no effect. If on the other hand you think that people will be offered jobs at $6 or $4 then why don't you believe that there will be a severe downward pressure towards those wages considering that there is more supply than demand for labor. Econ 101 would tell you that if not for the price fixing wages would be substantially lower right now, no? quote:The answer is obvious. Like I said, these workers have a high marginal productivity and are able to command higher wages on the market. Their employer knows the going wage rate that the market has set for your skill set and job position. They know that if they lowball you and offer you wages that are too low, you will simply leave and work for someone else. This is how it works for more than 95% of wage earners who earn more than the minimum wage. 91.2%, but yeah. That is how it works to an extent when you have skills, an education or are working a union job. That isn't what we are talking about however, we're talking about uneducated workers which is who the minimum wage exists to protect. quote:You take about asymmetry of the field but you absolutely discount the risk that is assumed by entrepreneurs and businessmen, provided they are not receiving subsidies from the State or are protected from failure (i.e. "too big to fail", Fed guaranteed banks). It is no small thing to lose a job, but you should never discount the personal catastrophe of losing a lifetime of savings in a failed business venture. A failed entrepreneur can lose everything, go DEEPLY into debt and face severe personal consequences for making an error in judgment or failing to accurately anticipate consumer demand. Well, discounting the fact that we support protections for start up businesses (such as bankrupcy law and universal healthcare!), we don't ignore or discount those risks. I get that if someone starts a business that produces something they should be rewarded. I'm not a straight up marxist, nor are most of the people in this thread. What does this have to do with the minimum wage? quote:Have you ever tried to start a business? I have friends who run their own businesses. My mom earns a very meager salary running her own business and I can tell you from experience that the amount of money that is wasted on property taxes, on bureaucracy and on regulations is insane. It makes it almost not worth trying. Unless you have personal experience in starting a business don't think that you know the unnecessary hurdles and obstacles that the State places in your path. Of course in the absence of these obstacles that tilt the playing field in favor of entrenched business interests, the prospect of becoming an entrepreneur would be more attractive and more feasible for more people. As I mentioned in my last post, yes, yes I have. You are severely overestimating the 'hurdles' of the state compared to the hurdles of not having healthcare, or a safety net to fall back on if you fail. You are completely ignoring the fact that while taxation can impact a business plan, no one goes into starting a business and stops in their tax going 'darn, I could do this if only for the sales taxes' quote:What type of person is hurt by minimum wage laws? The mentally and physically handicapped. The unskilled young. The historically discriminated against. Black teenage unemployment exceeds 50% in many cities. Many places have exceptions to the minimum wage laws for the mentally and physically handicapped. Also the mentally and physically handicapped would be hosed in a laissez faire system so try again. Also don't play the Walter Block 'I'm just really worried about black kids' card unless you want this to turn into race war 2000 again, there are WAY more important things impacting black teenage unemployment than the minimum wage and you know it. quote:Furthermore, the entire concept of a "living wage" is ludicrous on its face. The amount of money required to live for a teenager living at home is far lower than a man in his forties who is trying to raise a family. The minimum wage makes no such distinction. It merely asserts that it is illegal, and thus the State will use violence against anyone who hires a worker at a lower wage than an arbitrarily set amount. I'm happy to work in an exception to the minimum wage to deal with teenagers who are in good home situations. Likewise I'm happy to set up some sort of tax incentive or other benefit to help the man in his forties. quote:This is amoral. The problem for those who earn low or no wages is that their marginal productivity is too low. Instead of thinking that the poor need more "money", understand that what they really need is more skills which makes them more productive, which raises the wage rate they can command on the market and expands their economic opportunities. I'm just repeating my last post now so I'll let you respond to that one. Your morality is not my morality, stop pretending you are god and that you and your warped logic have some universal answer on right and wrong. Alternately, own up to the fact that you believe that so we can pick at that instead.
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Sep 30, 2014 07:30
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jrodefeld posted:It is always fallacious to look to the distant past and apply our modern standards for worker safety and living standards to presuppose that modern "Progressive" regulation and minimum wage laws would have improved matters. I don't know the specifics of the case you cited, but unless the workers explicitly agreed that the doors would be locked, then this was a rights violation and the employers should have been held accountable and charged with murder. If an unexpected fire breaks out in a factory and the workers expect the doors to remain open for them to be able to exit the building and instead they are locked shut by order of the owner, then that is murder clear and simple. I really do have to go to bed, but I'm just going to retort really quickly. You're at best half right on what you say here. The 'improved' working conditions etc came as a result of workers banding together due to massive abuses by their employers, and were solidified in law because otherwise employers can and would continue to push back against those gains. This was particularly wise when you look back at the waning power of unions over the last several decades, and you can see republicans and big business poking at the idea of child labor every now and again to see if its still too hot to touch. To pretend however that the legislation had no effect? I assume you don't know about the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which is the sweeping depression era legislation that effectively ended child labor in the US, which was still a very big thing in the depression. It also introduced the minimum wage and the forty hour work week. Whether you think that things were going in that direction or not, enshrining it in law is really the only way to keep these abuses at bay. Your example that people should be put on trial for locking the doors only works if there are laws against locking the doors. Moreover, you seem to suggest that it would have been okay if the workers knew, which has disturbing implications to say the least. Lastly I'll just say this. post hoc ergo propter hoc, You erroneously assume that since living standards continued to improve and general working conditions and wage rates rose throughout the early and mid 20th century, that the market was the cause of that improvement. You certainly don't provide anything but empty statements that you assume we will accept at face value that you are correct.
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Sep 30, 2014 07:54
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QuarkJets posted:You're talking about 3.3 million people. That's a significant number of workers Oooh, poo poo, I didn't even think of that. Dumb Caros. Jrod, When you get to this, correct my 8.8% number. That was actually derived by taking the 27.8 Million number and dividing by population. What I forgot to account for is that its just 27.8 Million people, not out of the total population. So the actual number of people getting a benefit of the real 155 million US work force is actually about 18%. So yeah. I think a boost in pay to 18% of the population is a drat fine idea.
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Sep 30, 2014 07:59
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LolitaSama posted:I'm an ex-libertarian, so maybe I can answer that with some sincerity. I sort of suspected that some change had taken place given the tone of your posts, and I'm glad to hear that I was correct. This post didn't get nearly enough love considering I recall you circa 2012 making some of the exact same sort of posts as Jrod. Another poster asked and I'll through my question in as well, what caused you to abandon libertarianism, and where do you fall now in the grand scheme of things, if you fall anywhere at all. Also you'll be happy to know I've edited the OP to reflect your new status.  BrandorKP posted:Do you know what liability insurers do to control risk? (at-least in heavy industry and transportation) I think a lot of libertarians fail to understand the bolded section. They think far too often that each and every regulation is some pointless endevor into the market, when in reality many, perhaps even most regulations have some sort of tragedy behind them. I like to point to lawn darts as the primary example. You can't sell them in Canada, even old ones at a garage sale. A local libertarian threw a shitfit over this and I had to explain to him multiple times that lawn darts are banned because they are essentially weighted metal throwing knives marketed as a children's toy. The US had five deaths and thousands of hospitalizations over a ten year period before they were banned because, while the product was being used as intended, it turns out kids like to throw them as hard as they can sometimes, which leads to them flying over fences and killing six year old girls.
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Sep 30, 2014 22:28
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AlternateAccount posted:Hey, maybe. Is it less fun to beat up on self-identified libertarians who aren't TOTAL frothing zealots? Only mildly foamy enthusiasts? So I am curious and I've yet to see you answer this. Why is some government intrusion, such as the armed forces or police or roads alright but things like medicare and social security must immediately be chopped and the budget balanced? Personally I suspect the reason is that you personally see benefits from police or roads but don't benefit from medicare or social security, but I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. Which programs would you cut on your way to a small l libertopia and why? What is your position on the minimum wage, and how do you differ from JRodefeld on that matter. Why those programs and not others. Basically, what defines a 'good' government program in your books and what is 'bad'.
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Sep 30, 2014 22:42
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LolitaSama posted:I'm an immigrant, and during 2013 and 2014, as debate over immigration reformed raged on in the US, I saw how extremely anti-immigrant the Republican Party was. It was so extreme I could only imagine intense racist fervor could inspire such zeal. I reluctantly switched over to being a single issue Democrat at first, but started to see everything from a more leftist viewpoint over time. Now I see the same racist fervor of the anti-immigrant right also underlying libertarian ideology. I realized libertarian dislike for welfare was actually driven by the fact that it was viewed as a transfer of wealth from rich whites to poor blacks. The people on Stormfront (the white supremacist forum) spout the same nonsense conspiracy theories about the federal reserve system as the libertarians, but they colorfully included heavy anti-Semitic arguments that libertarians omitted. Yeah, that is a really good way to put it LolitaSama. A lot of the posters here are former libertarians and I know the exact experience you're talking about, where you look back and go... "Did I really think that the minimum wage somehow decreased wages for the poor? How the gently caress does that even make any sense?" To say nothing of the fact that they have their own words and definition of words for everything.
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Sep 30, 2014 22:45
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SedanChair posted:Why are dilettante libertarians so adamant that they are the only ones opposed to the drug war and the military industrial complex anyway? Oh right it's because libertarianism is literally their first foray into politics, and they don't know any better. I was going to comment on that, but figure this works just fine. quote:I'd suspect that most of the libertarian view comes down to this. Its a big part of the reason that I was a libertarian, that and selfish and slightly race based anger that I felt as a young man that I've thankfully been able to work through. Oh, and speaking of race based anger and LolitaSama's last post. AlternateAccount does it concern you at all that the demographics of the libertarian party in the USA has demographics that are 93% non-hispanic white, or that they are 63% male? Do you think it says something about a political movement and its message that it is almost universally adopted by whites and primarily men? I mean, I can go dig up the reason.com stuff from the last Jrod thread to show you how the Libertarian Party has deep roots in white supremacist causes if you'd like. Does that concern you at all or do you simply pretend that it doesn't exist? Edit: Not calling you a racist btw, I just want to know if you are aware of and/or worried about the fact that your party has a deep and recent history of racism. Caros fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 22:47
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LolitaSama posted:Obama. I always loved that euphamism. "So and so has argued that x is y. It isn't true, but that is his argument."
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Oct 1, 2014 01:36
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Mr Interweb posted:However, I do have one question that I wanted to ask. You only recently realized that libertarians/Republicans are racist shitheels? I mean, they've been talking about shooting messicans via cannon back to Mexico and advocating giving internment camps another chance when talking about the muslins. I suspect it is more of an awakening to the fact. It is really easy to dismiss such voices as 'not real' libertarians or republicans when you are in the deep end. Speaking from experience I actively railed against Universal Healthcare until I saw the direct effects of not having such healthcare first hand. Sure I was always aware that for profit healthcare had its bad sides, but for something like this sometimes it really takes a direct blow for it to 'stick'.
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Oct 1, 2014 04:30
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McAlister posted:I did. I ran away the rich girl way through legally emancipating myself and transferring assets that had been put in my name as a tax dodge into an account my parents didn't have access to. Bridge burned. Haven't spoken to my father in over two decades. Err, to explain a little about that comment, Depart family of Origin is a term that originates from Libertarian philospher and in my opinion, cult leader, Stephan Molyneux. One of his things is that since all parents abuse their children, whether physically, emotionally or whatever, it is impossible to have a real relationship with them. Thus you should DeFOO and also you should send a lot of money to Molyneux. That said, the standard libertarian response to your argument would be one of two things. Both would probably argue that your situation is horrible, some might possibly suggest that it would never happen in a free market society because abusive religious/other practices would be discouraged. Because that somehow makes sense. Past that the groups would be divided in their reply between 'Charity' or simply giving no fucks, by way of saying that while it is bad it isn't someone else's problem and stealing from them to provide you with school is amoral. Now the Charity angle is enormous bullshit, as evidenced by the fact that the loving Miss America pageant is apparently the largest women dedicated scholarship fund in the US and that at perhaps 1/10th of the number they actually claim. It also has a ton of strings attached to boot. I personally think the 'giving no fucks' angle is more honest. It sucks, but it isn't their problem that your dad is an rear end in a top hat and they shouldn't have to pay for a rich girl's school because daddy didn't want to, just like they shouldn't have to pay for a poor person's medication because they are too poor.
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Oct 1, 2014 05:54
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LolitaSama posted:I apologize in advance for rambling on a bit, but this gets me worked up. I know a bunch of people have already chimed in, but really good on you for coming to this realization. You actually made the conversion with a hell of a lot less impetus than I did, and that is all the more impressive. I know a ton of people on these forums have switched from the libertarian wing over the years, but you are the most vocal proponent I've yet met who actually realized that he was being hosed by the people he supported. It gives off a feeling of hope which is sometimes hard to come by. While I'm at it, I hope you don't beat yourself up too much that you ever believed in this garbage. Libertarian ideals really speak to people who are younger, because its an inherently selfish ideology. Its no wonder that Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is most influential to people if they read it when they are young, and that is because it speaks to a world view where every problem is simple and everything is about you in a way that appeals to the teenage mind.
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Oct 1, 2014 05:59
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wateroverfire posted:There are private roads all over the place, though? It's a thing that is appropriate sometimes. What's so bad about the idea of private roads? In and of themselves private roads aren't especially problematic. Replacing all public roads with private roads as part of an ideological libertarian quest for no-government-ever purity however is pretty problematic.
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Oct 1, 2014 18:41
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AlternateAccount posted:You just don't GET IT. Apparently, any economic transaction in which I don't get precisely what I want for not a penny more than I think is arbitrarily fair, it's economic coercion and terrible. Uh huh, because that is exactly what we are talking about! It is economic coersion when a CEO is only paid $20 million instead of $20 million and one cent. Wait, no it isn't. We're talking about a specific everyday situation in which employers use the threat of being able to easily replace low wage workers to drive down the wages of those workers to poverty levels. Specifically we are talking about the fact that employers can and will leverage the threat of homelessness or starvation to their advantage when it comes to getting lower and lower wages, not as an evil, machiavellian plot but as an inherent part of the business process. What we are talking about is that we as a society have decided to implement a minimum wage to say "No employers, you have to pay at least this much regardless of how great your leverage is." And guess what, we're allowed to do this in the same way that we are also allowed to say "Yes you have to serve the darkies at the lunch counter" and "No you can't slap your secretaries rear end and call her sweetheart." quote:Having the government deprive you of property or freedom due to not paying taxes/fees is somehow an acceptable form of the same. Do you have a problem with the government depriving you of property or freedom when you steal from someone? How about if you go out in the street and take a pick axe to the road? If you don't pay your taxes you are STEALING from society. Property is a social construct between people, the only reason your house is your house is because society as a whole agrees that it is. In the same way that we agree that your property is in fact your property, we have also socially agreed that people will pay taxes mandated by our form of socially accepted government. If you do not pay your taxes, you are in effect stealing from society, and you can and are punished in much the same way as if you'd stolen from an individal. quote:Somehow throwing people in prison or kicking in their doors for simply not paying a cost(which is mandatory & non-negotiable) is acceptable when we do it to ourselves, but no one else should have that ability. (Really, no one should, but whatever.) I would also have someone kick in my door if I stopped paying my mandatory Condo fee. My Condo fee is negotiable, but only through a democratic process, just like taxation is in fact negotiable on a much larger scale. Do you also object to Condo fees? Keep in mind that if your answer is that I could simply choose not to live there, that you are fully capable of choosing not to live here either. quote:So if a principle cannot be applied to perfection, it cannot be used to advise decision making? Hmm. The problem is less that the non-aggression principle is flawed and more that it is pointless and says nothing of value. Here, let me quote it from Mises: quote:The non-aggression principle (also called the non-aggression axiom, or the anti-coercion or zero aggression principle or non-initiation of force) is an ethical stance which asserts that "aggression" is inherently illegitimate. "Aggression" is defined as the "initiation" of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property. In contrast to pacifism, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violent self-defense. The principle is a deontological (or rule-based) ethical stance. Okay, are there any posters in here who disagree that the Non-Aggression Principle is actually a bad thing overall? I'd honestly be surprised to hear if there is more than 1-2 posters who think that this definition of the NAP is problematic. Don't initiate physical force agaisnt someone, or their property, or threaten to do so or use fraud. That pretty much sounds like what we have now doesn't it? I know that legally I am not allowed to do any of those things. I would be arrested if I initiated physical force against someone. So where is the disagreement if it isn't with the NAP? Its in what constitutes force. You argue that taxation is a form of force. But the NAP doesn't actually say poo poo about that, it says that you shouldn't aggress against people, which we agree with. What you're doing instead is trying to redefine things that you don't like as force. You are arguing that taxation is theft, because if you can pretend that it is theft, then it is a form of aggression and is thus inherently immoral. Guess what, you don't need the NAP for that my friend. If people actually agreed with you from the get go that taxation was theft, then it would already be socially unacceptable. In short, what you are doing is simply arguing over what belongs to who. I don't believe that your tax money belongs to you, and neither do the vast majority of people in the world. Taxation isn't theft by any definition but your own twisted attempt to manipulate people.
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Oct 1, 2014 20:14
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