A picture of AnCapistan

[NghtRppr]

So I'm supposed to feel sorry for someone that had a $200,000 house and wouldn't protect it for $100 a year (or whatever the dues were)? A fool and his money...

And I'm supposed to feel sorry for you for having to pay some taxes to get fire services?

No, but you are supposed to not be a thief.

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[vector76]

They also refused to provide services unless he paid back-pay, up front. That, my friend, is extortion. Done by any other group, they'd call it by it's name.

Refusing to provide services that haven't been paid for is extortion?

For which other group would this be called extortion?  Doctors?

They demanded he pay for all the time he had not been protected. That would be like a doctor demanding payment for all the time you were not insured.

You cannot wait until your house is on fire, or wait until you are sick, or wait until you have had a car accident, and then try to buy "insurance" against it for only the interval you are needing service.

Either you pay the full cost of fire protection, or you pay the full cost of your medical procedure, or you pay the full cost of property damage, or you subscribe to an insurance plan.  I don't see how this is extortion, or how it is wrong.

[myrkul]

They also refused to provide services unless he paid back-pay, up front. That, my friend, is extortion. Done by any other group, they'd call it by it's name.

Refusing to provide services that haven't been paid for is extortion?

For which other group would this be called extortion?  Doctors?

They demanded he pay for all the time he had not been protected. That would be like a doctor demanding payment for all the time you were not insured.

You cannot wait until your house is on fire, or wait until you are sick, or wait until you have had a car accident, and then try to buy "insurance" against it for only the interval you are needing service.

Either you pay the full cost of fire protection, or you pay the full cost of your medical procedure, or you pay the full cost of property damage, or you subscribe to an insurance plan.  I don't see how this is extortion, or how it is wrong.

But did they ask for payment after rendering services? No, they asked for back insurance before rendering services.

[LokeRundt]

So, stop it with the line about a gun being placed to your head and taking money from you. I understand you don't like the tax model. I get that. But you're going to have to show me that you have experienced extreme stress and trauma in your life from life threatening actions by individuals taking money from you if you wish to continue with that line in debates with me. Do it again, and I'll just leave. If that's what you want, then fine.

I know this was not written towards me, but I do have personal experience.  My father would not file a tax-return (even though in the tax-mosel he would be getting money back from what was taken automatically out of his paycheck), I forget the reason why, and when I was 11 years old, armed police and 2 IRS agents came to our house and stole everything but the food, our mattresses, and our clothes.  If we resisted the theft, they would have shot us (or "subdued" us).

The "gun in the room" is quite real, you'd do best to not pretend that it doesn't exist

[vector76]

They also refused to provide services unless he paid back-pay, up front. That, my friend, is extortion. Done by any other group, they'd call it by it's name.

Refusing to provide services that haven't been paid for is extortion?

For which other group would this be called extortion?  Doctors?

They demanded he pay for all the time he had not been protected. That would be like a doctor demanding payment for all the time you were not insured.

You cannot wait until your house is on fire, or wait until you are sick, or wait until you have had a car accident, and then try to buy "insurance" against it for only the interval you are needing service.

Either you pay the full cost of fire protection, or you pay the full cost of your medical procedure, or you pay the full cost of property damage, or you subscribe to an insurance plan.  I don't see how this is extortion, or how it is wrong.

But did they ask for payment after rendering services? No, they asked for back insurance before rendering services.

Having to pay in advance makes something extortion?

Maybe let's take a step back.  What is your definition of extortion?  My definition requires a threat of violence or some active harm.  By my definition, refusing to act cannot be extortion.

[myrkul]

They also refused to provide services unless he paid back-pay, up front. That, my friend, is extortion. Done by any other group, they'd call it by it's name.

Refusing to provide services that haven't been paid for is extortion?

For which other group would this be called extortion?  Doctors?

They demanded he pay for all the time he had not been protected. That would be like a doctor demanding payment for all the time you were not insured.

You cannot wait until your house is on fire, or wait until you are sick, or wait until you have had a car accident, and then try to buy "insurance" against it for only the interval you are needing service.

Either you pay the full cost of fire protection, or you pay the full cost of your medical procedure, or you pay the full cost of property damage, or you subscribe to an insurance plan.  I don't see how this is extortion, or how it is wrong.

But did they ask for payment after rendering services? No, they asked for back insurance before rendering services.

Having to pay in advance makes something extortion?

Maybe let's take a step back.  What is your definition of extortion?  My definition requires a threat of violence or some active harm.  By my definition, refusing to act cannot be extortion.

No, having to pay for the time he had no service makes it so. As I said originally, that's like a doctor refusing to see you until you pay for insurance for the entire time yo were healthy and didn't have any insurance.

[vector76]

They also refused to provide services unless he paid back-pay, up front. That, my friend, is extortion. Done by any other group, they'd call it by it's name.

Refusing to provide services that haven't been paid for is extortion?

For which other group would this be called extortion?  Doctors?

They demanded he pay for all the time he had not been protected. That would be like a doctor demanding payment for all the time you were not insured.

You cannot wait until your house is on fire, or wait until you are sick, or wait until you have had a car accident, and then try to buy "insurance" against it for only the interval you are needing service.

Either you pay the full cost of fire protection, or you pay the full cost of your medical procedure, or you pay the full cost of property damage, or you subscribe to an insurance plan.  I don't see how this is extortion, or how it is wrong.

But did they ask for payment after rendering services? No, they asked for back insurance before rendering services.

Having to pay in advance makes something extortion?

Maybe let's take a step back.  What is your definition of extortion?  My definition requires a threat of violence or some active harm.  By my definition, refusing to act cannot be extortion.

No, having to pay for the time he had no service makes it so. As I said originally, that's like a doctor refusing to see you until you pay for insurance for the entire time yo were healthy and didn't have any insurance.

I have two problems with your claim.  One is that it is okay for someone to buy "insurance" after they find out that they need it, and it is not okay for the provider to refuse.  The other problem is that refusing to act can somehow be extortion.

[FredericBastiat]

extortion: Force or illegal compulsion by which any thing is taken from a person.

If the fire department was using taxpayer money to provide services, they used extortion. Plunder works well here too.

If on the other hand the fire department was private and it's services were rendered to those with whom it had a contract, and it violated it's contract, that would be fraud.

Additionally, were the private fire department to ask for back payments, and they were not payed, and those payments were specifically delineated in contract covenants you signed, and you didn't pay them, you'd be committing extortion.

It depends on what the circumstances are. If you agreed to the contract, it would seem you'd be bound to the arrangement.

Lastly, assuming you'd had dealings before with said private fire dept., and you legally terminated your agreement with them, and they demanded (sans force) you make some "back" payments because you hadn't been a client of theirs for some period of time, that would not be extortion because you can just walk away (presumably to find other fire dept. businesses that will accept different terms)

[myrkul]

I have two problems with your claim.  One is that it is okay for someone to buy "insurance" after they find out that they need it, and it is not okay for the provider to refuse.  The other problem is that refusing to act can somehow be extortion.

I never said that. He didn't want 'insurance', he wanted the fire put out. They wanted him to pay for the time when he had no protection. It's one thing to simply say 'no', another one entirely to say No, unless you pay us for all the time we weren't helping you.

Again, it would be like a doctor refusing to treat a patient until they pay for all the time they weren't insured. Preposterous.

It's not a fully private department, it's county, but optional. I'm not sure if they allow competitors.

[FredericBastiat]

Having "public" services, which can just as reasonably be provided privately sans plunder, always clouds the issue.

Governments, wherever they exist, tend to muddy the waters when their outward appearance gives the air of legitimacy, but their inward modus operandi is corrupt.

Might I make a suggestion? How about we make a "law" that says that tax collectors must be either your closest friends, family, or long-time neighbor? Oh, and one more thing, they have to be armed to the teeth, wear a uniform with a badge, and must not take no for an answer.

Maybe we'd get the hint that what we're doing isn't very nice.

[vector76]

I have two problems with your claim.  One is that it is okay for someone to buy "insurance" after they find out that they need it, and it is not okay for the provider to refuse.  The other problem is that refusing to act can somehow be extortion.

I never said that. He didn't want 'insurance', he wanted the fire put out. They wanted him to pay for the time when he had no protection. It's one thing to simply say 'no', another one entirely to say No, unless you pay us for all the time we weren't helping you.

Again, it would be like a doctor refusing to treat a patient until they pay for all the time they weren't insured. Preposterous.

It's not a fully private department, it's county, but optional. I'm not sure if they allow competitors.

First, it's irrelevant what they say they want payments for.  If they refuse to help unless you pay for their hookers and coke, it's the same: an offer which you are completely free to accept or decline.

Second, speaking of the time they "weren't helping you" thoroughly misunderstands the nature of fire protection.  But whatever, arguing this is a waste of energy.

But at least you are not still calling it extortion, so I guess that's an improvement.

[lemonginger]

See above for resources. Also, customers vote with their dollars. If you're an ass and are legally untrustworthy, those involved with you from a business sense, those being both the end-customers buying your products products and your suppliers selling you materials, will both start to dump you.

Oh yes, this always works. Except how are people even going to know what evil shit these companies are up to when a different division of the same company owns the newspapers and never prints anything bad about them? You don't even need your little AnCapistan to see the results of this right now. Coca-cola has outright murdered union organizers in Latin America and their products still fly off the shelves. Hershey's and other chocolate companies use cocoa grown by modern-day slaves on the Ivory Coast, and most people don't even learn about that, let alone have a chance to get angry about it. With the kind of corporate consolidation we see these days, you also run into the problem of trying to boycott companies that make thousands of products of every different description, and you know most people aren't going to bother with that.

This I very much agree with. Capitalism encourages externalizing costs as much as possible and obscuring those costs. (Now yes, I realize government generally increases this, rather than decreases). And it very much incentivizes anti-social behavior (in terms of putting it out of your mind the conditions the product you are about to buy were made under - which is easy in a large and faceless and highly complex market where maybe even the ingredients for your sandwich came from 20 different countries)

Now the one good argument that I've heard from AnCaps about this is that eliminating limited liability will take care of a lot of this. But then they don't explain how that doesn't keep the market from losing a lot of its dynamism. If I have to be worried that the shares I own in chemical company Y are going to make me criminally liable for an accident, I'm going to be a hell of a lot less likely to invest my money in companies that I don't know a ton about and aren't engaging in any risky practices.

But, it would certainly make it more interesting for CEOs if they could spend the rest of their life in a cage, be shunned from a community, stripped of all their wwealth, or shot in the head (or whatever forms of restitution are used in the jurisdiction they are operating in) for, say, spilling a bunch of toxic sludge in a town and causing a bunch of kids to die.

[of course, this does not deal with the short term gains/long term problems whereby actions can be taken and hands can be washed long before negative effects come to light]

[myrkul]

I have two problems with your claim.  One is that it is okay for someone to buy "insurance" after they find out that they need it, and it is not okay for the provider to refuse.  The other problem is that refusing to act can somehow be extortion.

I never said that. He didn't want 'insurance', he wanted the fire put out. They wanted him to pay for the time when he had no protection. It's one thing to simply say 'no', another one entirely to say No, unless you pay us for all the time we weren't helping you.

Again, it would be like a doctor refusing to treat a patient until they pay for all the time they weren't insured. Preposterous.

It's not a fully private department, it's county, but optional. I'm not sure if they allow competitors.

First, it's irrelevant what they say they want payments for.  If they refuse to help unless you pay for their hookers and coke, it's the same: an offer which you are completely free to accept or decline.

Agreed, except that charging (even full cost) for current services is one number, and charging for years and years of 'owed money' is another, much larger one. IIRC, they even refused to put him on a payment plan. Cash on the barrelhead.

[rainingbitcoins]

1. Why aren't more people opting out? If they are, then where are the high quality fire services to take the place of the fire department?

The vast majority of firefighters are unpaid volunteers. Furthermore, there is no particular reason to compete with the government when it has a blank check and the power to find a reason to arrest you for attempting to compete. Look no farther than the postal service: A man by the name of Lysander Spooner once set up a competing postal company which was soon much cheaper and of higher quality than that of the federal government; the postal service then had the government shut down his operation. Thus, it was demonstrated that attempting to create alternatives to government monopolies will, if successful, result in being shut down and your profits stolen.

I looked this up, and it appears to have happened in freaking 1840.

In 2011, the USPS is way faster than UPS and cheaper than FedEx. I never really got how people could send a letter from NY to CA in 2 days for 50 cents and then claim the post office as model of horrible government inefficiency. 

Now the one good argument that I've heard from AnCaps about this is that eliminating limited liability will take care of a lot of this. But then they don't explain how that doesn't keep the market from losing a lot of its dynamism. If I have to be worried that the shares I own in chemical company Y are going to make me criminally liable for an accident, I'm going to be a hell of a lot less likely to invest my money in companies that I don't know a ton about and aren't engaging in any risky practices.

But, it would certainly make it more interesting for CEOs if they could spend the rest of their life in a cage, be shunned from a community, stripped of all their wwealth, or shot in the head (or whatever forms of restitution are used in the jurisdiction they are operating in) for, say, spilling a bunch of toxic sludge in a town and causing a bunch of kids to die.

[of course, this does not deal with the short term gains/long term problems whereby actions can be taken and hands can be washed long before negative effects come to light]

What it also doesn't consider is the "who's going to stop me?" mentality that, with the power and wealth of modern corporations, makes in hard for even strong governments to hold anyone accountable. Now imagine what would happen if arresting that criminal CEO involved a completely toothless government (or a private company with no real incentive to do so) mounting a full-scale military assault on the offending company's army of thousands of mercenaries. How long before every corporate headquarters looks more like a military base than an office building? Imagine a world where surviving occasional sieges was part of your IT job. And then when you get off work you have to drive twice as far to get home because the only direct highway is owned by a guy who charges $20 to drive it, and you definitely can't afford that on the $4 an hour you make in a country without minimum wage laws. Maybe you'll get lucky and your company will buy the road and let you drive it if you agree to work for $3 an hour. Or maybe other companies will see the profit potential and set up 16 or 17 parallel roads for differing costs. Then everyone can drive on the cheapest road - problem solved, and it only took littering your town with 15 wasted, empty highways to get there. That's the efficiency of the free market!

[myrkul]

problem solved, and it only took littering your town with 15 wasted, empty highways to get there. That's the efficiency of the free market!

Seriously... You should write a book. You can spin a yarn like nobody's business.

[rainingbitcoins]

problem solved, and it only took littering your town with 15 wasted, empty highways to get there. That's the efficiency of the free market!

Seriously... You should write a book. You can spin a yarn like nobody's business.

Well, I have such great source material - the treatment of American workers at the turn of the 20th century in a largely unregulated corporate free-for-all was a terrific inspiration. Say, I'll trade you three dollars in company scrip (only redeemable at my company's store where bread costs $12) for that swell Ayn Rand book you got there.

[myrkul]

problem solved, and it only took littering your town with 15 wasted, empty highways to get there. That's the efficiency of the free market!

Seriously... You should write a book. You can spin a yarn like nobody's business.

Well, I have such great source material - the treatment of American workers at the turn of the 20th century in a largely unregulated corporate free-for-all was a terrific inspiration. Say, I'll trade you three dollars in company scrip (only redeemable at my company's store where bread costs $12) for that swell Ayn Rand book you got there.

Sorry, I only trade in bitcoins or PMs. No paper money. Thanks!

[godseyeview]

Libertopia sounds like a joke for AnCapistan rejects from what i can tell by the posts made on this thread.

I copy paste my reply from a youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hsKmqXy55E

Let me tell u Ancap morons a parable .  The TALE of TWO Paradoxes.  There once was two societies.  One was called Ancapistan; the other was the ole Republic.

Ancapistan was a people completely and utter consumed by the cult of SCIENTISM.  They didnt believe anything had any meaning.  They had no explanation how anything came into existence just that they believed the entire universe was created by random chance. They didnt believe in the mind or creation or a creator.  They believed in only in materialism.  The mind to them and consciousness was just a side effect of chemical reactions because if you ingest  chemicals it effected the brain.  They thought they were so smart.   They were nothing but NIHILIST.  Everything is ugly.  There is no meaning.  Everything is entropy.
 
The ole Republic was a society who believed in intelligent design and the Creator.  They believed Mind comes before Manifestation.  Matter had to be imagined first.  The mythos was the Original Creator Mind imagined Numbers and made a distinction between Zero and Infinity.  The numbers created the geometry of numbers which is a topological vector space.  Some geometries create a somewhat permanent standing wave and particles where born.  The distinct dynamics of systems is symbolized with what are called Words.  And some geometries create a Fractal Closure which is a Singularity with its own universe within it.  These singularities being Vortexes have an Eye at the center which is the basis of Perception, Consciousness, and Sentience.  These singularities are Creators themselves designed in the image of the Original Creator Mind.  Beauty is the dynamics of a design which creates over-unity.  Which can be found in life and all sacred geometrical systems.  Nothing would exist if there wasn't over-unity. Everything that exist is paid for by having a reason to exist because it is self generating because of fractal recursive architecture.

It is a big game between some sentient beings to make others forget their sovereignty and make others their slave.  This can be done by keeping knowledge away from sentient beings by distraction and giving them false stupid ideas.  By perverting the words which are the symbols of classifications of the hyper-reality to have no meaning.  A technology developed by some predators known as legalese is to have double meaning depending on which context society is being talked to.
The Creation of the ole Republic was infact the fair and intelligent beings declaring a society with A LAW that Universally all Sentient Beings are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain Unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.   Unalienable Rights being the operating phrase here.  MEANING the rights they can NOT be “given up” even by contract.

THE TWO PARADOXES
The ANACAPTARDS being they have not one creative individual amongst them.  Saw what a brilliant idea the NAP was and claimed they came up with it. What a joke.  But since they have no experience with any kind of creative design whatsoever and they dont actually understand what liberty is and that liberty is actually very valuable and Liberty has a price to pay. They are parasites in disguise wanting everything for free including the most valuable rare liberty. Free liberty and free sex.  more like no liberty and u need to get laid; get some common sense.  ANCAPTARDS in general are just irrational argumentative types trying to act like they are smart by coming up with dumb, like the following: TAXES are FORCE.  NO TAXES no Government.  They said random organization will occur in the free market.   Unbeknownst to them without law no contracts are upheld so there no free market arose.  Unable to protect manufacturing and shipping.  Only theft was the optimal strategy of survival here.  Anacapistan was unable or unwilling to resist attacks upon private contracts and public credit. Land speculators expected no rise in values when no government could not defend its borders nor protect its population.  Soon they were contractually sold into slavery since no court order was upheld because of massive rebellion.  An unable to resist an invading army Ancapistan became the worst slavery hellhole in the world.
^
PARADOX 1:  no initiation of force (taxation) lead to VIOLENCE and INITIATION OF FORCE everywhere.  Massive poverty and oligarchy.
DIEHARD ANCAPS please reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation
for historical reference based on facts and stfu

Because the founders of the ole Republic were the brightest in the field of game theory, celluar automata, system dynamics, and history.  They can easily navigate the paradox of taxation.  NAP applies in a context and has its limits like Jan clearly explains and ANCAPTARDS have difficulty understanding, that is breaks down in duress.  Without LAW and a Society which will uphold NAP the individual is immediately under duress attacked by predation with no sizable defense from all sides by Chaos.  Predation from outside armies and from within rebellions against the courts.  The taxes were "the price of liberty, the peace, and the safety of yourselves and posterity".  So the answer to the paradox of force in taxes is: For membership within the ole Republic society taxation ( initiation of force ) is required to secure the society which will protect the individual from much greater violence.  With a minimal government bound to only uphold NAP and nothing else the ole Republic became a standard bearer for freedom in the world .  P.S. until ANCAPTARDS moved in with no education and demanded a democracy of getting free crap.
^
PARADOX 2:: taxation only to secure the republic leads to ultimate freedom and free markets because contracts are upheld and there is a common defense

PS
In the ole Republic:
The original constitution although separated out many powers and religion from state is proper design it failed because it didnt explicitly separate the creating of currency from state.  Allowing the force of taxation to be anesthetized.  Hence no pubilc resistance to big government.  We dont have a republic anymore .  We have a democracy collapsing into anarchy which is a prelude to despotism totalitarianism.
The new Republic will separate out the power of money from the state.  bitcoin, gold, rothamon trading cards whatever.  Finally No where is roads fire dept, all the other public crap part of the LAW of NAP and is not in the jurisdiction of the government of the Republic

[5flags]

I'm always impressed when someone resurrects a 3 year old thread. Especially when they make an ass of themselves while doing it.

[Kluge]

Must be the Glenn Beck endorsement...