Libertarians For Obama

[Stranger]

@banned

@Stranger

You can get some bread if you stand in the bread line, even if it means other people will wait longer. If you don’t stand in the bread line, you starve.

False analogy. You’re not using violence on people to get the bread.

Neither are you by voting either. You’re merely writing on paper.

[Natalie]

Eh? What are you trying to say? That western statists are evil? Of course they are. Just like any other statists.

[liberty_student]

@Stranger

But they can win. You can get some bread if you stand in the bread line, even if it means other people will wait longer. If you don’t stand in the bread line, you starve.

Right, so they choose to stand in line, until the day when they won’t have to stand in line to keep from starving.

@Stranger

Maybe, but we are not those people.

No, we are not. But then you and I differ, in that I do not believe that I have to acquiesce to every threat of force. I believe I can resist, and I think (not sure how you feel) that it is necessary for me to resist, if I ever want to stop being coerced.

@Stranger

@liberty student

2. All of these, “I am enslaved” scenarios, rely on the the notion that coercion removes choice. I don’t buy that. Under that reasoning, every act of coercion would be infinitely successful. In which case, we’re in a game we can’t win.

I don’t understand what this means.

There seems to be the prevailing notion, that if someone coerces me, that I’m no longer making choices. That I no longer even have choices. I disagree with that. We’re only slaves because we accept slavery over resistance.

[banned]

@Stranger

Neither are you by voting either. You’re merely writing on paper.

And I suppose that paying a hitman to do away with somebody is just “handing them peices of paper with faces on them while making sounds come out of your mouth that could or could not be interpreted as commands.”?

[liberty_student]

@banned

Marxist class theory isn’t entirely invalid. It’s just applied in the wrong sense. The exploitation is happening between governments and their “citizenry”.

That’s also inaccurate. It’s happening between the majority, which includes a lot of citizenry, against the minority. Looters and social planners against producers and libertarians.

[Stranger]

@banned

@Stranger

Neither are you by voting either. You’re merely writing on paper.

And I suppose that paying a hitman to do away with somebody is just “handing them peices of paper with faces on them while making sounds come out of your mouth that could or could not be interpreted as commands.”?

I must now give you a taste of your own medicine and call this a false analogy, since there’s nothing about voting that involves commands.

[Stranger]

@liberty student

There seems to be the prevailing notion, that if someone coerces me, that I’m no longer making choices. That I no longer even have choices. I disagree with that. We’re only slaves because we accept slavery over resistance.

Certainly. But not voting is not resistance. The powers will just brush it off as irrelevant and continue, as Hugo Chavez did. Voting for enemies of the powers that be is resistance, even if it has little hope of succeeding.

Electoral contest may not be a sufficient strategy for freedom, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be part of one.

[Natalie]

@Rubén

It is appalling to see how Americans, so confortable and used to the liberties and democracy their founding fathers fought their lives for, are wasting their opportunities to have their say on how their country is run.

Not voting is not a solution. The opposition in Venezuela learned the lesson the hard way. In December 2006, due to the osbscene advantages of the official Chavez supporters through the electoral system, most of the opposition candidates decided to withdraw their candidacies into the National Assembl, and the opposition voters supported that move by not voting for the few opposition candidates that still remained in the polls. The result? The National assembly today is composed by 95% or more of Chávez supporterts, clearly not representative of the country’s demography.

That just shows you that every democracy eventually turns into dictatorship.

[liberty_student]

@Natalie

I understand. But it did sound eerily like would a Marxist say about the exploitation of the poor. I’d just like to distinguish between political actions of the American government and business decisions of the companies.

Well, businesses run the US government, it certainly is not the people!

@Natalie

I used to live in a poor country where many of the jobs were provided by the foreign companies so all the attacks on outsoursing really annoy me.

I dislike attacks on outsourcing as well. I wasn’t on about outsourcing. Or immigration. Pure theft is the problem.

@Natalie

Also, don’t forget that the government imposes minimal wage and other regulations that create more incentives for the companies to hire labor elsewhere.

Right, but the wages in many of these countries (I’m thinking specifically in SE Asia and Africa) are repressed by governments home and abroad, their globalist tools (IMF, World Bank), the threat of military force and subsidies to the ruling elite in those countries.

I’m all for hiring someone abroad at a cheaper rate if they are being properly compensated relative to their output, value and economic environment. I’m not for forced work, or people having their wages confiscated by a state that we (the west) support and maintain. That’s outsourcing tyranny.

[Natalie]

It’s sort of mutual. Citizens like to use the government to solve their problems at the expense of others.

[liberty_student]

@Stranger

Certainly. But not voting is not resistance. The powers will just brush it off as irrelevant and continue, as Hugo Chavez did. Voting for enemies of the powers that be is resistance, even if it has little hope of succeeding.

Electoral contest may not be a sufficient strategy for freedom, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be part of one.

There may be merit to what you are writing, because the greatest reason why I did not vote this time around, was that I am totally sickened to my stomach by the state. I couldn’t bring myself to do it physically, not just ideologically.

However, one should be clear that if they are voting, it is part of ending the state, not reforming it. Because that would just be kidding ourselves.

[nje5019]

@Stranger

Certainly. But not voting is not resistance. The powers will just brush it off as irrelevant and continue, as Hugo Chavez did. Voting for enemies of the powers that be is resistance, even if it has little hope of succeeding.

Electoral contest may not be a sufficient strategy for freedom, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be part of one.

What’s your take on the argument that by voting, you’re giving support moral legitimacy to the system as a whole?The idea is that trying to use the political process to stop the political process is sort of like trying to stand in a bucket and lift it up.

[banned]

@Stranger

I must now give you a taste of your own medicine and call this a false analogy, since there’s nothing about voting that involves commands.

Really? So you don’t “cast” a vote? It isn’t some sort of legal command towards one candidates campaign for presidency? Certainly in some ways it’s not as explicit as a verbal command, but it is indeed a command.

[Stranger]

@banned

@Stranger

I must now give you a taste of your own medicine and call this a false analogy, since there’s nothing about voting that involves commands.

Really? So you don’t “cast” a vote? It isn’t some sort of legal command towards one candidates campaign for presidency? Certainly in some ways it’s not as explicit as a verbal command, but it is indeed a command.

I think the mess in Florida in 2000 shows how much of a command a vote is.

Ultimately Stalin had it right, the people who count the votes send the commands.

[Stranger]

@nje5019

What’s your take on the argument that by voting, you’re giving support moral legitimacy to the system as a whole?The idea is that trying to use the political process to stop the political process is sort of like trying to stand in a bucket and lift it up.

The system doesn’t need your support. However it does get scared when you vote the wrong way.

[banned]

@liberty student

@banned

Marxist class theory isn’t entirely invalid. It’s just applied in the wrong sense. The exploitation is happening between governments and their “citizenry”.

That’s also inaccurate. It’s happening between the majority, which includes a lot of citizenry, against the minority.

In the case of democracy, yes. But I’m talking about a global trend among all governments and societies. Those who coerce are the ones who are the exploiters.

[banned]

@Stranger

I think the mess in Florida in 2000 shows how much of a command a vote is.

Ultimately Stalin had it right, the people who count the votes send the commands.

A hitman doesn’t have to act out what you tell him to either.

[Stranger]

Just to place the electoral system in perspective, here is how France became a democracy. After the second empire was overthrown at Sedan by the Germans, the three most powerful factions of France were the monarchists (traditional monarchy), the bonapartists (pro-empire monarchy) and the republicans (liberals, democrats and socialists). The two monarchist factions were powerful enough to beat out the republicans, but since they couldn’t agree with each other, elections were used as a compromise to settle the issue.

The republicans won because the two monarchist factions split their vote. The third republic was established and monarchy never came back. (Although it almost did under Charles De Gaulle.)

The moral of this story is, the people who vote decide nothing. The election was a way of settling a score between the country’s ruling class, and the people just suffered that.

[Natalie]

@liberty student

@Natalie

I understand. But it did sound eerily like would a Marxist say about the exploitation of the poor. I’d just like to distinguish between political actions of the American government and business decisions of the companies.

Well, businesses run the US government, it certainly is not the people!

With all the anti-business taxation and regulations? I don’t think so. Businesses can use the government to their advantage. But as a whole, I doubt it.

@liberty student

Right, but the wages in many of these countries (I’m thinking specifically in SE Asia and Africa) are repressed by governments home and abroad, their globalist tools (IMF, World Bank), the threat of military force and subsidies to the ruling elite in those countries.

I’m all for hiring someone abroad at a cheaper rate if they are being properly compensated relative to their output, value and economic environment. I’m not for forced work, or people having their wages confiscated by a state that we (the west) support and maintain. That’s outsourcing tyranny.

Ok, I won’t argue with that. However, I don’t see how American (or Canadian) people benefit from it. Yes, they get cheap goods from China. But without government intervention they’d get them even cheaper. And they probably even wouldn’t have to be made in China.

[Stolz25]

@banned

@Stranger

You can get some bread if you stand in the bread line, even if it means other people will wait longer. If you don’t stand in the bread line, you starve.

False analogy. You’re not using violence on people to get the bread.

Where did the bread come from?