An-caps, STOP lying to yourself!

Economics Political Theory
221

Arguments for Centinel’s case:

In 1830:

Note that under our point of view, no one should be able to vote in a coercive monopoly of force, so only the first point is valid.

Let’s look at government spending:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_1830USmn_13ms1n#usgs302

Less than 10% of GDP. Let’s say it was 10%.

Hence, in 1830 we had 2 million slaves and 10% government theft.

Now, arguments in favor of opposing case:

In 2011:

  • Government spending is 40% of the GDP

  • People jailed due to drug use: half a million

Do you really see us as that free?

Alternatively, for the sake of argument, would you argue that white men are freer? This is not to say that only white people matter, of course, but would you argue that?

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@ wheylous

read my posts, I have repeatedly cited and acknowledged that our founding fathers were remiss in not installing enough protections against economic coercion. INcluding the drug war.

Hence, I have repeatedly cited the need for an Economic Bill of Rights to complement our already sturdy political and civil BIll of Rights.

YOu are preaching to the choir on this point.

223

Yes, our political and civil Bill of Rights is oh-so-sturdy…

What’s that? National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012? It allows for indefinite detention of US citizens based on mere accusation of “substantially supporting” terrorism?

Um…

224

I’d like to resurrect this thread because I finally looked over Retopper’s Centinel’s “logical” arguments. Here they are again:

It seems that the first proposition is really just a sub-case of the second proposition. However, there can be no objectivity attributed to the phrase “more costly”. Whether a person thinks peaceful exchange is more costly than the use of armed force is up to him - that is, it’s his subjective judgement. The same applies to the third proposition. So Retopper’s Centinel’s position can be restated as the following: at all times, there exists at least one person and at least one resource for which 1) the person considers peaceful exchange to be more costly than the use of physical force to take the resource, and 2) the person’s perceived/expected benefits from possessing the resource exceed the perceived/expected costs of acquiring it by using physical force.

The only problem I have with about the above is that it’s impossible to prove that at least one such person and resource exist at all times. If one simply treats the proposition as a premise, however, proof is unnecessary. Even then, however, it’s impossible to predict just which people and which resources the proposition holds true for at any given time.

Essentially, Retopper’s Centinel’s argument is that, because men aren’t angels (or, at the very least, not all men are angels), a monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion is necessary. I fail to see how this follows. As I’ve stated before, I think coercion (here defined as “the use or threat of violence”) is sometimes legitimate. However, that in no way means to me that such legitimate coercion must be monopolized - as it’s done, by definition, by the state.

The evolution towards freedom: thoughts on panarchy and minarchy
225

People are inherently evil/dumb. Therefore we should manage them by evil/dumb people.

226

“Once again, I am not denying gang violence in Somalia. I admit it. But do YOU have the same intelectual honesty to admit that STATE CAUSES much more violence and even on a GLOBAL SCALE? Do you have honesty to admit, that the biggest wars were caused by the states? Do you have honesty to admit that state kills it’s people if they do not obey the “master”? Do you have hoensty to admit, that state puts non-violent people in prisons, where they get LEGALLY raped and beaten to death there and all of this is funded through extertion racket called “taxation”? Are you willing to admit this or are you in denial, like 9/11 truther? :)”

I should keep that on my mind for discussiosn to come. How true this is. For me the order of “violance” starts with

  1. states

  2. religious fanatics.

And then there is a long time nothing and then maybe comes this “gang” stuff.

227

Politics is dirty business.

Until libertarians learn how to play the game and fight dirty – they will continue to be marginalized.

Indeed, the paradox of right-anarchism is that they reject the very means that they must employ to gain and hold power ---- politics.

And in many cases, coercive politics.

Amusingly, many ancaps will confirm this inability to fight fire with fire by condemning coercive means to gain and hold power even when failure to act in this manner condemns them to a lifetime of servitude to the statist.

The Left is expert at this game since they can’t gain power by legitimate means since that would require confirmation that their absurd policies were sound. For example, if your ideology and policy initiatives are bankrupt – how else do you gain power then by coercive and dishonest means ?

In sum, libertarians must stop showing up for gun fights armed with a knife.

And stop complaining about unfair media reporting since this is how the game is played.

228

You stopped making sense after “Until libertarians learn how to play the game and fight dirty – they will continue to be marginalized.” But at least you got that far. Everything after is a straw man.

229

I’m gonna go a step farther than Muff and say you had me up through the first sentence. That second one doesn’t even work, depending on what you mean by “fight dirty”. If you mean fraud, unfounded accusations, and insults, I would say that’s not the best strategy to gain legitimacy.

After that, I agree the rest of that post is largely unintelligable pretense.

230

No, no, we should be taxing people and starting wars!

231

@ John James

The statist is not the least concerned by your defintions of legitimacy. Disregarding your empty indiginant protests, they nonetheless gain power by what you call illegitimate means and plunder your labor and liberties at their leisure.

That second one doesn’t even work, depending on what you mean by “fight dirty”. If you mean fraud, unfounded accusations, and insults, I would say that’s not the best strategy to gain legitimacy. - john james

if fraud, unfounded accusations,insults and other coercive methods were not effective – then please explain how statists gain power ???

Amusingly and paradoxically, the anarchist fringe exposes itself as clueless by condemning the very means that are used to subjugate them.

Perhaps this is one of the many reasons why anarchism is a utopian fantasy that has always failed.

232

**

233

@gotlucky,

King got is wrong.

Violence is simply a means to an end.

In many cases it is an effective means to an end, King’s subjective moralizing notwithstanding. Indeed, if African slaves had resorted to violence at the beginning of the slave trade instead of submission then many generations of their kin would not have suffered the degradations of chattel slavery.

It is a purely subjective value judgment on whether it is moral or not. Indeed, pacifism in the face of statist enslavement, torture, and murder is immoral.

Moreover, quoting King on this issue probably goes a long way to explain why utopian anarchist movements utterly fail.

In sum, the statist welcomes anarchist pacifism and moral handwringing since it insures their continued hold on power – and allowing statists to continue to plunder generation after generation when the means to stop their schemes is possible is immoral in my opinion.

234

Centinel,

Why are you here? I thought that there was a whole thread dedicated to your arguments with the anarchists.

235

And yet no more forced segregation - and with minimal violence from blacks to boot!

If only this were true. Unfortunately, a lot of Africans were enslaved by rival African tribes, and then they were sold to Europeans. There was a lot of effort from the colonies to ensure the slaves could not revolt.

There is nothing wrong with the desire to live, even in the face of enslavement. I would not fault anyone for this desire. Of course, I do admire those who fight for liberty, even in the face of death, but as I said, I would not fault anyone for desiring to live.

As far as I know, there has only been one libertarian anarchist movement, and it is only about 60 years old, perhaps 70. Seeing as it is actually a growing movement, I would think it is not failing…

Anarchists are not necessarily pacifists, and I don’t think there are many pacifists on this forum…

Let me pose a question to you, Centinel, what is a more effective method of achieving liberty - having all maybe 100,000 (this is a generous number) of anarchists in America go to war against the Leviathan that is the American State - and essentilly commit suicide, or try to convert as many people to their cause as possible through essays and speaches etc…?

Since you clearly have a plan in mind, why don’t you go to war against the pentagon and save us all the trouble?

236

Again, how very grandiloquent of you.

Wow…three question marks. You must be really interested. Read carefully and you’ll notice a difference between what I said, and what you infer I said. I mean, you quoted it yourself. One would think you could read it. I never said anything about “effective”. You put words those words in my mouth so that you might have a straw man to attack with all your question marks.

Which is kind of interesting that you would continue with the same fallacy after Muffinburg called you out on it. But what’s even more interesting is the way you chose to attack me with your bombastic drivel, when most of my post was simply to voice agreement with the statement he already made.

237

Let me pose a question to you, Centinel, what is a more effective method of achieving liberty - having all maybe 100,000 (this is a generous number) of anarchists in America go to war against the Leviathan that is the American State - and essentilly commit suicide, or try to convert as many people to their cause as possible through essays and speeches etc…? – gotlucky

Your not likely to convert more than a few on the fringe.

Indeed, von Mises and all of our founding fathers (pretty smart dudes) rejected anarchism and recognized the utility of government because mankind was prone to abuses. Hence, society needed to install intentional and institutionalized mechanisms to balance, limit, decentralize, and make transparent the elements of armed force in society.

Moreover, the American Constitutional Federal REpublicanism has been the most effective bulwark against statist civil and political abuses yet known to mankind. Indeed, civil and political liberties have increased markedly for even the most subjugated minorities since 1787 – African-Americans for example.

In addition, liberal democracy has expanded from a single nation in 1776 to over 50 higher order democracies today – and these free trading nations are utterly peaceful toward each other.

Lastly, capitalism has best flourished under liberal democracy which has seen dramatic increases in technological advances, standards of living and life expectancy since 1776.

Why would a citizenry want to destroy the American society ???

Indeed, this view is so absurd, 90% of Americans would laugh at it.

Of course, we need to institute an Economic Bill of Rights to complement our already sturdy and time tested political and civil Bill of Rights – but to gut the most effective system yet known to man and replace it with a demonstrably failed anarchist model is lunacy.

Since you clearly have a plan in mind, why don’t you go to war against the pentagon and save us all the trouble? – gotlucky

Why would I go to war against an entity that has been responsible for making Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and the Asian Pacific Rim more peaceful, prosperous, free, and stable then at anytime in their tumultous histories ??

In sum, circumstances will drive change. Statism in Europe is coming face-to-face with economic reality and we have seen that liberal democracies can change relatively peacefully despite severe economic dislocation. The key is to ready to leverage the political process to force change in the right direction when the economy begins to collapse in earnest.

A good start would be to have a declared Economic Bill of Rights already in place when the Federal government goes bankrupt and tries to bail itself out with inflated dollars.

For starters :

(1) private banking and money

(2) balanced budget amendment,

(3) 10% of gdp limit on Fed. spending,

(4) supermajority required to raise taxes,

(5) simple majority to lower taxes,

(6) declaration of war required by congress to send conventional US forces into combat in all cases,

(7) Sell all Fed owned land except that required for national defense

(8) eliminate all departments and agencies of the Federal government except Attorney General and Defense Department.

(9) Fed restricted by law from owning or managing any commerce – hence all banking, transportation, utilities, education, energy, et al is managed and owned privately or by the individual states.

(10) All economic rights not included or specifically addressed above are reserved to the individual or the state – never the Federal government. Hence the overarching long-term goal of this mandate is to reduce Federal influence over commerce and hand this authority to the individual states and the people.

(11) Federal government draws revenue directly from the states at no greater than 10% of state’s gdp.

(12) no state is allowed to withdraw from this Union and state’s that are unable to pay Federal taxes are subject to Federal takeover.

238

Wow…three question marks. You must be really interested. Read carefully and you’ll notice a difference between what I said, and what you infer I said. I mean, you quoted it yourself. One would think you could read it. I never said anything about “effective”. You put words those words in my mouth so that you might have a straw man to attack with all your question marks. – John James

Your subject moralizing has no political or economic value, it is purely opinion. Hence, a strawman cant be constructed to either debunk or support any subjective moralizing.

The point of my post was to expose your subjective moral value judgment as meaningless when compared to economic and political realties.

Of course you don’t approve of violence, and of course that gives statist the upper hand in subjugating non-violent actors in society since they reject an empirically and logically supported effective means to gain and hold power.

In sum, I am just stating a fact (violence is effective at gaining and holding power) , not any opinion that this is moral except when it is used to remove statists from power who engage in grievious assaults on civil and political liberties.

239

Should I take this to mean that you want all of us to go commit suicide?

It has been stated and demonstrated that Mises was essentially an anarchist, what with unlimited secession and all…

Just no. Liberties for blacks has certainly improved, seeing as they were slaves. Liberty has descreased for everyone else.

Great. So the Powers That Be have expanded their ability to steal from us regular people. And they work together at it too you say? Wonderful.

Really? See Pinochet. He sure knew how to get capitalism going without a liberal democracy.

Why do you keep telling us libertarians that we need to start using violence more if you think it is so laughable?

Quite inconsistent.

240

It has been stated and demonstrated that Mises was essentially an anarchist, what with unlimited secession and all…–got lucky

I believe you are wrong, see quote from Mises below:

However, in order to preserve peace, it is, as human beings are, indispensable to be ready to repel by violence any aggression, be it on the part of domestic gangsters or on the part of external foes. Thus, peaceful human cooperation, the prerequisite of prosperity and civilization, cannot exist without a social apparatus of coercion and compulsion, i.e., without a government.–Von Mises, On Some Popular Errors, Concerning the Scope and Method of Economics

Just no. Liberties for blacks has certainly improved, seeing as they were slaves. Liberty has descreased for everyone else. – gotlucky

I believe you are wrong, see link from Riggenbach of Mises.org below that describes the improved civil and political liberties better than me:

More or Less Free? by Jeff Riggenbach

Great. So the Powers That Be have expanded their ability to steal from us regular people. And they work together at it too you say? Wonderful. – gotlucky

Civil, political and economic liberties have expanded more under liberal democracy than any other human system. Indeed, life expectancy, private property rights, technological advances, economic growth, standards of living, et al have expanded markedly since 1776. IN contrast, under short-lived anarchist system, statism has always emerged.

Really? See Pinochet. He sure knew how to get capitalism going without a liberal democracy. – gotlucky

I am guessing that Pinochet was really a state capitalist similar to nazi germany under hitler. By any objective, rational and independent thinking measure – the crimes committed by Pinochet do not even remotely resemble even the most extreme degradations committed in the 50+ higher order liberal democracies that exist today.

Why do you keep telling us libertarians that we need to start using violence more if you think it is so laughable?

Quite inconsistent. – gotlucky

The indiscretions of the US government are economic and that does not justify a violent response. We can aggressively work to attenuate the Federal government using the Constitutional process. However, in places like Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Iran, et al – violence is justified and recommended.