I wonder which church, according to you, is going to ‘voluntary’ rule the whole world…? Maybe the so-called church of (imperial) rome ?
Of course not. Who said that? Giles? If at this point people do not realize he is playing to the crowd, I can’t help them.
Btw, I’m a 30 something male with no desire to start or have a family. I’m also an atheist.
Accepted by whom? My issue with left libertarians is that they are trapped (mentally) in the 19th century. The internet and technology are tearing social organizations away from the state and conventional forms, completely through a natural process.
And how do you know that ? If a person says he believes in X I assume he believes in X. Or are you saying that Giles is a troll ?
I find it very amusing that you are always an expert on what other people think. Your ability to define other people’s beliefs, goals and positions, as well as putting words into their mouths is unprecedented.
You would make a kickass press agent.
Btw, you still have not explained the differences between libertarianism and feminism, and why it would be necessary (and compatible) for one to declare themselves as being both.
That is subjective.
I thought the idea was to return free choice to sovereign individuals. I’m not interested in tearing down institutions. I think a lot of other libertarians may feel as I do. Liberty is our end, not revolution. Revolution is only a means.
But no one is advocating bringing back either monopoly or coercion. So I don’t understand what your problem is.
Still looking for that answer on feminism please.
No, I don’t think Giles is a troll. I think Giles has a better sense of humour than most of the people he debates with. After all, if he didn’t throw you and BP so much red meat, what would you guys have to talk about on this forum?
Giles is taking cues almost directly from Hoppe. I realize that he is exaggerating sometimes (for whatever reason), but I am almost certain that he would feel that the traditional forms of family and church would be the only sustainable ones without the state.
Ok? My question was meant to be rhetorical.
I don’t see where we disagree here.
Good. Now untrap yourself from the 19th century. [;)]
Well he is a Hoppean.
But I thought troll was an appropriate term to throw at towards anyone that consistently disagrees with you in an intelligent manner? Am the only one who got that memo?
This & other recent threads are ripe for parody in this regard, almost to the point of hypocrisy. User X disagrees with User Y consistently, & vice-versa, with largely intelligent arguments & rebuttals, yet the term troll get’s thrown around, and the conversation & thread it occurs in goes…where, exactly? The event horizon?
Why are so many so pre-occupied with the crystal ball? Who cares if so & so’s preferences are correct or not. The free-market (which requires a Stateless Society) & the agents within the free-market will sort this out on it’s own, it doesn’t need nor require any of this proto-vanguardist nonsense from it’s supposed supporters. It seems in-fighting is becoming an elephant in the room in favor of circular arguments regarding personal preferences that ultimately lead to nowhere, while time outside the argumentative bubble ticks on by.
Indeed, this is the most egregious mistake I think Carson, Hoppe, Long (amongst others) make.
Some of them are fairly to very solid on theory and historical analysis. But when they start trying to project the future, which is doomed to be imprinted with their own personal biases, they tend to get away from the consistency and neutrality of their “hard” analysis.
Well…I was roughly using this definition :
Either Giles believes what he’s saying (my assumption) or doesn’t believe what he’s saying (that’s what LS seems to think). If Giles doesn’t believe in so called cultural conservatism but defends the position ‘for fun’ then he is a troll of sorts ?
I guess I missed the largely intelligent arguments for conservatism…
What’s a proto-vanguardist/proto-vanguardism ?
Are you being forced to read this thread…?
This sentence contradicts itself. We’ve yet to see it yet it has previously existed. Hmm.
Correlation /= causation. You have a major problem with this fallacy. Chattel slavery also existed in the West when the state was considerably smaller than it is today. Should I therefore conclude that chattel slavery is “the natural order” minus a state or that the lesser power of the state during the period was the cause for the prevailance of chattel slavery? No.
I wasn’t talking about political philosophy in general. I said “the political philosophy”, in referance to libertarianism. Which IS in opposition to currently existing power structures.
This statement is dumb. It doesn’t follow from what I said that one should be content with the state.
You are being disingenous once again, given that I’m responding to people’s open statements. So your attempt to accuse me of just arbitrarily proclaiming what other people think is misleading and trollish, given that what I’m refering to is openly stated.
Actually I already did explain that to you over multiple posts, and you’re just being trollish again now. In either case, I never claimed it would be NECESSARY for one to declare themselves as being both, I merely defended the possibility of someone being both.
No, historical fact is not subjective. The past was not some libertarian utopia.
The idea is indeed to give free choice to sovereign individuals. But it is simply dumb to assume that individuals ever had this or act like the past was a libertopia.
To borrow a comment from your buddy Giles then, you should be content with the state.
I never implied otherwise. You’re probably the most misrepresentative person here.
People who advocate neo-fuedalism are advocating both monopoly and coercion.
**
It was already given multiple posts back. You ignored it.
Precisely. It’s a dead horse at best.
An excellent definition, which could easily apply to everyone participating on the Internet, if one stretches it far enough. I’m not idealist enough to say the term shouldn’t be used at all, just that maybe not as lightly as it is currently is used against those who seem to be unable to let go of arguments or are able to continually challenge them.
I remember trolling applying to empty forum posts for the purpose of bumping said threads, posting obvious spam, utilizing vulgar language, consistently bypassing forum bans in order to further spam, etc., not posting counter-arguments or disagreeing with an unseen majority opinion on topics. I have no control over the use of the term, I realize, but it seems obvious to me that is does detract from the arguments & debates to some extent.
As for GS, regardless of whatever he actually believes in (of which I’m indifferent towards), perhaps he simply sees problems in BP’s (or anyone else’s) positions, & is playing devil’s advocate in challenging them. Who are any of us to tell him this is ‘wrong’ ? Is being a “true believer” (a scary enough label in of itself) a pre-requesite for participating in debate? If that’s so, then why bother communication with those that don’t agree with anti-statist, pro-free market views?
Why bother going beyond the echo chamber when it’s so much fun hearing our own voices?
Let’s see… fiscal conservatism is considered a good thing in libertarianism, should we automatically discount that? I thought GS was a cultural conservative, but I really could care less what GS (or anyone else) is as long as if at some point, we do indeed have a stateless society (not that currently not having one rationalizes anything), he doesn’t utilize coercion & force against me or others in his affairs.
I do disagree with many of what GS says, but I’m not going to pretend disagreeing with him gives me the ‘right’ to mis-represent him & dis-credit him at every chance he challenges arguments, which seems to happen quite often as of late (to be fair, this is not only with GS, but with others as well).
Me making a terrible attempt at making up labels, lol.
But seriously, I meant in the idea that preferences are being argued in similar fashion to that of an organization’s attempt’s at “…placing itself at the center of the movement, and steer it in a direction consistent with its ideology.” (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguardism). It seems preferences of what a stateless society would look like are being grafted upon the concept itself (in order to justify personal preferences as being more correct than others), so I suppose you could say I meant “preferential vangaurdism”.
The arguments for cultural conservatism as a dominant personal preference over cultural liberalism (& vice versa), is idotic, as both cultural conservatism & cultural liberalism (or what I view more accuratley, social conservatism & social liberalism) are perfectly valid preferences under a stateless society for the individual.
I may decide being fiscally consverative will have less importance in ways under a stateless society due to the lack of overhead charges by a no longer existing State, just as I may decide being socially conservative may have less importance due to a possibly increased mobility of my occupation (which may change more often if I am busy keeping up with competition in the markets regarding being able to earn money for a standard of living). Just as easily, being socially liberal may have less importance in some ways as I may not like to associate with certain people, or being fiscally liberal may less importance since I no longer have State institutions as a “saftey net”, etc.
It’s different for every person, and to think that certain preferences would be more domnanint de-facto, under a stateless society, would be absurd, & ignores the various psychologies of indivudals. Certain perferences may yeild more favorable outcomes, but that does not instantly mean they will be embraced.
Are you being forced to respond to so-called “trolls” ? I am merley expressing a personal observation that may or may not help the dialouge (i.e. particpating in the debate, albiet in a more meta sense).
Does this post also make me a troll?
Nitro, let’s pretend I didn’t use the term troll. Chalk it down to my less-than-optimal usage of English.
Maybe. Still I fail to see his challenges as backed by reason. I see his challenges as backed by love for ‘inequality, conservatism, feudalism, elitism’ and revealed religion. And the same is true for other advocates of social conservatism.
Well, one can of course defend a position one doesn’t believe in, as an intellectual exercise. Making clear this is the case beforehand sounds like a good idea in order to avoid misunderstandings ? But is that what Giles is doing ? Again, I don’t think so. He means what he says.
Are you suggesting I’m misrepresenting him ?
Is there any reason why I should not discredit him considering I regard his arguments as badly flawed ? Besides, I see no reason for being polite towards somebody who addresses me as “leftist scum”.
Well, in a stateless society fiscal conservatism is meaningless as there’s no ‘public’ money to spend…so fiscal conservatism is not an issue. Blind obedience to religious authority, for instance, is.
And I don’t think that a society in which the majority are cultural conservatives can be a libertarian society. Furthermore I think that conservatives complain about the state only if it’s not a conservative state. They’ve no problem with conservative states such as the catholic church. Furthermore, they claim that such states “built western civilization”…
No, I’m interested in stating that conservatism and libertarianism are not ‘compatible’. You on the other hand seemed to regard the discussion as a discussion concerned with mere preference and so irrelevant. My point was that if the discussion bothers you because you consider it irrelevant, then you can simply unsubscribe =]
Followups were asked. I am still waiting for your answer to those.
Also more than a few of us want to know if you will debate Giles. Are you up for the challenge?
Juan, I understand English isn’t your first language, so go look up refutation in the English dictionary and stop using it as synonomous with response.
Well, as for the specifics, we’ll have to find out.
In fact, I’ve spoken to a very good (conservative) friend of mine from Argentina.
I’ve asked this many times now: what incentives do people have to own land (you’ve provided none). Your point was that whilst land prices will go up, land rents would too. Which is correct, but time preference means that people would rather rent the land then buy it.
And no, it won’t only be the natural elites only land, in fact, it would be entrepreneurs. So, stop the strawmen.
Yes, people would have a lower time preference, Hoppe lists how the state impacts time preference in his wonderful book if you’re interested (you’re not). But that still doesn’t mean people have any incentive to own their land, which is where the problem with your refuation lies, I, on the other hand have managed to come up with incentives for feudal like land arrangements (perhaps you’ve ignored them?).
People will also be more responsible.
This is almost correct. Yes, I am almost directly “taking cues” from Hoppe, by which I mean I agree with him on almost everything. However, I do not think that family and church orientated lifestyles would be sustainable, just that they’d dominate and that “alternative” lifestyles would be exactly that.