When I created an account at the Forums of the Libertarian Left, I was required to declare a gender as well.
But you were not assigned an avatar based on your gender, nor is it visible to others unless you so chose.
As for everyone else, my avatar was a default (I didn’t make it myself) and I have directly answered these same questions over and over again. If you want a general understanding of left-lib ideas, I’d suggest poking around at a left-lib forum where the members are not tired and outnumbered and you can recieve multiple answers for one question.
So, once again you refuse to answer my point blank question: would you and yours be content to live side by side with AnCaps and others that do not agree with your definition of property, or are you not content until everyone lives with your definitions?
Your silence hints that it is the latter, which is exactly why AnCaps are so suspicious and defensive around your ideas. If you were content to live with your rules amongst yourselves, we could coexist, because we’re perfectly happy to live side by side with you.
If, on the other hand, you think that violence can never be used at all and thus property can’t be protected, then your problem is less that your philosophy is inconsistent and more that it is naive and wouldn’t work.
There are AnCaps who don’t agree with that… I’m an AnCap but I favor nonviolent solutions to establishing property rights (though even I acknowledge that there are situations where that’s not going to work… it’s a matter of greys, and there is room for AnCaps to debate the desirable level of grey here).
Just wanted to clarify that.
I wonder how it knew that you were a blonde.
There isn’t anything that stops an Ancap from being a pacifist, its just that ancaps don’t have to be pacifist to be ancaps. Again, the NAP is in effect.
Birthday Pony: “you have picked up on the paradoxical nature of defining capitalism as voluntary trade. Defining capitalism as “voluntary trade” leads us to this:
Capitalism is voluntary trade
All anarchists support voluntary trade (which would include socialist anarchists)
Socialist anarchists are capitalists.
Now do you see the problem with that definition?”
If you want a central divisor between anarchy, socialism, and the capitalists, it will be their attitude towards property. Obviously you must own something to trade it. How can you say all anarchists support trade when historical anarchy was against private property? Your equivocation is who’s getting to trade and why/how.
We could fix this all by adding on qualifier: free. Free trade.
Capitalists want free trade, anarchists and socialists–while they may want to trade, they sure as hell don’t want it to be free and unfettered. There’s this ridiculous core to anarchism of wanting to strip out government power yet also wanting to abolish private property–a thing that can only be accomplished with government power.
What happened with anarchy is that they took an anti-private property bent, believing it (foolishly) to be the root of all human evils. The political authorities were targeted because they supported property rights. When the socialists came around, drawing heavily from anarchist thought, they realized the best way to abolish property was to use the power of the state. Thus they took over government, abolished private property, and called it ‘socialism’.
The central flaw in all anarchist and socialist thought is demonization of private property.
I registered. Sure is a strange place; practically nothing solid, just a bunch of mushy assumptions, statements, and vague claims.
I love how the moderators here feel fine trolling and throwing out sexist comments, but ban the most unsucessful and irrelevant trolls without warning. It’s funny to see a moderator abuse their power on a board that is stereotyped as being blind to social authority.
Alternatives Considered, I don’t care what my neighbors are doing, and I don’t care if they’re capitalists.
So you’re offended that the software developers who designed this platform that we use didn’t either use gender-ambiguous avatars or no default avatars at all?
ADVENTURES IN THE DEPTHS OF THE LEFT-LIBERTARIAN FORUM: DAY ONE
Well, I arrived and posted a short introduction on the “introduction” section, in addition to making some probes into what people on this forum want in a previously started thread.
Not long after posting this (I wasn’t especially looking for a fight on my first thread and was at least somewhat interested to see if leftlibs and Voluntarists might have enough common ground to work together), the resident socialist-anarchist shows up and claims to have “refuted” voluntarism. Intrigued, I went to the site, discovered that nearly all of his claims rely on the voluntarist compromising on his own issues without understanding them well, the voluntarist atttempting to defend his views from the wrong angle, and that there is such a thing as a single, objective code of values. Needless to say, it wasn’t especially hard to defeat.
A somewhat more reasonable socialist anarchist appeared to make a somewhat less dogmatic and crazy argument which I questioned rather than destroyed, and then the angry ansoc shows up and, after brazenly declaring that he shall destroy my premises (“Just a flesh wound!”). He then proceeds to make a bunch of arguments that, lacking any inconsistency with which he can use to call me a hypocrite, could be summed up as “Property is evil and there is such a thing as a single, objective code of ethics created by GOD HIMSELF” (though he didn’t say that last bit since he thinks religion is fraud). Hell, he even had the gall to interpret my attack on the Marxist school of economics’ failed beliefs as an attack on his version of socialism, in which he conflated “Socialism” with “Marxism”, a thing that ANY non-Marxist socialist (including aforementioned reasonable ansoc) would use as an excuse to claim I didn’t know what I was arguing against.
The thread is at http://libertarianleft.freeforums.org/sup-t1154.html btw
Highlights:
Fran Sez: 1. It reduces ethics to a matter of mere personal opinion. Because of this, it goes against all other ethical principles ever put forward by man, since one may at any time hold an opinion contrary to them, even if those principles are logically sound and empirically demonstrated.
I say: Empirically demonstrating ethics is like empirically demonstrating the “perfect” flavour of ice cream. It varies from one person to the next. Again, no right to force my views on others, which I though anarchists generally agreed with. However, there IS the NAP, which I see you haven’t mentioned yet (bit of a problem, and if you don’t mention it at all then it becomes clear why you are misinterpreting things).
**Fran sez:**Voluntaryists, however, do their best to redefine other people’s terms so they fit within their own worldview. For instance, an Anarchist may rightly points out that the voluntaryist would allow people to form hierarchies, and that this is contrary to our goal of freedom. The voluntaryist will then generally either define freedom as “doing whatever you feel like” (omitting the fact that forming hierarchies restricts our desire to “do whatever we feel like” later on), or redefine hierarchy so as to exclude willing obedience (as if the willing or unwilling nature of obedience had any relevance to the unethical nature of hierarchies).
I say: Hahaha, what
I form a hierarchical organization, YOU come and FORCE me to stop it (even if all those within it entirely agree with me), and I am the one in opposition to freedom? Last I checked, it was you stopping me from making my own decisions that was contrary to freedom. What, you need to stop people from oppressing themselves? That sounds like the motivation of a fascist.
Fran sez:
Voluntaryism is subjectivism run rampant; it is, at its roots, a might makes right ideology, and can only lead to the perpetuation of power relations and all the suffering that comes with them. The fact that an action is voluntary is not a sufficient criterion for calling it moral or ethical. As one part of an ethical worldview, it is essential. As an independent standard, it is pure nonsense.I say:
Please, master, provide me with an OBJECTIVE standard by which everything “moral” must revolve around. All I see here are empty claims of “human rights” mixed with enough “NIRVANA FALLACY” to occupy a million Socialist Supermen.(After arguing that killing to defend property is moral)
Fran sez: How fucking convenient.
I say:
Okay. Let me put it differently. You say:
If a guy beats me and attempts to shackle me to turn me into a slave, I will be morally righteous if I shoot him where he stands.
and then I, for some reason, say
How fucking convenient.
then it is pretty obvious that something is wrong with my statement. If you are incapable of attacking my arguments from any angle than from your narrowminded views on what is moral and attempting to use inconsistencies (I have yet to present any of the ones you brought up) to call me a hypocrite, then you may as well give up.
Fran sez: Oh that’s another howler. Please prove that STV makes socialism impossible, you dumb monkey.
I say:…Because the Marxist school uses the labour theory of value, which was the standard before the Marginalist revolution in economics, oh, around a hundred and seventy years ago. Then you run into the calculation problem.
Oh, and I love how you conflate “the Marxist school of economics” to socialism. I thought a left libertarian like you wouldn’t be so retarded as to attempt to equate Marxism with your version of socialism, but hey, if you want I can drag the problems of Marxism in against you too.
Fran sez:
Oh, so we shouldn’t try to stop a murderer or a rapist because he should be free? You fucking dumbass. PEOPLE WHO TRY TO LIMIT OTHER PEOPLE’S CAPACITY TO ACT MUST BE STOPPED. YOUR RETARDATION OBVIOUSLY KNOWS NO BOUND.
**I say:**Wow. Your premises sure aren’t very stable.
We are acting by forming a hierarchical organization OF OUR CHOICE because we believe it will benefit ourselves in the long run. You, on the other hand, plan to PREVENT THIS ACTION by the use of force because you refuse to accept our right to make our own decisions.
You’ve been talking to Francois. Half that board is on his ignore list.
Actually, to some stupid extent, he may be right.
If we define freedom as doing anything we like, then an Ancap individual does not always have freedom, as he may sign it away. The better (arguably) way to define freedom is “You begin with all your rights. Freedom is the constant ability to erode your rights in whatever way you like, constrained by the rights you currently have, and to exercise the rest.”
This definition still allows all of the AnCap definition and combats whiny AnSocs
Why do I put it this way?
Well, the guy certainly seems to think that signing a contract which brings obligations restricts your freedom. To an extent, that is true, but only in the Literal Nazi sense. It is nitpicking at the words. No, when we say “do whatever you like” we don’t mean even after contract. But since they think we do, then use the definition stated above.
To explain it a bit more:
We are born with all our rights (if we agree that we have some sort of rights). Since birth we are free to 1) exercise the rights we currently have 2) give away our rights through contract.
Consider the scenario:
Marx is born. Marx plays around in the sand. Marx swims around a bit. Now, Marx signs a contract that says he cannot swim in the ocean any more in exchange for $1 million. Marx may now exercise/give up all his rights besides the ones already given up.
What the angry socialist is saying is a non-issue, but to be 100% literal, the definition should be changed. Of course, we higher Rothbardian beings are above such trifles, but what can ya do. When your mentally lesser neighbor needs a hand, you gotta give it to him 
Well, I guess you don’t have to. I rant…
It depends on whether rights are alienable or inalienable. If self-ownership is inalienable, then there’s a problem with alienable rights.
I’m an AnCap who rejects any notion of “rights” except to the extent that they are defined in agreements (“contracts”) between people, so we do not all frame these questions in terms of rights and whether or not they are alienable or unalienable.
You’ve been talking to Francois. Half that board is on his ignore list.
I think I see why. As I said on that thread, he acts like an Objectivist cariciture of a socialist. The more I see of those posts, the more rational just about everyone else there appears.
I’m an AnCap who rejects any notion of “rights” except to the extent that they are defined in agreements (“contracts”) between people, so we do not all frame these questions in terms of rights and whether or not they are alienable or unalienable.
The problem with that is that it leads to a semantical slippery slope, a bit like the one regarding freedom mentioned above (I will try defining it that way, if only to see how he reacts; I don’t give two shits about irrelevent things like that, but if he wants to be nitpicky then I can go with it). Your property suddenly only matters if you sign a contract with every guy you pass on the street, and ceases to matter if someone says “no” or shoots you.
I agree with My Buddy’s last statement.
Then again, it seems quite a few seasoned members of this board are against natural rights, so I will keep my mind open.
Birthday Pony: It depends on whether rights are alienable or inalienable. If self-ownership is inalienable, then there’s a problem with alienable rights.
(Re: the $1m to not swim in the ocean example above) You’d be free to sign away your rights, but it wouldn’t be enforceable in a court of law. You’d simply lose whatever privilege the other party had bargained for. If they were dumb enough to simply give you $1m, then they have no recourse if you decide to start swimming again.
The right is inalienable, but you can contract and avoid it of your own free will.
A better question is why the right is inalienable. It’s inalienable because by nature you control yourself and no one else does. Not sure how you even could view fundamental natural rights as alienable. Such would amount to saying that it’s possible to hook up someone else’s brain to your arm.
Alternatives Considered: I’m an AnCap who rejects any notion of “rights” except to the extent that they are defined in agreements (“contracts”) between people, so we do not all frame these questions in terms of rights and whether or not they are alienable or unalienable.
That’s simply not possible. The legal concept of a right is no more than the legal aknowledgment of a fundamental reality. You control yourself. End of story.
This fact is what makes individuality and personal responsibility cogent.
Political systems help or harm themselves in accordance with how much their laws reflect reality. The great revolution of American democracy was the aknowledgement of the rights we all have as part of our nature as human beings.
Because you are the only one that can swing your arm, you’re responsible if it hits my nose. No one can swing it for you.
To say no one has innate rights except that which exists between contractees is to sanction murder, theft, rape, torture, and worse between those who have not yet contracted. I can’t think of anything more evil.