I am leaning in that direction as well, and have been for sometime. That said, Ruben has decided to “get in my kitchen” so-to-speak.
I don’t have a GP. I have not renewed my ID card. I go to the Naturopath if I need to. I don’t live a healthy life, but I am improving. I am much healthier than my family members with medicine cabinets that look like pharmacies.
Well here is the thing. No one in Canada plans for their health. They just go to the Doctor. And while the service is not very good, they don’t have to pay, and most workplaces will accommodate sick days and such. It’s when you get very ill, and you need emergency care, that depending upon who you are and where you live, you may be out of luck.
This is part of pro-state brainwashing, teaching people to give up their responsibility for their own lives, and to rely exclusively on planners and bureaucrats to provide.
How can I rate this as the best post I’ve read on these forums? [:)]
Obviously, the state needs healthy workers. If you’re very sick and possible dying you’re a drain of resources and it’s cheaper just to let you die. That’s why I always want to LOL whenever someone tells me how the private providers “only care for profit” therefore the government should be the one to provide healthcare, education, etc (whatever the speaker thinks everyone has a right to). Yes, the for profit private providers react to the rise in demand by expanding their operations. The government, on the other hand, views healthcare as an expense and would rather cut it by denying service to the least valuable (to them) groups of population. I wonder why it’s so hard for people to understand…
I don’t know if he’s trolling. He seems more like one of those folks that no matter how you try to explain something to them, they just don’t get it. The sad part is, that a majority of the world probably thinks the way he does and we really have our work cut out.
I have not read through the thread so maybe this has been suggested, but I think one of the best ways would be through a computer game that rewards users for freer economies and that they win when they eliminate government.
I recently played Civilization IV and went with the economic system ''State Ownership". Then I thought “This is actually pretty silly that mercantilism and socialism have some benefits in contrast to free markets” but on the other hand, for the government they do have benefits, so the game isn’t that wrong (Of course, according to Hoppe a god-emperor who lives thousands of year would always go with free markets ).
A maybe interesting theme for a game would be a heavy state controlled economy, where you have to take back policies (to win) and you can see people reorganizing and making things better. Of course, there would be the creative destruction and unions and protests or something, but in the end, if you do it right everything is fine. But this game would be very hard to pull of.
Seconded; the with-hunt for purity, whether intentional or unintentional, is tantamount to self-defeating elitism, despite said intellectual merits there are in pursuing more correct and/or pure theories (which would eventually denote revised approaches via action).
If the Statists were concerned with that, they would alienate themselves and/or tear themselves apart continually, much like the libertarian / anarchist movements have seemingly done, decade after decade.
Emotionalism abound in Statist society, yet most of us (if not all of us) were born in said society(ies); it is not surprising that such emotionalism also infects our own debates & discussions, with the Statists hardly having to do any work in discrediting Anti-Statists.
Lately, I’ve been thinking that creating a culture around our ideas may be the only way we’ll survive, instead of relying and/or utilizing the current cultures and/or societies to survive. Genocide of a culture is far more offensive to many citizens of the State than terrorists or anarchist “hoodlums” being rounded up in cages at the DNC/RNC dog & pony shows.
The Statists have already infected cultures that we were born into; I think it’s time we beat them at their own game, possibly. Considerably vague comments, I admit, & possibly redundant, but overall, unification between factions in the libertarian / anarchist movements does not mean compromising our principles; it means rising above our differences for a greater goal of providing a better alternative. Wasn’t this how America was more or less started?
Of course, that would mean that not everyone’s pet theories & idealistic views would not be necessarily executed. I suppose if this were virtual reality, that would be easier to deal with, but I see no reason why a little bit of time (historically speaking), patience & some thinking can’t help eventually solve that.
</end thoroughly jaded post for the week>
Great stuff. I think we need to figure out how to raise some money and pay some poor Austrian students during the summer to write free market analysis of sports, movies, pop culture, and then mass web market them. To do that, we need people willing to settle on common goals, not radical differences.
Cheers mate.
In Europa Universalis III you can have unbalanced budgets and mint money like crazy, but it will cause inflation and retard research. So you can have an army for free now, but it will bite you in the arse big time through the following centuries. The silly thing is you can research a certain technology that lets you promote mayors into governors and that will somehow lower the inflation, but I guess that is game balance for you.
Why? The average person doesn’t care about philosophy or economics, at best they pay a slight interest to which fool is in the whitehouse these days. Perhaps, they may know enough about their party of choice to recite a few slogans or mumble some statistics. Beyond that, granted that they have their TV they’re very easily placated.
And what’s more? I couldn’t care about that fool either, at least not in regards to the state. I have far more king sentiments for one who dedicates their time to studying and reaches wrong conclusions than I do for the idea who never bothers, and simply accepts whatever he is fed on a spoon. Perhaps time and technology have changed, all that means is that now we’re better able to reach the Winston Smiths of this world, the remnant.
There you go getting all monarchist again. [;)]
No, but they like sports and movies and music. And those are the mediums to influence their perspectives on unions, intervention, capitalism, etc.
If you’re not interested in fighting the long gradual battle, that’s fine. But there are dividends to be paid in the future, with seeds planted today.
Whether or not they accept libertarianism is one thing, whether or not they devote any effort to seeing it in practise is another.
The BrainThoughpolice will be here soon.
The working people are by and large cynical about politics, politicians and the establishment. They may not be interested in philosophy (as neither am I), but they are disillusioned and repulsed. That is a much more fertile ground than some by and large socialy complacent philosophy students and other upper-middle classers.
I don`t think they need to be spoken down to through sports, movies and music either. They just need to hear what we have to say on what affects their lives directly in a clear, coherant, common-sense way they appreciate. This is where a constitutionalist Ron Paul activist does more good work than scores of purist internet theorethicians.
The mistake is that we think that to be a libertarian, everyone needs to be knee deep in philosophy and economics. But in reality, Hoppe is right. We just need a class consciousness, rich and poor to recognize the looters from the producers. The way to help people recognize things around them (as they are) is to show them different perspectives.
It’s not that most people reject libertarianism or can’t understand it. It’s that we are not doing a good job of marketing it. To quote Juan’s favorite libertarian, Ron Paul, “Freedom is popular”
But not until people realize that what they have right now, is not freedom. This sloganeering CHANGE BS can be turned inside out, and used in our favour.
Well said. I was speaking more to the youth than the working class though. The youth haven’t paid taxes, or run afoul of bureaucracy and state power yet. So we make sure the seeds are planted, that when it does happen, they see it for what it really is.
^I’ve got no idea about Canada and only a little on America. I live in one of the commonwealth countries. Pretty annoying, eh?
(nice to get quoting system working!)
If you only debate with those people, who are (let’s make up a percentage, the government does it, so why can’t we?), 15% of the population (and that’s being generous with my estimate), how do you plan on getting our ‘plan’ into action?
Don’t we need more than just 15%? We might not need the majority (as you know, many revolutions were lead by the few, not the many!), but seriously, 15%?
How do we convince people that don’t want to be convinced?
Panarchy
There are some stars at the top of the post… I’ll do the same!!!
LOL
Nah, but you’re right, it’s a pretty nicely written post.
Thanks
Panarchy