Someone explain to me...

[fomenter]

every one gets an education no disagreement there..

[Requia ☣]

I think they believe that they would be wildly successful under a Libertarian system, not realizing that if they cannot be successful now, an economic environment that protects them less is not going to help them attain riches.

I wouldn't actually say libertarianism would protect people less, just in a different way.

For example, if your boss gets caught refusing to pay you for the work you did, they'd be on the hook for fraud (at least the way libertarianism has been presented to me, the moral hazard has to be purged for it to count) as it is now, they can't be held liable for more than they owe you, there is literally nothing to discourage them from stiffing low wage workers.

The problem is that your boss *also* isn't required to pay your unemployment insurance, or to provide basic safety equipment (if you want that, pay for it yourself!).  You get all sorts of nice benefits, but it fucks up everything we have right now.

[Triple Zero]

That is, while I find no compelling argument that the government can or should say "You can't make your own moonshine"

Other than a blind and/or insane population, I can't think of a single reason why, either.

Risks of methanol poisoning are highly overstated, just because of the retardedness of prohibition, they need some kind of scary half-truth to stop people from distilling their own alcohol. In order to get an actual risk of methanol poisoning, you almost need to do it wrong on purpose in order to get a distillate that does not contain a smaller methanol:ethanol ratio than the original brewed liquid. So if you consume equal amounts of alcohol (a double shot moonshine versus a pint of homebrewn cider), you're gonna go equally blind.

Basically in order to risk blindness you need to consume moonshine or homebrewn vodka like a Russian alcoholic. And even then those guys more often die because they don't feel the cold anymore and drink vodka below freezing at a temperature of -10C (14F).

[Cain]

I think they believe that they would be wildly successful under a Libertarian system, not realizing that if they cannot be successful now, an economic environment that protects them less is not going to help them attain riches.

I wouldn't actually say libertarianism would protect people less, just in a different way.

For example, if your boss gets caught refusing to pay you for the work you did, they'd be on the hook for fraud (at least the way libertarianism has been presented to me, the moral hazard has to be purged for it to count) as it is now, they can't be held liable for more than they owe you, there is literally nothing to discourage them from stiffing low wage workers.

The problem is that your boss *also* isn't required to pay your unemployment insurance, or to provide basic safety equipment (if you want that, pay for it yourself!).  You get all sorts of nice benefits, but it fucks up everything we have right now.

I would agree there are different levels of protection within libertarianism (mostly revolving around the sanctity of contracts and the initiation of force), however I wouldn't agree they aren't necessarily less.  In theory or in any real world implementation.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

I wouldn't actually say libertarianism would protect people less, just in a different way.

For example, if your boss gets caught refusing to pay you for the work you did, they'd be on the hook for fraud (at least the way libertarianism has been presented to me, the moral hazard has to be purged for it to count) as it is now, they can't be held liable for more than they owe you, there is literally nothing to discourage them from stiffing low wage workers.

Under libertarianism, what happens if you're a low wage worker trying to sue your boss for fraud, but the boss can afford much better lawyers and can afford to keep the case tied up in court until you run out of money to pay your legal expenses?

[Requia ☣]

You don't sue people for fraud, you call the cops.  Right now you can't do that to a corporation, but no special restrictions on business also means no special protections.

You might need to sue to actually get your money, in which case yeah, you're in trouble, but in theory its its going to happen less because there would be deterrent effects.

(It should be noted I'm not saying libertarianism would work, the second you get to what it does to the economy everything collapses, and you pay 500 a month on your water bill, simply because the water company can do that now).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That is, while I find no compelling argument that the government can or should say "You can't make your own moonshine"

Other than a blind and/or insane population, I can't think of a single reason why, either.

Risks of methanol poisoning are highly overstated, just because of the retardedness of prohibition, they need some kind of scary half-truth to stop people from distilling their own alcohol. In order to get an actual risk of methanol poisoning, you almost need to do it wrong on purpose in order to get a distillate that does not contain a smaller methanol:ethanol ratio than the original brewed liquid. So if you consume equal amounts of alcohol (a double shot moonshine versus a pint of homebrewn cider), you're gonna go equally blind.

Basically in order to risk blindness you need to consume moonshine or homebrewn vodka like a Russian alcoholic. And even then those guys more often die because they don't feel the cold anymore and drink vodka below freezing at a temperature of -10C (14F).

Truth.

[Iason Ouabache]

Irony being:  a lot of THEM are not too well off either.  That kind of shit always amazes me.

I've noticed this too. My former friend is a raging libertarian even though he works at fucking Wal-Mart. He got to be such a douchebag about it that I had to unfriend him on Facebook and block him on Twitter.

[Iason Ouabache]

One thing that has always bothered me about Libertarians is their supernatural belief that the Invisible Hand of the Market will ALWAYS produce the best/most efficient/most stable results. They always forget that humans are irrational apes that seldom care about long term goals. If we can make a buck in the here and now then fuck the future. Other people can deal with the consequences.

[Cain]

Well that is the failing of neoclassical economics.

Strangely enough, most of the original classical economists were well aware of these problems, and made it clear they were (The Wealth of Nations, where Smith talks about how much more those who own the means of production are paid compared to the worker, who does the majority of the work, for example.  Or the degrading nature of some of those types of work, which would reduce the craftsman into a relic of a bygone era).  But Smith, and Cobden, and a few others, believed the Hand of the Market was literally God, and that since God was a god of the dispossessed and poor and meek, he wouldn't just abandon them.

The rational individual actor who has equal access to knowledge as everyone else is the new God.  Same sleight of hand, new packaging. 

[LMNO]

How the hell can you base an entire discipline on such a blatantly false premise, i.e. "humans act rationally"?

[Jenne]

There's this notion that's bred into many of us that pushes forward the idea that government's good for nothing, fucks up everything, and being without it is better than sustaining it, especially at its current level of "up-your-buttcrack-with-hands-in-everything-you-do" and general fucked-upness.

I think the first two parts of that premise are just fine, it's the 3rd that's the barstool in so many ways.  Because the alternative is NOT better, and anyone who's seen what the absence or absolute corruption of government at the hands of what readily takes its place knows this indubitably.  It's only sheer arrogance, stubborness and outright ignorance (I want to even say lack of maturity...but that's not always the case) that sticks people to that side of the ideal/utopian cloud they try to live on.

[Cain]

How the hell can you base an entire discipline on such a blatantly false premise, i.e. "humans act rationally"?

Its easier than figuring out what is really going on.

Its as stupid as basing international relations on the idea states are unitary, rational actors, only no-one listens to IR scholars anyway, limiting the damage.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That is, while I find no compelling argument that the government can or should say "You can't make your own moonshine"

Other than a blind and/or insane population, I can't think of a single reason why, either.

Risks of methanol poisoning are highly overstated, just because of the retardedness of prohibition, they need some kind of scary half-truth to stop people from distilling their own alcohol. In order to get an actual risk of methanol poisoning, you almost need to do it wrong on purpose in order to get a distillate that does not contain a smaller methanol:ethanol ratio than the original brewed liquid. So if you consume equal amounts of alcohol (a double shot moonshine versus a pint of homebrewn cider), you're gonna go equally blind.

Basically in order to risk blindness you need to consume moonshine or homebrewn vodka like a Russian alcoholic. And even then those guys more often die because they don't feel the cold anymore and drink vodka below freezing at a temperature of -10C (14F).

Come to America.  Go to WalMart.  Look around.

Then explain that to me again.

[Triple Zero]

they all look like that because they've been drinking too much badly distilled moonshine?

or in the horrorstories about the humanoid creatures scuttling about in their carts in WalMart, I missed the parts about where they are all blind from methanol?

no but seriously, if you say there's a lot of moonshine methanol poisoned people at WalMart (or wherever the moonshine gulping crowds gather), I will do some additional research to see how that's possible.

It's just that I once spent an afternoon with a chemist friend working out rough estimates on methanol content after distilling (assuming full distillation, aka Doin' It Wrong), cause I couldn't figure out how the methanol:ethanol ratio would actually increase significantly due to distillation. Long story short, it turns out that it in fact does not. However "the poison is in the dosage", so it is indeed easier to get methanol-poisoned from the concentrated stuff cause you can consume more of it in one go before you get sick. But we also worked out that you'd still need to go to rather extreme alcoholic levels before this becomes an issue. But methanol does in fact get broken down by the body (causing bad hangovers in the process), even drinking a few shots a day doesn't make you blind.

At least, that was what we could figure out from our knowledge. If reality differs, we must have overlooked something, and I will try to find out what this is.