What is a libertarian?

[imported_hscorpio]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I am just saying that you have a belief, a kind of religion if you will in that you refer to them as man's greatest achievements. This is what I call a sacred cow. I am not challenging the validity of your belief, only looking at it for what I can see in it.

I am not a libertarian ideologue by any means, despite how it appears to you. I don't necessarily blindly believe in any philosophy, I just look for what works, and if you ask me history and my own experience has shown that the basics principle behind libertarianism work better than any alternatives.

There is nothing you say here with which I would basically disagree. I find the point of view, however, one-sided. I tried to emphasize that fact when I mentioned that the US can be both the greatest and terrible at the same time. I am not saying that the presence of imperfections negates our society's strength but I am not also saying that our strengths negate our imperfections. It seems to me that I am looking at what is without taking sides whereas you are, so to speak, on a team. I am asking questions and your reaction seems to be to defend. So I ask questions that probe your defense.

You ask probing questions based on an assumption that libertarianism is a fraud, so naturally any answers that don't agree with your underlying assumptions appear to be defensive and one-sided to you. It appears to me you have taken a side based on this statement, "I am suggesting the possibility that libertarianism is an intellectual fraud and an illusion because it denies the existence of these social, organic, genetic facts of human nature that that its failure as a political philosophy to have any penetrating effect on society at large is that people instinctively realize that it is a joke." I may be wrong but I don't think you are merely suggesting this idea for the sake of some thought experiment, but that it actually represents how you feel about what you call libertarianism.

Does what you mean by individual freedom, for example, mean what those words mean to me. If they do not, how will you understand my answer? We will be talking at cross purposes.

We can get into a whole new thread over such arguments as what freedom really is, which I do not really care to do. If we can't reach common ground on basic definitions than any further discussion is probably pointless.

Yes I consider a married man free in the sense that he is not forced to be or stay married. He may have to compromise his individual desires to do only what he wants, but the fact that he does so voluntarily is the whole point.

As to free markets, well thing I notice about them is that they aren't free. Every time I engage in market activity I pay. I have read that the Kung who live in one of the most sever environments on earth spend about 20 hours a week on necessities. The rest is play time. They don't have good hospitals, but I would think that because they live as the human animal evolved to live their way of life should be protected. They own what fits in a hand so people with dye on paper have stolen their land. They have no paper with marks on it that says private property. So why is it not a fiction that anybody owns anything? Why is there no market to go to for those who want to opt out of the labor for dollars insanity?

Markets are free in the sense that you get to choose whom you engage in market activity with and how you do so. Compare the alternative in your scenario about someone who wants to 'opt out'. In a free market you can almost opt out if you wanted to move to a shack in alaska and live off the land. But in a controlled market you have no choice at all and do what someone with power tells you to.

I have no idea who these 'kungs' are, but it sounds kind of interesting. Got any links about them?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Frackal

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: Votingisanillusion

Originally posted by: hscorpio

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I am suggesting the possibility that libertarianism is an intellectual fraud and an illusion because it denies the existence of these social, organic, genetic facts of human nature that that its failure as a political philosophy to have any penetrating effect on society at large is that people instinctively realize that it is a joke.

You just called the basic philosophical principle behind the most successful society in history a joke, no?

Also there is nothing about libertarianism that denies the social grouping nature of man. It actually emphasizes the best method that individuals do interact and form groups, voluntary association.

But the argument here isn't just history. It is also current events.



The most polluting, consuming, materialistic, brainwashed, dumbed-down, war-waging society in history. You are welcome.

I take it you haven't picked up a history book in your entire life.

Why cannot the greatest government ever conceived by man as of yet and the greatest country in the world be at the same time the most polluting, consuming, materialistic, brainwashed, dumbed-down, war-waging society in history? ?

Actually America is far from that, you'd have to be an ignoramus to make a statement like that and mean it seriously.

Do you think that America really is the most war-waging society in history? The most brainwashed (however you quantify that) ?


JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ



I barely post here in P+N anymore because I just cannot handle the dedicated segment of (IMO) lunatics who relentlessly post negativity day after day after day ... there are some impressive postings on this thread though, from some people who I haven't seen around here much.

Perhaps what you cannot handle is what you really don't want to handle. You do not seen to understand, for example that what you see is the product of your own mind. A beautiful mind sees beauty and an ugly one sees ugliness. The external world activates old memories of feelings about yourself. How you feel about yourself is how your attitudes are created. What you cannot handle is the surfacing of your own negative feelings about yourself in the guise of negative idiots. You project your own negativity, the thing you hate about yourself. You are what you see.

When I said:

"Why cannot the greatest government ever conceived by man as of yet and the greatest country in the world be at the same time the most polluting, consuming, materialistic, brainwashed, dumbed-down, war-waging society in history?"

I was not speaking to the literal accuracy of the description but the fact, in my opinion at least, that a thing can have contradictory qualities and seemingly irreconcilable properties, at least superficially. It is not negativity to be able to recognize and function with negative facts. The incapacity to see or recognize negativity is called denial. A person sets himself up for this though by identification with some externality, a sacred cow of some sort. You have told yourself, for example, that you can't handle negativity. But that is what it means to wear blinders. You will allow yourself to identify only with the positive. That does not bode well for an objective self analysis.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: hscorpio

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I am just saying that you have a belief, a kind of religion if you will in that you refer to them as man's greatest achievements. This is what I call a sacred cow. I am not challenging the validity of your belief, only looking at it for what I can see in it.

I am not a libertarian ideologue by any means, despite how it appears to you. I don't necessarily blindly believe in any philosophy, I just look for what works, and if you ask me history and my own experience has shown that the basics principle behind libertarianism work better than any alternatives.

There is nothing you say here with which I would basically disagree. I find the point of view, however, one-sided. I tried to emphasize that fact when I mentioned that the US can be both the greatest and terrible at the same time. I am not saying that the presence of imperfections negates our society's strength but I am not also saying that our strengths negate our imperfections. It seems to me that I am looking at what is without taking sides whereas you are, so to speak, on a team. I am asking questions and your reaction seems to be to defend. So I ask questions that probe your defense.

You ask probing questions based on an assumption that libertarianism is a fraud, so naturally any answers that don't agree with your underlying assumptions appear to be defensive and one-sided to you. It appears to me you have taken a side based on this statement, "I am suggesting the possibility that libertarianism is an intellectual fraud and an illusion because it denies the existence of these social, organic, genetic facts of human nature that that its failure as a political philosophy to have any penetrating effect on society at large is that people instinctively realize that it is a joke." I may be wrong but I don't think you are merely suggesting this idea for the sake of some thought experiment, but that it actually represents how you feel about what you call libertarianism.

Does what you mean by individual freedom, for example, mean what those words mean to me. If they do not, how will you understand my answer? We will be talking at cross purposes.

We can get into a whole new thread over such arguments as what freedom really is, which I do not really care to do. If we can't reach common ground on basic definitions than any further discussion is probably pointless.

Yes I consider a married man free in the sense that he is not forced to be or stay married. He may have to compromise his individual desires to do only what he wants, but the fact that he does so voluntarily is the whole point.

As to free markets, well thing I notice about them is that they aren't free. Every time I engage in market activity I pay. I have read that the Kung who live in one of the most sever environments on earth spend about 20 hours a week on necessities. The rest is play time. They don't have good hospitals, but I would think that because they live as the human animal evolved to live their way of life should be protected. They own what fits in a hand so people with dye on paper have stolen their land. They have no paper with marks on it that says private property. So why is it not a fiction that anybody owns anything? Why is there no market to go to for those who want to opt out of the labor for dollars insanity?

Markets are free in the sense that you get to choose whom you engage in market activity with and how you do so. Compare the alternative in your scenario about someone who wants to 'opt out'. In a free market you can almost opt out if you wanted to move to a shack in alaska and live off the land. But in a controlled market you have no choice at all and do what someone with power tells you to.

I have no idea who these 'kungs' are, but it sounds kind of interesting. Got any links about them?

There is no such thing as a free market because human beings have needs. We need to eat and breathe. We need shelter. When society insures all people's basic needs then we can talk about markets. What is the value of human life. Where can a woman sell her motherhood? Where can the old sell their wisdom? Where is the market for real love? The market is a joke because it devalues what can't be quantified and hides real costs. There is a market is cheese among cheese mites that inhabit a wheel of cheese.

Among the Kung there is division of labor between young and old and between the sexes. But everybody eats meat and vegetables. He who kills a buck or pulls a root does not own it. The group owns everything so that ownership means nothing at all. There is consensus in the group because it is a biological imperative. Nobody would even dream of saying you can't tax me. One gives because what one gives is insignificant compared to what one gets. Some genuine freak who didn't want to share would be left alone in the desert, no? A nasty thing, group force particularly if you are that kind of freak.

The Kung

 

[Votingisanillusion]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Votingisanillusion
When you say "free market", you mean a free capitalist market. Freedom for corporations. Democracy is about freedom for the people. Corporations are structures within which most people are not free: they do not democratically decide how to run their workplace, they have to obey in a pyramidal authoritarian structure at the top of which we find the capitalists. So of course corporations limit the freedom of most people at least eight hours a day. Democracy would be much deeper is the workplace was entirely democratic: democracy would then be a daily experience. Today we can very well see how much capitalism corrupts democracy.
As for Parenti: as anyone else, he is not perfect. Most of what he writes is very interesting, as pointed by the top 1000 reviewer who severely criticizes him.

No, I mean a free market. As in a market that operates with a minimum of government interference except for protection from fraud, theft, corruption, crimes, etc. How the market decides to organize itself is up to itself, but of course it will be meritocratic. Making money and paying bills is not a popularity contest. If it were, it would be even more corrupt.
You have ideals about democracy which are not based in reality, or lessons from history. I have found that to be not unusual from people who claim to be believe in freedom and democracy on one hand and authoritarianism and communism/socialism on the other. Comes from trying to have your cake and eat it too. You see, democracy is not about freedom for the people. It is about control by the people. The 2 are not the same, and freedom is not an inherent quality of democracy.

That is what I said: you do not value freedom very highly. You just want more for yourself: you call that meritocracy; you are just greedily materialistic. Owning more than the majority is more important for you than the freedom of the others: your freedom to be a master and/or own more is more important than democracy in the workplace. You oppose direct democracy and meritocracy, as if direct democracy could not value merit, although many people agree that for example doctors deserve to earn more than the majority. The problem is that how merit is valued and how that is translated into money is decided by a tiny minority of the people, without a vote by the majority of the people who work and produce the majority of the wealth. You are not democratic. You are just a greedy person who refuses to view oneself in full light.
And of course you keep on repeating that a person who is much more democratic than you is authoritarian; that is so typical of the inversion of reality too often spilled out by neuroses.
You are just pathologically narcissistic: you want more for yourself and at the same time you want to have a good image of yourself.
As for the dumbing-down and the brainwashing of people: when workers owned many media a century ago, their media were enlightening them. Now that the media are owned by a few authoritarian billionaires and corporations, the media have become tools to brainwash and dumb-down people.

 

[imported_hscorpio]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

There is no such thing as a free market because human beings have needs. We need to eat and breathe. We need shelter. When society insures all people's basic needs then we can talk about markets. What is the value of human life. Where can a woman sell her motherhood? Where can the old sell their wisdom? Where is the market for real love? The market is a joke because it devalues what can't be quantified and hides real costs. There is a market is cheese among cheese mites that inhabit a wheel of cheese.

Among the Kung there is division of labor between young and old and between the sexes. But everybody eats meat and vegetables. He who kills a buck or pulls a root does not own it. The group owns everything so that ownership means nothing at all. There is consensus in the group because it is a biological imperative. Nobody would even dream of saying you can't tax me. One gives because what one gives is insignificant compared to what one gets. Some genuine freak who didn't want to share would be left alone in the desert, no? A nasty thing, group force particularly if you are that kind of freak.

The Kung

Weren't you saying something earlier about people who worship some past era that they consider ideal? It sounds to me like these kungs are a hunter/gather based society that represent a past ideal that you idolize (your sacred cow?) as an example of the group trumping the individual.

Lets analyze such a society. They typically would form small communities. But what happens when one community(group A) finds that they no longer have the resources to make a particular hunting tool or perhaps one of the staples of their diet has been overhunted and is now scarce in that area. Several miles away is another community(group B) that has these resources, but maybe needs some other resource that group A has. So now what happens? They either decide to use force and conquer the other group, or they decide to trade. If they trade voluntarily it is free trade and a market begins to form.

What happens when groupB discovers the idea of agriculture and soon thrives on a more reliable mechanism than hunting&gathering? They discover that certain areas of land are better suited to this and so they begin using these lands permanently. So now the idea of land as property forms. GroupA and B are different though and B doesn't want A to take their crops that they have not helped to grow without compensation. A eventually adapts and learns to farm and develops its own land. And so it begins...

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Votingisanillusion

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Votingisanillusion
When you say "free market", you mean a free capitalist market. Freedom for corporations. Democracy is about freedom for the people. Corporations are structures within which most people are not free: they do not democratically decide how to run their workplace, they have to obey in a pyramidal authoritarian structure at the top of which we find the capitalists. So of course corporations limit the freedom of most people at least eight hours a day. Democracy would be much deeper is the workplace was entirely democratic: democracy would then be a daily experience. Today we can very well see how much capitalism corrupts democracy.
As for Parenti: as anyone else, he is not perfect. Most of what he writes is very interesting, as pointed by the top 1000 reviewer who severely criticizes him.

No, I mean a free market. As in a market that operates with a minimum of government interference except for protection from fraud, theft, corruption, crimes, etc. How the market decides to organize itself is up to itself, but of course it will be meritocratic. Making money and paying bills is not a popularity contest. If it were, it would be even more corrupt.
You have ideals about democracy which are not based in reality, or lessons from history. I have found that to be not unusual from people who claim to be believe in freedom and democracy on one hand and authoritarianism and communism/socialism on the other. Comes from trying to have your cake and eat it too. You see, democracy is not about freedom for the people. It is about control by the people. The 2 are not the same, and freedom is not an inherent quality of democracy.

That is what I said: you do not value freedom very highly. You just want more for yourself: you call that meritocracy; you are just greedily materialistic. Owning more than the majority is more important for you than the freedom of the others: your freedom to be a master and/or own more is more important than democracy in the workplace. You oppose direct democracy and meritocracy, as if direct democracy could not value merit, although many people agree that for example doctors deserve to earn more than the majority. The problem is that how merit is valued and how that is translated into money is decided by a tiny minority of the people, without a vote by the majority of the people who work and produce the majority of the wealth. You are not democratic. You are just a greedy person who refuses to view oneself in full light.
And of course you keep on repeating that a person who is much more democratic than you is authoritarian; that is so typical of the inversion of reality too often spilled out by neuroses.
You are just pathologically narcissistic: you want more for yourself and at the same time you want to have a good image of yourself.
As for the dumbing-down and the brainwashing of people: when workers owned many media a century ago, their media were enlightening them. Now that the media are owned by a few authoritarian billionaires and corporations, the media have become tools to brainwash and dumb-down people.

You are full of sh!t, ignorant of basic history and political science, and seemingly can do nothing but lie and make personal insults.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Votingisanillusion

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Votingisanillusion
When you say "free market", you mean a free capitalist market. Freedom for corporations. Democracy is about freedom for the people. Corporations are structures within which most people are not free: they do not democratically decide how to run their workplace, they have to obey in a pyramidal authoritarian structure at the top of which we find the capitalists. So of course corporations limit the freedom of most people at least eight hours a day. Democracy would be much deeper is the workplace was entirely democratic: democracy would then be a daily experience. Today we can very well see how much capitalism corrupts democracy.
As for Parenti: as anyone else, he is not perfect. Most of what he writes is very interesting, as pointed by the top 1000 reviewer who severely criticizes him.

No, I mean a free market. As in a market that operates with a minimum of government interference except for protection from fraud, theft, corruption, crimes, etc. How the market decides to organize itself is up to itself, but of course it will be meritocratic. Making money and paying bills is not a popularity contest. If it were, it would be even more corrupt.
You have ideals about democracy which are not based in reality, or lessons from history. I have found that to be not unusual from people who claim to be believe in freedom and democracy on one hand and authoritarianism and communism/socialism on the other. Comes from trying to have your cake and eat it too. You see, democracy is not about freedom for the people. It is about control by the people. The 2 are not the same, and freedom is not an inherent quality of democracy.

That is what I said: you do not value freedom very highly. You just want more for yourself: you call that meritocracy; you are just greedily materialistic. Owning more than the majority is more important for you than the freedom of the others: your freedom to be a master and/or own more is more important than democracy in the workplace. You oppose direct democracy and meritocracy, as if direct democracy could not value merit, although many people agree that for example doctors deserve to earn more than the majority. The problem is that how merit is valued and how that is translated into money is decided by a tiny minority of the people, without a vote by the majority of the people who work and produce the majority of the wealth. You are not democratic. You are just a greedy person who refuses to view oneself in full light.
And of course you keep on repeating that a person who is much more democratic than you is authoritarian; that is so typical of the inversion of reality too often spilled out by neuroses.
You are just pathologically narcissistic: you want more for yourself and at the same time you want to have a good image of yourself.
As for the dumbing-down and the brainwashing of people: when workers owned many media a century ago, their media were enlightening them. Now that the media are owned by a few authoritarian billionaires and corporations, the media have become tools to brainwash and dumb-down people.

You are full of sh!t, ignorant of basic history and political science, and seemingly can do nothing but lie and make personal insults.

But aren't you just the same? Lets take intellectual property rights. Who are you? Are you not the product of your experience and your genes. Have you paid your parents and grandparents for those, and all their various and sundry heirs? In what way do you not owe the rest of the human race for your being. You thought would not be possible with out language you did not invent. Your market depends on other men. You would have died at birth without other people; actually you would have never been born. So if you are worth the power to blow you to hell, you owe for the salt peter. What you do is ignore your debts to humanity because you do not want to pay. You want to pretend that the statistical inevitability that only some of you bring in meat makes you a king because the high protein content is indispensable. You are among that fraction of the race that performs market functions you will not do if you don't get paid, but when it comes to paying others for what is given you say no way. You look at the beggar with contempt, but that freeloader is you. Because you cannot exist without others you have nothing that is yours and you owe them everything, no? You alone are a nothing. The beggar lives in the street because you have defined away his royalties.

 

[imported_hscorpio]

Lets get back to these kung, or any primitive hunter-gather society as an example. The more I think about it the more I believe that such groups actually would maybe follow libertarian principles more so than autoritarian ones.

I imagine back in the stone age that most humans survived in groups that were formed voluntarily. If an individual in a community did not like something they were probably free to leave and try to survive alone or be accepted into some other tribe. I'm also sure that they had a concept of property, such as tools someone spent a great amount of time making. They also probably had seperate sleeping areas/structures that individuals considered their own space and they would be offended if they came back from a days work to find someone else in their space. So to argue the idea of property is some unnatural modern idea I believe is rather foolish.

What do you guys think about this?

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
But aren't you just the same? Lets take intellectual property rights. Who are you? Are you not the product of your experience and your genes. Have you paid your parents and grandparents for those, and all their various and sundry heirs? In what way do you not owe the rest of the human race for your being. You thought would not be possible with out language you did not invent. Your market depends on other men. You would have died at birth without other people; actually you would have never been born. So if you are worth the power to blow you to hell, you owe for the salt peter. What you do is ignore your debts to humanity because you do not want to pay. You want to pretend that the statistical inevitability that only some of you bring in meat makes you a king because the high protein content is indispensable. You are among that fraction of the race that performs market functions you will not do if you don't get paid, but when it comes to paying others for what is given you say no way. You look at the beggar with contempt, but that freeloader is you. Because you cannot exist without others you have nothing that is yours and you owe them everything, no? You alone are a nothing. The beggar lives in the street because you have defined away his royalties.

Authoritarianism does not benefit those persons ("the rest of the human race") to whom I am to owe my being. They are (for the most part) dead. One cannot be in bondage to the dead. Authoritarianism benefits only those who are just as much indebted as I am.

Look at you, Moonie. Aren't you the one who decries how children are taught to hate themselves and feel worthless from an early age? And now look at what you're preaching...


Votingisanillusion's mistake BTW is thinking that democracy is the opposite of authoritarianism. Or that freedom is an inherent quality of democracy. That is simply not true. The majority is capable of being every bit as tyrannical as the worst dictator. Not that I oppose democracy (far from it), simply that I understand that democracy is not the end-all-be-all.

 

[Moonbeam]

Vic: Authoritarianism does not benefit those persons ("the rest of the human race") to whom I am to owe my being. They are (for the most part) dead. One cannot be in bondage to the dead. Authoritarianism benefits only those who are just as much indebted as I am.

M: I do not understand what you mean. How does authoritarianism and benefit come in here.

Vic: Look at you, Moonie. Aren't you the one who decries how children are taught to hate themselves and feel worthless from an early age? And now look at what you're preaching...

Please don't ask me to look at myself to see what you want me to see. Tell me what you see. I am not a mind reader and have no idea what you are talking about. Try some explanation with your expostulation, please.

 

[Votingisanillusion]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
But aren't you just the same? Lets take intellectual property rights. Who are you? Are you not the product of your experience and your genes. Have you paid your parents and grandparents for those, and all their various and sundry heirs? In what way do you not owe the rest of the human race for your being. You thought would not be possible with out language you did not invent. Your market depends on other men. You would have died at birth without other people; actually you would have never been born. So if you are worth the power to blow you to hell, you owe for the salt peter. What you do is ignore your debts to humanity because you do not want to pay. You want to pretend that the statistical inevitability that only some of you bring in meat makes you a king because the high protein content is indispensable. You are among that fraction of the race that performs market functions you will not do if you don't get paid, but when it comes to paying others for what is given you say no way. You look at the beggar with contempt, but that freeloader is you. Because you cannot exist without others you have nothing that is yours and you owe them everything, no? You alone are a nothing. The beggar lives in the street because you have defined away his royalties.

Authoritarianism does not benefit those persons ("the rest of the human race") to whom I am to owe my being. They are (for the most part) dead. One cannot be in bondage to the dead. Authoritarianism benefits only those who are just as much indebted as I am.

Look at you, Moonie. Aren't you the one who decries how children are taught to hate themselves and feel worthless from an early age? And now look at what you're preaching...


Votingisanillusion's mistake BTW is thinking that democracy is the opposite of authoritarianism. Or that freedom is an inherent quality of democracy. That is simply not true. The majority is capable of being every bit as tyrannical as the worst dictator. Not that I oppose democracy (far from it), simply that I understand that democracy is not the end-all-be-all.

The fact is that the majority of salarymen would feel more free in their daily working lives if the workplace was a democratic structure instead of an authoritarian structure. You do not want the workplace to become a democratic structure, you prefer it to remain an authoritarian structure. You do not want the majority of the people working on this Earth to be more free in their daily working lives. You want them to remain obedient modern slaves. Your dream is to be a slavemaster, but to have your slaves say that they are not slaves, that they are libertarians and love to participate in the free market as salarymen, and that you deserve to be their master and to make much more money than them, no need to vote about that, they recognize your natural authority.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Votingisanillusion
The fact is that the majority of salarymen would feel more free in their daily working lives if the workplace was a democratic structure instead of an authoritarian structure. You do not want the workplace to become a democratic structure, you prefer it to remain an authoritarian structure. You do not want the majority of the people working on this Earth to be more free in their daily working lives. You want them to remain obedient modern slaves. Your dream is to be a slavemaster, but to have your slaves say that they are not slaves, that they are libertarians and love to participate in the free market as salarymen, and that you deserve to be their master and to make much more money than them, no need to vote about that, they recognize your natural authority.

When did I ever say or imply any of that? Obviously I must have stung your delusions pretty badly for you to respond with such idiotic lies, all the opposite of my widely known beliefs. I know I can't stop you from being a troll, but could you at least stop being such a fool?

 

[Moonbeam]

I guess I waste my time trying to get you to be very specific, Vic, so I'll take a shot at guessing what the following means:

Vic: "Authoritarianism does not benefit those persons ("the rest of the human race") to whom I am to owe my being. They are (for the most part) dead. One cannot be in bondage to the dead. Authoritarianism benefits only those who are just as much indebted as I am."

M: Just exactly how is it that one can't be in bondage to the dead. Isn't the inane notion of the corporation there precisely to overcome natural life span and are we not in bondage to copyright law. Can you sell music composed by the dead when the rights to it are in some corporate vault? As I said, those who make private property laws make them in such a was as to benefit a particular set. We have fictionally removed ourselves via words on paper from the reality of our real debt. And wasn't it God that made us our brothers keeper?

There is a difference between advocating slavery and saying that some notions of freedom are illusions. I think you said so yourself.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: hscorpio
Lets get back to these kung, or any primitive hunter-gather society as an example. The more I think about it the more I believe that such groups actually would maybe follow libertarian principles more so than autoritarian ones.

I imagine back in the stone age that most humans survived in groups that were formed voluntarily. If an individual in a community did not like something they were probably free to leave and try to survive alone or be accepted into some other tribe. I'm also sure that they had a concept of property, such as tools someone spent a great amount of time making. They also probably had seperate sleeping areas/structures that individuals considered their own space and they would be offended if they came back from a days work to find someone else in their space. So to argue the idea of property is some unnatural modern idea I believe is rather foolish.

What do you guys think about this?

I think what you say is correct. And I think that the creation of the state was a process of de-evolution.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: hscorpio
Lets get back to these kung, or any primitive hunter-gather society as an example. The more I think about it the more I believe that such groups actually would maybe follow libertarian principles more so than autoritarian ones.

I imagine back in the stone age that most humans survived in groups that were formed voluntarily. If an individual in a community did not like something they were probably free to leave and try to survive alone or be accepted into some other tribe. I'm also sure that they had a concept of property, such as tools someone spent a great amount of time making. They also probably had seperate sleeping areas/structures that individuals considered their own space and they would be offended if they came back from a days work to find someone else in their space. So to argue the idea of property is some unnatural modern idea I believe is rather foolish.

What do you guys think about this?

I think you're making a lot of assumptions based on your own value judgements.

Why would you assume that human 'tribes' were so free-thinking, rather than very rigidly authoritarian, as most animal 'tribes' appear to be?

I would argue that based on what I see in nature, concepts of true freedom are more liekly the newer, 'evolved' form.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: hscorpio
Lets get back to these kung, or any primitive hunter-gather society as an example. The more I think about it the more I believe that such groups actually would maybe follow libertarian principles more so than autoritarian ones.

I imagine back in the stone age that most humans survived in groups that were formed voluntarily. If an individual in a community did not like something they were probably free to leave and try to survive alone or be accepted into some other tribe. I'm also sure that they had a concept of property, such as tools someone spent a great amount of time making. They also probably had seperate sleeping areas/structures that individuals considered their own space and they would be offended if they came back from a days work to find someone else in their space. So to argue the idea of property is some unnatural modern idea I believe is rather foolish.

What do you guys think about this?

I think what you say is correct. And I think that the creation of the state was a process of de-evolution.

Evolution or devolution here, of course, would be based on your own personal subjective moral vantage point, no?

It looks to me like the state is simply an attempt to scale up natural group behavior to accommodate the evolution of human societies into structures larger than 30 non nomadic people where we start to have divisions of occupation and class and the potential for exploitation that does not resolve organically via the communal functioning of 30 equal people.

That does not mean that we are necessarily saying different things. But you focus on the state and not on property. What is your take on the latter?

 

[Votingisanillusion]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I guess I waste my time trying to get you to be very specific, Vic, so I'll take a shot at guessing what the following means:

Vic: "Authoritarianism does not benefit those persons ("the rest of the human race") to whom I am to owe my being. They are (for the most part) dead. One cannot be in bondage to the dead. Authoritarianism benefits only those who are just as much indebted as I am."

M: Just exactly how is it that one can't be in bondage to the dead. Isn't the inane notion of the corporation there precisely to overcome natural life span and are we not in bondage to copyright law. Can you sell music composed by the dead when the rights to it are in some corporate vault? As I said, those who make private property laws make them in such a was as to benefit a particular set. We have fictionally removed ourselves via words on paper from the reality of our real debt. And wasn't it God that made us our brothers keeper?

There is a difference between advocating slavery and saying that some notions of freedom are illusions. I think you said so yourself.

A neurotic bowl of spaghetti is a mess, why bother? For the silent audience of course.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Votingisanillusion
A neurotic bowl of spaghetti is a mess, why bother? For the silent audience of course.

HAHAHA! Have you made one single true argument yet in this thread? All you seem to do is cry and whine and snarl and gnash your teeth. It's pretty sad and pathetic. What is saddest, of course, is how you call me neurotic while you claim to rally for freedom and democracy -- but ONLY for those who believe as you do. It would be hilarious if not for the fact that you are actually serious.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Evolution or devolution here, of course, would be based on your own personal subjective moral vantage point, no?

Nope. It is not based on my personal subjective moral vantage point. It is based on the fact that the very concept of the state is an irrational mental construct based on several key myths.

It looks to me like the state is simply an attempt to scale up natural group behavior to accommodate the evolution of human societies into structures larger than 30 non nomadic people where we start to have divisions of occupation and class and the potential for exploitation that does not resolve organically via the communal functioning of 30 equal people.

You are correct. The creation of the state was indeed an attempt to maintain the kind of society we had when tribes roamed the earth and everyone knew everyone else in their society. The grave error in thought is that such a society can be maintained. The state is merely a token attempt to do so at best. In reality, however, the state has merely become a mechanism of exploitation for the un-natural elites.

That does not mean that we are necessarily saying different things. But you focus on the state and not on property. What is your take on the latter?

My take on the latter is that property is a purely mental construct. The concept of property exists solely in the mind of the individual who believes they perceive such property.

 

[imported_hscorpio]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: hscorpio
Lets get back to these kung, or any primitive hunter-gather society as an example. The more I think about it the more I believe that such groups actually would maybe follow libertarian principles more so than autoritarian ones.

I imagine back in the stone age that most humans survived in groups that were formed voluntarily. If an individual in a community did not like something they were probably free to leave and try to survive alone or be accepted into some other tribe. I'm also sure that they had a concept of property, such as tools someone spent a great amount of time making. They also probably had seperate sleeping areas/structures that individuals considered their own space and they would be offended if they came back from a days work to find someone else in their space. So to argue the idea of property is some unnatural modern idea I believe is rather foolish.

What do you guys think about this?

I think you're making a lot of assumptions based on your own value judgements.

Why would you assume that human 'tribes' were so free-thinking, rather than very rigidly authoritarian, as most animal 'tribes' appear to be?

I would argue that based on what I see in nature, concepts of true freedom are more liekly the newer, 'evolved' form.

Yes a lot of assumptions, thats why I wanted to know others opinions.

Part of my thought process is that it might have been much harder back then for one alpha male or small group to control the whole tribe(s) effectively. Here I assume that the lack of advanced weapons beyond say a spear or club, makes it harder for anyone person to forcibly impose their will on a group of similarily armed people. In a way this means power is more evenly distributed than, say in more modern societies where a small group can have a monopoly on power by controlling the guns, missiles, tanks, etc.

 

[Moonbeam]

D: Nope. It is not based on my personal subjective moral vantage point. It is based on the fact that the very concept of the state is an irrational mental construct based on several key myths.

M: Well at the time I wrote personal subjective moral vantage point I was probably unconsciously looking for the phrase 'frame of reference', the mental state from which we perceive and judge things. That in your case would include things like irrational constructs based on myths. If you would care to I would like to hear more about these.

D: You are correct. The creation of the state was indeed an attempt to maintain the kind of society we had when tribes roamed the earth and everyone knew everyone else in their society. The grave error in thought is that such a society can be maintained. The state is merely a token attempt to do so at best. In reality, however, the state has merely become a mechanism of exploitation for the un-natural elites.

M: When you say, "The grave error in thought is that such a society can be maintained.", it is not clear to me to which society you refer, the original, now almost extinct, or the ersatz we live in here today.

D: My take on the latter is that property is a purely mental construct. The concept of property exists solely in the mind of the individual who believes they perceive such property.

M: Fascinating. Sounds right to me. Where do you see this leads?

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
M: Well at the time I wrote personal subjective moral vantage point I was probably unconsciously looking for the phrase 'frame of reference', the mental state from which we perceive and judge things. That in your case would include things like irrational constructs based on myths. If you would care to I would like to hear more about these.

1. The Hobbesian myth of the 'warre' of all against all.

2. The myth of 'rule of law.'

3. The myth of absolute authority.

These are the three myths that I call the 'tripod of authoritarianism.' Although, the more sophisticated apologist of the state would replace myth 1 with an enhanced Hobbesian myth based on game theory. I call this myth 'Hobbes 2.0.'

M: When you say, "The grave error in thought is that such a society can be maintained.", it is not clear to me to which society you refer, the original, now almost extinct, or the ersatz we live in here today.

I was referring to the kind of society in which everyone knows everyone else.

M: Fascinating. Sounds right to me. Where do you see this leads?

It leads pretty much nowhere. What I will say though is that there is a mutual understanding among most individuals as to what constitutes property.

 

[Vic]

Yaknow, while the economic and "wage slave" issues, etc. are being forced forward, I guess I may as well address them.
It is considered desirable in the US to have a constantly "booming" economy, i.e. one that is continually growing. However, the primary symptom of a booming economy is overproduction. More is produced than is consumed. This is actually an economic inefficiency that becomes increasingly unhealthy as it creates a "spread" of wealth disparity leading to excessive credit load and inflation. The end result of a prolonged boom (or any economic inefficiency) is a bust or depression, followed by deflation. Hence, America's cycles of booms and busts. Ironically, the primary institution excerbating this problem in the US is that most un-capitalist of institutions created to stop these cycles, and the single powerful financial institution in the US today (if not the world). I am referring of course to the Federal Reserve Bank, a government-charted privately-owned cartel of elite bankers who have been given an unconstitutional* monopoly over the country currency and money supply.

* Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 5: "The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;"

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: hscorpio

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: hscorpio
Lets get back to these kung, or any primitive hunter-gather society as an example. The more I think about it the more I believe that such groups actually would maybe follow libertarian principles more so than autoritarian ones.

I imagine back in the stone age that most humans survived in groups that were formed voluntarily. If an individual in a community did not like something they were probably free to leave and try to survive alone or be accepted into some other tribe. I'm also sure that they had a concept of property, such as tools someone spent a great amount of time making. They also probably had seperate sleeping areas/structures that individuals considered their own space and they would be offended if they came back from a days work to find someone else in their space. So to argue the idea of property is some unnatural modern idea I believe is rather foolish.

What do you guys think about this?

I think you're making a lot of assumptions based on your own value judgements.

Why would you assume that human 'tribes' were so free-thinking, rather than very rigidly authoritarian, as most animal 'tribes' appear to be?

I would argue that based on what I see in nature, concepts of true freedom are more liekly the newer, 'evolved' form.

Yes a lot of assumptions, thats why I wanted to know others opinions.

Part of my thought process is that it might have been much harder back then for one alpha male or small group to control the whole tribe(s) effectively. Here I assume that the lack of advanced weapons beyond say a spear or club, makes it harder for anyone person to forcibly impose their will on a group of similarily armed people. In a way this means power is more evenly distributed than, say in more modern societies where a small group can have a monopoly on power by controlling the guns, missiles, tanks, etc.

I would suspect that just like today, the idea of decimating an entire population would keep most combat inthe realm of 'ritualistic'. Modern examples of ritualistic combat include the cold war, Cuba, and the uneasy peace since the end of the Cuban conflict. Only if the one 'strong' person pissed off enough people would they actually gang up and rid themselves of that person, becuse the conflict itself would be expected to bring other losses.

This is pretty much analogous to the social structure in a lot of herding animals; human beings are very social, and such a structure might be expected in a 'simpler' situation than exists today.

 

[Votingisanillusion]

Originally posted by: Vic
Yaknow, while the economic and "wage slave" issues, etc. are being forced forward, I guess I may as well address them.
It is considered desirable in the US to have a constantly "booming" economy, i.e. one that is continually growing. However, the primary symptom of a booming economy is overproduction. More is produced than is consumed. This is actually an economic inefficiency that becomes increasingly unhealthy as it creates a "spread" of wealth disparity leading to excessive credit load and inflation. The end result of a prolonged boom (or any economic inefficiency) is a bust or depression, followed by deflation. Hence, America's cycles of booms and busts. Ironically, the primary institution excerbating this problem in the US is that most un-capitalist of institutions created to stop these cycles, and the single powerful financial institution in the US today (if not the world). I am referring of course to the Federal Reserve Bank, a government-charted privately-owned cartel of elite bankers who have been given an unconstitutional* monopoly over the country currency and money supply.

* Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 5: "The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;"

"wage slave" issue not addressed!