Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
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This sums it up well.Originally posted by: Rainsford
Or rightwingers who've read the constitution
American Libertarians are not anarchists in any sense of the word. They are Classical Liberals and IME are only confused with European anarcho-capitalists by the ignorant and/or the hateful.
Says the emotionally driven...
The naivete comes from those who believe that they will be invited to the feeding table when their masters have enslaved them. The fantasy is the mystics who believe that there is more to human social reality than just humans themselves. The ignorant hate is those who petuantly order the use of force to harm and steal from other human beings "because they deserve it."
The origins of classical liberalism began in 1689 when John Locke published in his Second Treatise on Government the simple obvious fact that each human individual is by natural law his own property. This was btw in those days treason and blasphemy at the same time, because the king owned your body and the church your soul. Any freedom of body and soul that you might enjoy today you can thank Locke for I might add. (I will note here that every type of authoritarian government, be it right- or left-winged, invariably tries to limit the physical and religious freedoms of its citizens).
All premises of Libertarianism today remain based on that single obvious fact of nature. Each individual is sovereign. That is the only reality in human politics. Things like government and corporations are legal fictions we dream up.
Thank you for the compliments but I'd like to note a couple of things for consideration and discussion.
As far as the liberatian approach that giving the world financial aid is nothing but a welfare system and creates a dependency, that is correct in my opinion.
However, there are no solutions to these types of problems. The only successful monetary system there is today is capitalism. If you disagree with this you are simply diluted and refuse to see the facts. If you research Marx you will know that he saw a natural progression of a state through different types of systems: Feudalism to Capitalism to Socialism to Communism.
I think fedualism to capitalism is a natural progression as people becoming more personally skilled, educated, and wealthy they will want more freedom over their lives which is natural. However, the leap from capitalism to socialism is not a natural one for people to embrace.
It is not easy for someone to give away what they have worked for. It is less easy for people who have spent their lives working harder than those around them and trying to get ahead in life to pool their resources into the collective good. It simply isn't human nature. That is why our economy which is far more demanding than Europe's, is larger and continues to grow faster than Europe's economies on a daily basis.
This is why I don't fear China. As Tom Friedman from the New York Times so plainly put, "China's economy is like a sportscar gaining speed as it flies down the interstate, but they see the bump in the road. That bump is political reform and they will either slow down and change direction appropriately or they will crash as Russia did."
China's progression to democracy is natural. Abortion was let out of the pandora's box here in America and its impossible to stuff it back in. Capitalism has been let out of pandora's box in China as well in areas and those areas have exploded with growth; and that will be impossible to stop as well. But capitalism will not strive without democracy. The richer a person becomes the more freedom they desire and one way or another they will have it. It is simply human nature.
We have nothing to fear from a communist China that will inevitably implode upon itself from within.
We have nothing to fear from a capitalist China that will inevitably prosper into a functioning democracy.
No two democracies have ever waged war upon one another. Consider that fact.
As far as the liberatian approach that giving the world financial aid is nothing but a welfare system and creates a dependency, that is correct in my opinion.
However, there are no solutions to these types of problems. The only successful monetary system there is today is capitalism. If you disagree with this you are simply diluted and refuse to see the facts. If you research Marx you will know that he saw a natural progression of a state through different types of systems: Feudalism to Capitalism to Socialism to Communism.
I think fedualism to capitalism is a natural progression as people becoming more personally skilled, educated, and wealthy they will want more freedom over their lives which is natural. However, the leap from capitalism to socialism is not a natural one for people to embrace.
It is not easy for someone to give away what they have worked for. It is less easy for people who have spent their lives working harder than those around them and trying to get ahead in life to pool their resources into the collective good. It simply isn't human nature. That is why our economy which is far more demanding than Europe's, is larger and continues to grow faster than Europe's economies on a daily basis.
This is why I don't fear China. As Tom Friedman from the New York Times so plainly put, "China's economy is like a sportscar gaining speed as it flies down the interstate, but they see the bump in the road. That bump is political reform and they will either slow down and change direction appropriately or they will crash as Russia did."
China's progression to democracy is natural. Abortion was let out of the pandora's box here in America and its impossible to stuff it back in. Capitalism has been let out of pandora's box in China as well in areas and those areas have exploded with growth; and that will be impossible to stop as well. But capitalism will not strive without democracy. The richer a person becomes the more freedom they desire and one way or another they will have it. It is simply human nature.
We have nothing to fear from a communist China that will inevitably implode upon itself from within.
We have nothing to fear from a capitalist China that will inevitably prosper into a functioning democracy.
No two democracies have ever waged war upon one another. Consider that fact.
Yes but that has nothing to do with my point. I was trying put some perspective on the, shall we say, smugly superior and put down tone expressed by Dissipate's intellectual sloth remark, mostly by responding to it in kind, contemptuously, by referencing libertarianism as a backwater of intellectual thought whose relevance for the average American, as a reflection of the profound cogency libertarians themselves have been able to make to the average American's life in general, has contributed and is responsible for that backwater status. In short, people who are in to this or that seem to be in to this or that, not because they find some deep truth there, but because it seem to confer to them some sense of superiority to be expert in the arcane, that as high priests of ingrown hairs, they have a right and duty to look down and put down others not so filled with their own personal form of puss.
It seems more natural to me, if you know what others do not, to tell them rather than inform them that the reasons they don't know what they don't know is because they are intellectual sloths. Dissipate is also, then, if I may then say so, an intellectual sloth because he has never applied his intellect to the fact that he is an emotionally immature pig. He does not notice that his ego is involved in his position and that his sense of self worth has been transfered over the the status of his belief. He has, therefore, violated his own central tenet, no, by selling his reputation into slavery. He has attached himself to his belief. See?
See my last post. I am aware that parties protect themselves. I would suggest, however, that libertarians, if their aim truly is to make headway as a political force rather than provide a refuge where political misfits can mutually intellectually masturbate themselves, that they devote some thought and time to becoming relevant to the American people more generally.
I had little issue with Frackal's point. He expressed himself as 'surprised', although we could infer there was an edge to that. I have no illusions that there are those here who believe they are God's gift to political science. I have my own beliefs on that matter, that we hate ourselves and substitute for what should be our own self love some external that we believe is worthy of the praise we should feel naturally for ourselves. I call it identification with the external. Anyway, those who beat up others for their external identifications are, I would say, almost universally doing so because the other threatens some external identification of their own. Again, this I am better than you thingi, this I am much more informed, is extraneous to an analysis of libertarianism. I would add, too, that I am much more interested in a live debate with libertarians on this subject than I am in an encyclopedic definition because I am interested in the feeling content that lies at its roots, feeling that only live people exhibit and impute to their expressions, often without conscious recognition. I am interested, therefore, in what libertarianism is emotionally. What need does it fill? Why do we have such a need?
I would like to add that the official point of view of the Libertarian party is that taxes should be volluntary, eminent domain should be abolished and there should be nothing owned by the public. Some points I heavily disagree with as I do not belive in a utopian society and the official Libretarian party position is that people would volluntarily pay taxes and build transportation systems privately. This is so incredibly idealistic that it's rediculous. Given the greed in this country no one would pay taxes volluntarily and there are certian aspects of society that government must provide (roads, fire, police, airports, parks, ports, etc) that we cannot rely on the generousity of our population because that generosity died about 50 years ago.
Originally posted by: Vic
This sums it up well.Originally posted by: Rainsford
Or rightwingers who've read the constitution
American Libertarians are not anarchists in any sense of the word. They are Classical Liberals and IME are only confused with European anarcho-capitalists by the ignorant and/or the hateful.
Says the emotionally driven...
The naivete comes from those who believe that they will be invited to the feeding table when their masters have enslaved them. The fantasy is the mystics who believe that there is more to human social reality than just humans themselves. The ignorant hate is those who petuantly order the use of force to harm and steal from other human beings "because they deserve it."
The origins of classical liberalism began in 1689 when John Locke published in his Second Treatise on Government the simple obvious fact that each human individual is by natural law his own property. This was btw in those days treason and blasphemy at the same time, because the king owned your body and the church your soul. Any freedom of body and soul that you might enjoy today you can thank Locke for I might add. (I will note here that every type of authoritarian government, be it right- or left-winged, invariably tries to limit the physical and religious freedoms of its citizens).
All premises of Libertarianism today remain based on that single obvious fact of nature. Each individual is sovereign. That is the only reality in human politics. Things like government and corporations are legal fictions we dream up.
I think this is probably the best expression if the essentially libertarian so far...the starting point notion that each of us is his or her own property. I find it interesting that such a common sense notion, one to which I think almost all people would ascribe to, is at the same time one that is never put into practice. I wonder why that is? I wonder if it is because, while it sounds good, reality doesn't function that way. I was admonished for assuming the parts define the whole, even though I was not making such a case, but here, are we to assume that the parts, individuals with individual rights equate to a society in which we are all independently free? I am essentially asking, I think, for an analogy that encapsulates some of the point I would make, is a man free and independent who has a wife? I have heard that to be married a man must either be a man or a zero and zero is the obvious mode of choice.
In shout a man forfeits his individuality because each of us is a member of a group. It is the group to which we owe our real allegiance. This is perhaps clear from the following observation made by an anthropologist:
A leopard began to stalk a baboon tribe that was on the move. Two young males dropped back and waited on a branch. When the leopard passed underneath one went for the leopard's back and the other for its neck. One was almost instantly disemboweled and the second killed shortly thereafter, but not before fatally wounding the leopard.
A society, it strikes me is a tangle of interconnections between people that functions harmoniously only when the members obey the consensus rules of conduct that evolve therein. This is how and why we evolved to the top of the food chain. It is what we are, socialist animals, and what we have been for millions of years. No man is an island and the affirmation that one is, I think, is an illusion. The control of our parents, elders, and peers is the process of socialization. It functions out of reciprocity and law is just written down social rules, no?
They are a kind of extremist Republican.
They want everyone to fend for themselves with no help from the government. No IRS, No Social Security nothing.
They want everyone to fend for themselves with no help from the government. No IRS, No Social Security nothing.
Yes but could not an argument that government force is what killed generosity?
But what happens to libertarianism in a life raft of the where it takes ten to bail to stay afloat. Can the libertarian decide to write an essay?
Libertarians are like spoiled children. They are pathologically narcissistic capitalists who idealize the political economic system that best fits their narcissistic dreams of having more than the majority of the people (exploited thoughout the world, and whose low wage work means affordable products for the well-paid people at the centre of the capitalist empire), without limits, and without feeling guilty about it...it is even worse than that: they want to see themselves as heroic idealists, they want to be admired for their "vision". They are worse than the common capitalist because they refuse to face the ugly reality of capitalism: capitalists can only exist by enslaving the majority of people for at least eight hours a day: the exact opposite of the beautiful idealism contained in "Each individual is sovereign".
Libertarians are totally irrelevant, because powerful capitalists (Capital is more and more concentrated; we do not live in mom and pop's capitalism) will never adopt their totally impractical falsely idealistic ideas. Capitalism needs a stong State and a strong alliance has been formed between them, for their mutual benefit.
Libertarians are totally irrelevant, because powerful capitalists (Capital is more and more concentrated; we do not live in mom and pop's capitalism) will never adopt their totally impractical falsely idealistic ideas. Capitalism needs a stong State and a strong alliance has been formed between them, for their mutual benefit.
Vic
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I didn't say that a man is an island, Moonie. I said each individual is sovereign. Capable of deciding on their own. Do we owe the group our allegiance, or must the group gain our allegiance through threat of force? In other words, choice or coercion? The natural fact I was refering to is that it is always choice. The coercion of the group is the illusion.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I think this is probably the best expression if the essentially libertarian so far...the starting point notion that each of us is his or her own property. I find it interesting that such a common sense notion, one to which I think almost all people would ascribe to, is at the same time one that is never put into practice. I wonder why that is? I wonder if it is because, while it sounds good, reality doesn't function that way. I was admonished for assuming the parts define the whole, even though I was not making such a case, but here, are we to assume that the parts, individuals with individual rights equate to a society in which we are all independently free? I am essentially asking, I think, for an analogy that encapsulates some of the point I would make, is a man free and independent who has a wife? I have heard that to be married a man must either be a man or a zero and zero is the obvious mode of choice.
In shout a man forfeits his individuality because each of us is a member of a group. It is the group to which we owe our real allegiance. This is perhaps clear from the following observation made by an anthropologist:
A leopard began to stalk a baboon tribe that was on the move. Two young males dropped back and waited on a branch. When the leopard passed underneath one went for the leopard's back and the other for its neck. One was almost instantly disemboweled and the second killed shortly thereafter, but not before fatally wounding the leopard.
A society, it strikes me is a tangle of interconnections between people that functions harmoniously only when the members obey the consensus rules of conduct that evolve therein. This is how and why we evolved to the top of the food chain. It is what we are, socialist animals, and what we have been for millions of years. No man is an island and the affirmation that one is, I think, is an illusion. The control of our parents, elders, and peers is the process of socialization. It functions out of reciprocity and law is just written down social rules, no?
It is odd to me that leftists, for all their talk of peace and love, invariably believe in the social politics of coercion, force, and war. That individuals are inherently bad, that people are evil, that everyone must be forced to do the "right thing," regardless. These are the good intentions that the road to hell is paved with, this is attracting flies with vinegar instead of honey, this is the path to war.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
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LOL! The irony here is too hilariously rich. An entitlement bitch calling libertarians "spoiled children." :laugh:
Tell me, how does capitalism "enslave" you? Are you like a black slave in the pre-Civil War south? Bred and housed, whipped and killed at your massah's command? Not even. You're just a spoiled child who cannot accept the obvious reality that labor is the price you pay for eating, and that you will have to pay that price regardless of what economic system you live in.
As to "strong capitalism," such a thing only exists in an idealogue's world. In reality, the rich and powerful are not terribly fond of capitalism as it places all their holdings in constant risk. But risk is the name of the game to wealth, so they accept as little as possible while legislating away the rest. But that legislating away is not capitalism.
Vic: I didn't say that a man is an island, Moonie. I said each individual is sovereign. Capable of deciding on their own. Do we owe the group our allegiance, or must the group gain our allegiance through threat of force? In other words, choice or coercion? The natural fact I was refering to is that it is always choice. The coercion of the group is the illusion.
It is odd to me that leftists, for all their talk of peace and love, invariably believe in the social politics of coercion, force, and war. That individuals are inherently bad, that people are evil, that everyone must be forced to do the "right thing," regardless. These are the good intentions that the road to hell is paved with, this is attracting flies with vinegar instead of honey, this is the path to war.
Well this is good, but I've some questions on where it takes us. I wonder where the primacy is, for example. Is it the job of the group to win our allegiance, or is it a given that our allegiance is to be expected and demanded? See my life boat example above. Is the matter of our owing the group something about which we have a right of choice. I suggested with the baboons that it is a biological imperative and that is where, I think, this issue gets cloudy. Intellectually we can pretend that we are islands of individual will and choice of which we are the sole arbiters, but biologically, genetically, and structurally, we are a group animal that is formed and built by a group. Everything we are and have learned was provided by other people, more or less, of course. Some societies with free education, for example, won't let their students emigrate. Are libertarians people who like to skip out on their debts? Does not a group have a claim on its property too?
And while it is nice to use honey to attract positive things, what do you do with, for example, a young adult who wants to commit suicide? Is that something you should stay away from because its that person's choice.
These things, in other words, do not strike me as absolute and the devil is in the details.
You might have included some criticism of the right in your post also since I am curious how they go astray as well.
It is odd to me that leftists, for all their talk of peace and love, invariably believe in the social politics of coercion, force, and war. That individuals are inherently bad, that people are evil, that everyone must be forced to do the "right thing," regardless. These are the good intentions that the road to hell is paved with, this is attracting flies with vinegar instead of honey, this is the path to war.
Well this is good, but I've some questions on where it takes us. I wonder where the primacy is, for example. Is it the job of the group to win our allegiance, or is it a given that our allegiance is to be expected and demanded? See my life boat example above. Is the matter of our owing the group something about which we have a right of choice. I suggested with the baboons that it is a biological imperative and that is where, I think, this issue gets cloudy. Intellectually we can pretend that we are islands of individual will and choice of which we are the sole arbiters, but biologically, genetically, and structurally, we are a group animal that is formed and built by a group. Everything we are and have learned was provided by other people, more or less, of course. Some societies with free education, for example, won't let their students emigrate. Are libertarians people who like to skip out on their debts? Does not a group have a claim on its property too?
And while it is nice to use honey to attract positive things, what do you do with, for example, a young adult who wants to commit suicide? Is that something you should stay away from because its that person's choice.
These things, in other words, do not strike me as absolute and the devil is in the details.
You might have included some criticism of the right in your post also since I am curious how they go astray as well.
Vic
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The libertarian will be the first to starting bailing in order to save his own life while the authoritarians are still arguing over who has the ability to bail and who has the need to be bailed.
For the rest, you are simply being obtuse, Moonie. Or perhaps just pretending to slothfully misunderstand in order to mischaracterize? No matter how much you love to use the stick of the group, I will not advocate the use of such a thing when the carrot of individuality will work just as well. This does not make us islands. That is a straw man. Free trade is the back bone of liberty.
As is your example of the young adult who wants to commit suicide a straw man. To argue in the same manner that you are doing, I could say that the authoritarian ideal is for the group to execute him to keep from his sin.
The right? I care very little of left and right. They are made-up divisions. Us and Them. The very existence of "left" and "right" is a perfect example of the authoritarian love for violence, coercion, force, and war. Nor do I see much difference between these two self-labelled groups. But if I have to fit within your definitions, I would criticize the right for their moral authoritarianisms, for their intrinsic views of right and wrong, for their "can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs" mentality. But that's not much different than the left. One side says morality is going to a specific church, the other side says morality is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Your precious groups become lynch mobs -- warring gangs of thugs without a shred of individual conscience.
Vic
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Should I tell him? Or should we wait? The answer is the inescapable reality at that core of the libertarian argument, and that which the authoritarians live in constant denial of.
Moonie might appreciate this one, I think, as IIRC piasabird is a member of the so-called Right here on this board.
All I can think of is two beaver pelts.
But I did note the possibility that if everybody is fending for himself there would be no government to take care of anybody. How that qualifies as a bifurcation, however, is way, way beyond me. One question though since I gotta run for a bit. How come a group of people can't make rules that limit personal freedom and allow those who don't like it to leave.
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