ATTN, Von Zwietracht & other libertariantards

[von]

FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

ATTENTION, LIBERARIANS:

We already have a "Libertarian" society.

Do you know what happens in a Libertarian society? Yes? No you don't. I'll tell you what happens.

First, everything is fun.

THEN, some asshole decides he's bigger and badder than the rest of the assholes, and he starts up something we call A FUCKING GOVERNMENT.

Since there's no pre-existing government to stop him from doing that, well, it is what it is.

Libertarianism is, in fact, just a fleeting thought where you go "Hey, what if these assholes weren't in charge?" but then forget the answer to your not-as-rhetorical-as-you-thought-it-was question, that answer being, "If those assholes weren't in charge, some other assholes would be." So give the fuck up already.

Libertarianism is the ideal political and social order for any planet NOT INHABITED BY GODDAMN HUMANS.



ETA: No I'm not conflating Libertarianism and Anarchy. "Libertarianism" is just "Anarchy without all the parts I don't want to admit make Anarchy completely goddamn stupid."

Funny because that's always been my goto argument against anarchy. 

It's mine too, although there are some things that really make my head hurt which are well embodied within this passage which you've quoted:

Definitions. What are this man's definitions when it comes to things? Anarchy, and "libertarianism" for what they are, have so many weird and contrived definitions, subclasses, subideologies and subsubmarinesubsandwiches that discussing these two (heh, mabey one?) ideologies is kinda difficult.

For instance, when I hear "libertarian", my mind wafts immediately to anarcho-capitalism. When I think of the term "anarchism" I also tend to think immediately of anarcho-capitalism, and in such a line of thinking, I see the argument laid forth: that the biggest, baddest an-capfag (and i do not slight the genderqueer in this terminology -- my primary land of communication is a slew of *chans, and likewise, old linguistic habits stick) decided to lay forth this thing called "government" and thus we have the world as it stands in the state of nature, with the big man doing as he pleases -- even allowing us to vote and such.

But then you have (in anarchy land):
anarcho-syndicalists
anarcho-nationalists
anarcho-primitivists (love these folk dearly)
anarcho-communists
anarcho-socialists
anarcho-choanarists (ok, kinda drunk and being funny -- anyone should see "choanarist" is "anarcho" +ist backwards)
anarcho-authoritarians (wait, wut?)
and anarcho-ad-naseumists, who embody the nature of naming anarchist movements in their entirety.

Regardless, within these many million zany anarchist theories of governance, my mind immediately calls each and every lot of them either "tribalism" or "minarchy" -- that is, organising under natural human instinct, such as any group will, or organising under the smallest amount of human coercion possible.

Likewise, libertarians have a million billion (ok, the anarchists have way more) sub categories:
Right-libertarianism --when I see this, I think "anarcho-capitalism": state of nature or "ayn rand faggotry"
Left-libertarianism -- recently, I understand this as being what RAW liked. However, I can see everyone from Marx (stand up for your freedoms in the form of violent revolution and use your collective force to rob the rich) to the typical label of "Democrat" (stand up for your freedom to have butt-secks, make stupid hipster concept art, and smoke weed, but as soon as you want to make money, let the figureheads handle things) flying this flag.
Minarchists -- people who understand the idea of taxes as "paying the bills", but want to sign up for the cheapest service plan possible
Constitutionalists -- idiots who believe in "natural rights" and think that the constitution of the US allows them to revolt and that a piece of paper secures their rights to the things they want.
Every "anarcho-" movement that doesn't involve anything written by marx or trotsky -- because communism is the devil, amirite?
Republicans-who-are-ok-with-gay-people-drugs-and-other-social-liberalism-ism -- in short, see right-libertarians.
freemarket-libertarians -- minarchists who think that the only thing the goverment should do is maintain a true free market; whatever the hell that means. (hint: anti-trust, anti-monopoly shit)

Again, kinda drunk so sorry for tl;dr, but it seems v3x made the "obvious" argument against anarcho-capitalism/right-libertarianism. Definitions and the whole millieu of their variety leave his argument open to attack from some angle. For example, a minarchist, who conflates his ideals with "libertarianism" (and i guess this is true in a relative sense -- a smaller yet more efficient government could be construed as more "liber") could easily state that having a government that simply maintains the roads, ensures monopoloies don't form, and ensures banking doesnt become a behemoth is what he's pushing for, rather than the somalia faggotry that v3x is conflating libertarianism with.


he claims to have not conflated anarchism with libertarianism -- I personally don't see why he sought to maintain the distance between the two, but regardless, he's effectively conflated libertarianism and anarchism alike with the state of nature, so for anyone well versed in either of these ideologies, he's presented an all-to-often cited, debated and dispelled argument 

[tyrannosaurus vex]

MY ANARCHY HAS AN EVERYTHING-PROOF VEST ON. IT'S CALLED LIBERTARIANISM NOW.
   \

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I declare this night's season of Troll Jousting open, tournament brackets to be announced! 

So how is this gonna work? I mean, do the competitors have to troll each other or do the competitors have to find a forum, infiltrate and troll it and then be judged on the lulz produced? I find the latter to sound more fun...

We used to do the second one, but after the great collective assburger of 2009, we mostly just do the former.

What happened in 2009?

A year long trend of organizing a trolling run, and then ONE person (Usually Cain, Nigel, or I) would show up and get left dangling in the breeze.  Everyone else (and everyone was guilty, myself included) would have all manner of excuses as to why they couldn't be arsed to attend.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Here, "prevention" means we throw people in prison.  Psychologically speaking, it's non-existent for anyone other than the rich.  We don't even have proper crisis management.  Happy pills, back under your bridge, thank you for your time.

Consider all the school shootings and local bombings a result of a deficient mental health system. Well, maybe thats a bit of a generalization, but i think its a big chunk of the reason.

I think it's because the social stigma of mental illness makes it really convenient to shove those "useless eaters" under the carpet.  Out of sight, out of mind.  It's pretty horrible.

There's some initiatives to create Radio with people with psychiatric conditions, namely, Radio Colifata, Radio Podemos Volar, Radio Vilar de Voz; its very few of them, but what they attempt to do is create social presence and voice, to counteract discrimination, exclusion and stigma. I work in one of those types of initiatives and it seems to be a net positive on the patients. This is kind of the social aspects of treatment that can be done.

Is this the program where people who are mentally challenged, or were hit on the back of the head via accident; are trained to do simple tasks so they can try to fit into society, or live a some what normal life?

Dude, are you trying to minimise the stigma of mental illness and learning difficulties?

Seriously.

I think he was asking a question.

[Cain]

I tried to do a search, but nothing definitive came up for me:


Has a viable state ever existed that did not levy taxes?

That seems impossible.  How would the government support its operations with no income?

Medieval iceland was such a society.

The function of "the state" was pretty much to rule on lawsuits and codify law. Enforcement of law was up to the citizens (i.e. once the courts rule in your favour and deign that hrothgar owes you 500 pounds of wool to compensate damages, you would be legally cleared of having to pay compensation if hrothgar decided to resist you collecting and you happened to put an axe in his head). There wasnt a death penalty either; many of the crimes we execute for today would be punished with outlawry, which essentially makes the individual in question "open game" for anyone within a juristiction who wants to kill him. Culture at the time made it a great honour to hunt and kill outlaws, much in the same vein that killing a pedophile is something many people can agree with today. Needless to say, aiding an outlaw was punishable by outlawry itself.

A rudimentry social safety net did exist, but like most things in old iceland, was organised at the local level. Essentially, the community would invest a VERY small (its iceland in 900ad...life was hard enough without "taxes") amount of wealth into a sort of community trust fund. If someone fell on hard times, the local community would hold a public court, and vote on whether or not anything should be disbursted and how much...it was principally for widows and orphans.

As for a military; there was none. Being isolated, iceland needed none, and under germanic custom of the times, militaries and warbands were associated with kings, which were a disparaged concept for the icelanders, who prided themselves on their democracy of the people.

Is this a viable model for modern, post/industrial society? No, it relies on a strong adherance to cultural norms/social mores, small, genetically related populations (srsly, i mean literally related, not just "all one race" -- modern icelanders recently released an android app to help people determine whether they are hitting on a distant cousin or not), generally isnt compatable with corporatism or great excesses of wealth, and relies on principals of "might makes right" to some degree.

However, given that it is a pretty good example of the "minnest of minarchies", i think it very well fits the bill for "state that doesnt levy taxes and still functions" (well, at least until the danes came with jesus...jesus breaks every state's will eventually)

It also ended in a very nasty civil war, where the decentralized power of the goðar allowed some to side with the Norwegian King, and do battle to subjugate Iceland under his control.

Which is the other main flaw of decentralized systems - they're highly vulnerable to compromise by centralized systems in certain historical periods, technology and other factors permitting*.  Quasi-anarchist or libertarian societies have a low success rate in wars against centralized state powers.


*Machiavelli described such a system in feudal France, for example, whereby the French nobility were constantly scheming against the throne.  However, the nobility were also scheming against each other even more so, and the French had a more capable military than their contemporaries, making them a somewhat unique example of a decentralized system which still contained enough balancing towards potential threats and military capacity to deal with them.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The thing that I find highly amusing about most Libertarians (aside from pretty much everything) is that they holler and howl about deregulation, the free market, and ending social welfare, but seem to have no problem with the magnitudes-larger issue of corporate welfare and a bloated and unnecessary military budget that funds endless unjust invasions which, one would think, would run a little contrary to Libertarian ideology, that is unless what they mean is liberty is only good for Americans.

Speaking as a small business owner, tax breaks and subsidies for corporations don't do fuck-all for the little guy.

Regulate the fuck out of corporations, scale back military spending to no more than a tenth of the total US budget, limit campaign funding and make all funding public, terminate corporate subsidies and bailouts, reduce the burdens on small businesses, and expand the social infrastructure/safety net, including education and health care, and we'll have my Libertarian dream.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The thing that I find highly amusing about most Libertarians (aside from pretty much everything) is that they holler and howl about deregulation, the free market, and ending social welfare, but seem to have no problem with the magnitudes-larger issue of corporate welfare and a bloated and unnecessary military budget that funds endless unjust invasions which, one would think, would run a little contrary to Libertarian ideology, that is unless what they mean is liberty is only good for Americans.

Speaking as a small business owner, tax breaks and subsidies for corporations don't do fuck-all for the little guy.

Regulate the fuck out of corporations, scale back military spending to no more than a tenth of the total US budget, limit campaign funding and make all funding public, terminate corporate subsidies and bailouts, reduce the burdens on small businesses, and expand the social infrastructure/safety net, including education and health care, and we'll have my Libertarian dream.

Speaking for my industry, deregulation kills.  Not a metaphor.

[Cainad (dec.)]

The thing that I find highly amusing about most Libertarians (aside from pretty much everything) is that they holler and howl about deregulation, the free market, and ending social welfare, but seem to have no problem with the magnitudes-larger issue of corporate welfare and a bloated and unnecessary military budget that funds endless unjust invasions which, one would think, would run a little contrary to Libertarian ideology, that is unless what they mean is liberty is only good for Americans.

Speaking as a small business owner, tax breaks and subsidies for corporations don't do fuck-all for the little guy.

Regulate the fuck out of corporations, scale back military spending to no more than a tenth of the total US budget, limit campaign funding and make all funding public, terminate corporate subsidies and bailouts, reduce the burdens on small businesses, and expand the social infrastructure/safety net, including education and health care, and we'll have my Libertarian dream.

Speaking for my industry, deregulation kills.  Not a metaphor.

No kidding.

I think it was you who said, roughly, that total deregulation is the fastest track to a completely un-free market. Government regulation is not the biggest threat to economic freedom (except in the sense of big business stacking the political deck against potential competitors).

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

The thing that I find highly amusing about most Libertarians (aside from pretty much everything) is that they holler and howl about deregulation, the free market, and ending social welfare, but seem to have no problem with the magnitudes-larger issue of corporate welfare and a bloated and unnecessary military budget that funds endless unjust invasions which, one would think, would run a little contrary to Libertarian ideology, that is unless what they mean is liberty is only good for Americans.

Speaking as a small business owner, tax breaks and subsidies for corporations don't do fuck-all for the little guy.

Regulate the fuck out of corporations, scale back military spending to no more than a tenth of the total US budget, limit campaign funding and make all funding public, terminate corporate subsidies and bailouts, reduce the burdens on small businesses, and expand the social infrastructure/safety net, including education and health care, and we'll have my Libertarian dream.

Speaking for my industry, deregulation kills.  Not a metaphor.

No kidding.

I think it was you who said, roughly, that total deregulation is the fastest track to a completely un-free market. Government regulation is not the biggest threat to economic freedom (except in the sense of big business stacking the political deck against potential competitors).

Un-free market? They could deregulate THEMSELVES into the ground?

[Cain]

No, they become monopolies.  Or oligiopolies, at the very least.

If you're a big company, you can run at a loss long enough to put smaller competition into the ground, for example.  As you bankrupt competitors and make arrangements with those too big to ruin, you can hike prices once you've decimated the competition, because, really, what other options do people have?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What I was talking about was this:

I spent 5.4 million dollars over the last 5 years on safety & containment alone, to turn a death trap into a safe place to work and live near.

We had two disasters last month, including a 1500C burn-through on a kiln.  No personnel were injured.  Nothing was released from the plant.  All the backup systems and fire suppression equipment worked, because regulations demand that I MAINTAIN those systems that I had installed, again, due to regulation.  The fire department uses my plant for training on CSE rescues, because we invited them in.  We ASK Osha and the fire marshall to come in and review us.

Contrast this with the recent explosion in Texas, which was an example of what happens when regulations are not enforced.  Improper construction.  Failure to sequester chemicals.  NO firefighting equipment.  No escape plan.  No community notification system.  And the fire department all got injured or killed because they had no idea what they were heading into.

Implimenting regulations and then following them is expensive...But not as expensive as NOT doing so.

[Cainad (dec.)]

What I was talking about was this:

I spent 5.4 million dollars over the last 5 years on safety & containment alone, to turn a death trap into a safe place to work and live near.

We had two disasters last month, including a 1500C burn-through on a kiln.  No personnel were injured.  Nothing was released from the plant.  All the backup systems and fire suppression equipment worked, because regulations demand that I MAINTAIN those systems that I had installed, again, due to regulation.  The fire department uses my plant for training on CSE rescues, because we invited them in.  We ASK Osha and the fire marshall to come in and review us.

Contrast this with the recent explosion in Texas, which was an example of what happens when regulations are not enforced.  Improper construction.  Failure to sequester chemicals.  NO firefighting equipment.  No escape plan.  No community notification system.  And the fire department all got injured or killed because they had no idea what they were heading into.

Implimenting regulations and then following them is expensive...But not as expensive as NOT doing so.

The best part is when Randroids insist that businesses will naturally pursue rational self-interest and implement self-regulatory policies that serve them in the long run.

And we all laugh and laugh and laugh until we all puke from a poisoned water supply, or something.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What I was talking about was this:

I spent 5.4 million dollars over the last 5 years on safety & containment alone, to turn a death trap into a safe place to work and live near.

We had two disasters last month, including a 1500C burn-through on a kiln.  No personnel were injured.  Nothing was released from the plant.  All the backup systems and fire suppression equipment worked, because regulations demand that I MAINTAIN those systems that I had installed, again, due to regulation.  The fire department uses my plant for training on CSE rescues, because we invited them in.  We ASK Osha and the fire marshall to come in and review us.

Contrast this with the recent explosion in Texas, which was an example of what happens when regulations are not enforced.  Improper construction.  Failure to sequester chemicals.  NO firefighting equipment.  No escape plan.  No community notification system.  And the fire department all got injured or killed because they had no idea what they were heading into.

Implimenting regulations and then following them is expensive...But not as expensive as NOT doing so.

The best part is when Randroids insist that businesses will naturally pursue rational self-interest and implement self-regulatory policies that serve them in the long run.

And we all laugh and laugh and laugh until we all puke from a poisoned water supply, or something.

Google "Love Canal".  That is what unregulated industry does in "it's own self interest".

[Cainad (dec.)]

The best part is when Randroids insist that businesses will naturally pursue rational self-interest and implement self-regulatory policies that serve them in the long run.

And we all laugh and laugh and laugh until we all puke from a poisoned water supply, or something.

Google "Love Canal".  That is what unregulated industry does in "it's own self interest".

Ack.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Here, "prevention" means we throw people in prison.  Psychologically speaking, it's non-existent for anyone other than the rich.  We don't even have proper crisis management.  Happy pills, back under your bridge, thank you for your time.

Consider all the school shootings and local bombings a result of a deficient mental health system. Well, maybe thats a bit of a generalization, but i think its a big chunk of the reason.

I think it's because the social stigma of mental illness makes it really convenient to shove those "useless eaters" under the carpet.  Out of sight, out of mind.  It's pretty horrible.

There's some initiatives to create Radio with people with psychiatric conditions, namely, Radio Colifata, Radio Podemos Volar, Radio Vilar de Voz; its very few of them, but what they attempt to do is create social presence and voice, to counteract discrimination, exclusion and stigma. I work in one of those types of initiatives and it seems to be a net positive on the patients. This is kind of the social aspects of treatment that can be done.

Is this the program where people who are mentally challenged, or were hit on the back of the head via accident; are trained to do simple tasks so they can try to fit into society, or live a some what normal life?

Dude, are you trying to minimise the stigma of mental illness and learning difficulties?

Seriously.

I think he was asking a question.

Yea, the mental health stigma shit makes me prickly as fuck. apologies if i went for the jugular too soon.