Wait, if it's not perfect then why do you cling to it? I mean Statism has some good elements, Communism has some good elements, and libertarianism has some good elements.
Why can't we mix all three?
Statism and communism cannot tolerate libertarianism. The opposite is not true. All Statist countries have capital thought crimes? I thought that was just mine. Anyways, even in my country almost all thoughts are permitted. I mean enacted, of course. Though there is some evidence that your beliefs may single you out for special attention if some of the stuff going around is to believed (I tend not to take much on faith). |
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Wait, if it's not perfect then why do you cling to it? I mean Statism has some good elements, Communism has some good elements, and libertarianism has some good elements.
Why can't we mix all three?
Statism and communism cannot tolerate libertarianism. The opposite is not true. |
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Nah, empathy for our oppressor is a beautiful expression of humanity.
Nope, it's a subtle form of spiritual suicide. |
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But you never actually refuted anything I said. You only claimed my assertions couldn't be true. Please revoke any statements you made about my assertions as a whole, or actually refute them. You can start with my statements about climate change, then proceed to my statements about libertarian think tanks and their propaganda. I'm waiting, because I never heard any refutation from you, only statements from you that my assertions had no merit.
I wasn't talking about me. Others have weighed in. I was more interested in picking apart the mechanics and context of your "argument". Something I have no intention of rehashing. |
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Great, then why do you try to derive morals from one set of first principles?
Who says I am? My morals are different from the ethical and legal systems I would like to see prevail. |
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Fix it. I'm waiting for your solution, because if you can't maintain your society, it's worthless. And when you provide that solution, fix the other many many flaws.
That it's better than your shitty solution is good enough for me. Perfection is the enemy of the good. |
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Not this again. It's like you saying sea levels don't rise when heat is absorbed by the ocean because I only asserted it, rather than write a 1,000 page introduction to physics.
I know enough physics to know that's true. I know enough politics to know your agenda behind stating it and where to start looking for the flaws. However, if you enter a discussion with someone and they refute your claim, you need to back it up. If you're not willing to do so and you just dismiss the person, you should just admit you're here to assert, not discuss and then kindly leave. |
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Thus my earlier criticism still stands that these people are wrong in choosing not to think. What makes you think that we haven't examined these concepts down to first principles? Granted, some might not have, but I know I have, and found it to be a logically consistent and viable philosophy. I believe that anything logically consistent cannot possibly be moral. I believe that there can be no absolute truths (Yes, that's supposed to be ironic) |
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Oh, so you admit that your "free societies" never last because control is wrested from them just when things are getting good. That's a flaw.
Yes, we fail to start shooting people when they start to oppress us. We're only human after all. It's a flaw that could be fixed. |
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You've presented no flaw which I or another haven't shot down. Unless you can...?
He has asserted flaws. Which is apparently all the argument needed. Flaws pointed out need to be shown to not actually be flaws. Unfounded assertions may be dismissed out-of-hand. |
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So... you're not going to be presenting any flaws, because I wouldn't address them? Even after I've specifically requested that you present them so I could address them? And if I do address them, well, that's just circular reasoning.  Don't you know? A free society just can't succeed. Despite the fact that time and time again, every time a society manages to make itself more free, unprecedented levels of prosperity and advancement ensue (at least until the statists wrest control again). |
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You've presented no flaw which I or another haven't shot down. Unless you can...?
He has asserted flaws. Which is apparently all the argument needed. |
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Thus my earlier criticism still stands that these people are wrong in choosing not to think. What makes you think that we haven't examined these concepts down to first principles? Granted, some might not have, but I know I have, and found it to be a logically consistent and viable philosophy. That's how I got here, I didn't understand how come I was swinging left-to-right and back again then couldn't seem to agree with any of it. Then I took a critical look at the underpinnings of my beliefs and found that I was favoring those which maximized liberty. Once I started to cut away the woolly thinking, it was an eye opener. |
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Perhaps my example was too simplistic. By 'program' I meant create and then unleash an autonomous system that would not be subsequently changed. This is analogous to AnCap's or Libertarianism's non-aggression principle, which someone once created, but now it always stays the same. To 'run' the NAP program you just follow simple instructions. The 'programmer' would be some philosopher who probably died long ago.
However, you inadvertently allude to another point: the morality of "just following orders" (just like a good, obedient soldier.) Arguably it's actually worse if a human blindly follows someone else's code, than a computer (or human body-part) where at least there's a responsible person in charge. Thus my earlier criticism still stands that these people are wrong in choosing not to think. They are abdicating responsibility for their actions, and couching their actions in terms of "being morally righteous because XYZ philosopher said so, here's the link".
Edit: just to flesh it out a bit more, it's important to distinguish between the morality of the philosopher versus the morality of his disciples. I contend that although the (probably deceased) Libertarian philosophers may have been extremely moral, their disciples might not be. Like I said, blind computer-like idolatry seems amoral.
The NAP does not guide every single action, it merely gives a limit to some actions. It is proscriptive, not prescriptive. The idea that people who hold it as an important principle are some kind of automatons is laughable. |
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True. And I'm sure the feds won't be able to resist putting their fingers in the pie as soon as they can. I'm just wondering how the new laws leave things right now.
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It is a simple matter to trick illiterates from Myanmar into signing incomplete contracts. We do it every day.  Hmm. Just doing some reading about why such desperate people would be coming out of Myanmar. Interesting so far. Guess which word beginning with "g" describes the reason? LOL, they are coming to a country where g owns all the companies. "Singapore, Inc." is the State slogan. That makes some sense when there is a lot of money to be had and the conditions are at least livable (I have known several Brits who spent a couple of uncomfortable years in Dubai and came back with their pockets stuffed with money). If you're living as a prisoner for a pittance and hanging off the outsides of a skyscraper cleaning windows with a rag and a spray-bottle, there's more to it. Myanmar currently has 90,000 internally displaced people and a large ethnic group that the government refuses to recognize as citizens (not illegal immigrants by my reading either). Plus a lot else besides.
There are good g's, bad g's, and g's that are simply amoral. Singapore, Inc. falls in the latter category.
Personally, I'd describe aspects of what you're telling me as downright evil. |
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It is a simple matter to trick illiterates from Myanmar into signing incomplete contracts. We do it every day. Hmm. Just doing some reading about why such desperate people would be coming out of Myanmar. Interesting so far. Guess which word beginning with "g" describes the reason? |
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It is a reasonable question of exactly how far should you be able to contract and how enforcible it should be. Things like duress obviously negate contracts and competency to enter a contract is also a requirement. But after the fact of a contract entered purely voluntarily? Since I don't swing quite that extreme, it's something of an "angels on the head of a pin" argument for me but I am somewhat sympathetic to the AnCap position so I take an interest.
Again, though, it's down to the ability to enforce the contract. In this case, it appears to be the state in some cases doing the enforcing and in other cases, failing to enforce what laws there are (or, in the case of the lack of such law, the state designating a set of second class individual since I'm sure it would not be acceptable for its citizens to be treated this way).
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Cunicula, which parts of the contract are you referring to specifically? Likely there are some aspects that would be acceptable and some that would not and possibly some gray areas that would be subject to common sense.
Balahdeblah, Breaking a contract is typically a civil matter. In theory there could be criminal actions involved. However, it wouldn't be possible for someone to write in to your contract that if you didn't polish the silverware sufficiently, you could be arrested for rape. Clearly this is an example of government stepping over its correct role.
If the story was that workers who tried to leave their employers houses were being rounded up and imprisoned by private security companies, that would be a different story but apparently, it isn't.
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