"Negative rights restrict liberty"

Economics Political Theory
101

@ Malachi:

Please refrain from misrepresentations and assorted strawman arguments. The first response to my previous post is a clear example of a strawman argument that contributes nothing to the debate.

Your initial comment:

Also, I have a question about democratic peace theory. Which country is the despotic tyranny, argentina or the united kingdom?–Malachi

My rebut:

Argentina was run by a military junta during the Falkland War. Check your history, I think you miss that one since I know you will agree with me that a military junta should not even remotely considered a liberal democracy.–Centinel

Your response:

exactly why I oppose the US military dictatorship in iraq. Amazing isnt it?-- Malachi

In this particular case, I clearly pointed out that Argentina was not a liberal democracy as you implied in a futile attempt to cite an example of conflict between liberal democracies.

When exposed, you change the fundamental point and direction of your initial statement that Argentina was a liberal democracy.

There are numerous red herrings, fallacies, misrepresentations and unsupported ideologically biased statements in the balance of your diatribe including a fixation on an obscure 'chemical complex and a supposed cover-up.

I googled muthanna using a news search and not a single conspiracy theorist felt this a worthy diversion from reality. More importantly, this diversion has absolutely nothing to do with my assertion that statist have employed coercive means to obtain desired ends. Interestingly, whatever hanky-panky that is occuring in ‘Muthanna’ if any is funded by your taxpayers dollars without your consent thereby confirming my assertion that coercive means is effective, particularily when executed against naive anarchists.

nice try, troll. Your point was that we could do genocide, but we do not, so anything else we do is magnanimous and morally justified. --Malachi

I challenged you to cite a period in European history that was more peaceful, prosperous, free and stable thanks to US hegemony and you have resorted to another strawman diversion that the US is not perfect in the execution of power.

I never stated that US foreign policy is perfect – in fact I challenge you to produce the quote in which I stated this.

My assertion was that Europe, Western Hemispere and Pacific Asia are more peaceful, prosperous, free and stable than at anytime in their violent and despotic past. And you have twisted this assertion with an obvious strawman.

I will address the rest of the strawman arguments in a subsequent post.

102

In other words, you cited someone who you thought is an “authority” on this site to argue that “one of our own” who is apparently highly respected makes the same arguments you do. This is known as an appeal to authority.

Next red herring, please.

103

@autolykos

It is obvious that you don’t have the wherewithal to refute my assertion (corroborated by emipirical evidence from Riggenbach and many others) that civil and political rights have increased markedly since 1776 – so you have resorted to labeling my use of a Mises source as a strawman “appeal to authority” in the absence of one iota of argument against Riggenbach’s or my assertion.

one has to wonder how frequently you employ this diversion.

red herring or not (by your definition), I challenge you to refute my assertion (riggenbachs and many others) that civil and political rights have increased in the US since 1776.

104

An assertion like that carries the burden of proof with it. Your appeal to Riggenbach, I maintain, was entirely on the grounds of supposed authority within the Ludwig von Mises Institute and its associated forum community. Really, who do you expect to think otherwise at this point?

One has to wonder how often you’ll refuse to admit that you were making an appeal to authority.

I see no reason to respond to this challenge except to remind you again that the burden of proof rests with your assertion. If you want me to refute the reasoning and/or evidence behind it, then feel free to present it. You can even cite Riggenbach’s podcast as a source, if you want - explicitly, of course.

105

I see no reason to respond to this challenge – Autolykos

Of course.

However, a few questions will easily expose you and your inability to engage in substantive debate save semantic and fallacious diversions:



Since you reject my assertion that civil and political freedoms have increased in the USA since 1776, do you assert that these freedoms have decreased since the removal of British monarchial rule ?

Or do you consider it a fallacy to answer a question ?

106

You call that “substantive debate”? I’m still waiting on you to satisfy the burden of proof. Keep digging that hole, dude.

Also, thanks for finally conceding (albeit implicitly) that you were making an appeal to authority re: Riggenbach and his podcast.

107

If I may speak for Autolykos: what he considers is that you provide proof for the assertion that civil and political freedoms have increased in the USA since 1776. It may seem self-evident to you, but all he is asking is for you to provide proof.

But I may take a quick stab at your assertion: there have been an increase in civil and political freedoms for some people in some areas, and there have been a decrease in civil and political freedoms for some people in some areas. After 1776 of course.

108

@ autolykos

Your inane diversions, repeated fallacious arguments and inability to answer simple queries makes it a waste of time to respond to you.

Good luck.

109

@gotlucky

I provide citations that provide empirical evidence supporting my assertions. In addition, I asked autolykos a simple question on his stance and typically he is incapable of engaging in a serious discussion because he probably recognizes that he doesnt have the wherewithal to engage me on these issues.

But I am glad to see that you have the wherewithal to entertain a position and openly declare it in the absence of any diversionary tactics and arguments typical of failed thinking and faith-based ideologues.

But I may take a quick stab at your assertion: there have been an increase in civil and political freedoms for some people in some areas, and there have been a decrease in civil and political freedoms for some people in some areas. After 1776 of course. – gotlucky

I dont believe that anyone in the colonies had greater freedoms except those closely aligned with a despotic king. Of course, when despots lose power then they have less ‘freedoms’ than previously. However, the overwhelming majority of the citizenry within the colonies saw their civil and poltiical freedoms increased markedly since 1776. For one, they were no longer beholden to a monarch or legislative body in Britain which granted them no representation.

Which begs the question – whom specifically do you believe have lost freedoms since 1776 and whom specifically do you believe have gained freedoms?

110

I just want to make sure we are on the same page before we continue. When you say “after 1776”, are you referring to just that specific event, or do you mean over time? In other words, do you consider the 1900’s do be fair game?

111

How many times now have you tried to write me off and wish me “good luck”? Yet you keep coming back to me. Apparently you enjoy “wasting time” responding to me. Oh well. As you’re fond of saying - don’t hate the player, hate the game.

112

In this particular case, I clearly pointed out that Argentina was not a liberal democracy as you implied in a futile attempt to cite an example of conflict between liberal democracies.>>>>

if argentina wasnt a liberal democracy during the falklands war than how is the united states a liberal democracy in iraq? That is what my QUESTION was leading up to. Your pathetic attempt to dodge the implications of this fact is par for the neocon course. How is the united states a liberal democracy when we put a military dictatorship above human beings? Please answer this question.

When exposed, you change the fundamental point and direction of your initial statement that Argentina was a liberal democracy.>>>>

I never implied that. I asked you. You are not a very good teacher, do you know that?

I googled muthanna using a news search and not a single conspiracy theorist felt this a worthy diversion from reality.>>>>

Think about that for a second. Because you didnt find any conspiracy theorists talking about mcc, it is irrelevant? Is that how you evaluate all claims you are unfamiliar with?

perhaps the reason conspiracy theorists do not talk about it is because it is not a “conspiracy theory,” it is a derelict chemical weapons facility in iraq that was publicly accessible from 2003 to at least 2008, and more than likely still accessible, since the brass did not take our reports of suspicious activity in that location very seriously. You can dismiss this because you do not have any information, or because it contradicts your beliefs, or because it makes you uncomfortable. But at least an iraq war vet told you where to find the wmd’s.

Interestingly, whatever hanky-panky that is occuring in ‘Muthanna’ if any is funded by your taxpayers dollars without your consent thereby confirming my assertion that coercive means is effective, particularily when executed against naive anarchists.>>>>

actually, the potential terrorists that may be conducting hanky-panky operations in mcc are not spending my tax dollars, they are defying your beloved state despite the trillions and trillions of foreign debt (not tax dollars) being pissed away. You cannot explain why your beloved state claimed to want to secure the wmd, but actually doesnt care, so you resort to non-sequiturs again. You are one boooooooring troll.

I challenged you to cite a period in European history that was more peaceful, prosperous, free and stable thanks to US hegemony and you have resorted to another strawman diversion that the US is not perfect in the execution of power.>>>>

you asked for a period in history. I gave you one. The fact that you cannot argue against my example (indigenous peoples in precolonial americas, to include pretotalitarian agriculture europe and asia) is just an example of how limited your philosophy is. Your nonsequitur is not even worthy of a rebuttal.

I never stated that US foreign policy is perfect – in fact I challenge you to produce the quote in which I stated this.>>>>

I never stated that you stated that us foreign policy is perfect – in fact I challenge you to produce the quote in which I stated this.

My assertion was that Europe, Western Hemispere and Pacific Asia are more peaceful, prosperous, free and stable than at anytime in their violent and despotic past. And you have twisted this assertion with an obvious strawman.>>>>

isnt it funny how you can make hundreds of thousands of years of human history disappear by calling it “prehistory”? I see you remembered the regions besides europe that you were asking about. My answer is still the same, read about indigenous societies. I also gave you another argument you completely failed to respond to, the fact that your assertion employs false causation. Democracy did not “make people free prosperous peaceful and stable.” people did that, representative government was the result. We could be even more free, prosperous, peaceful, and stable if we would, as a society, stop granting the ability to initiate violence without repercussion. Power corrupts, you see.

I will address the rest of the strawman arguments in a subsequent post.>>>>

I would appreciate it if you would stop addressing your beloved strawmen and attempt to tackle my actual arguments. However I now see that your strategy is to pick whichever of my arguments you find easiest to distort, hack out a strawman, then launch the term “strawman” at me as a sort of pre-emptive attack. How neoconservative of you.

113

@autolykos

You must remember that you are always responding to my posts, it seems that every single post I make, you are there (I am flattered that you would spend so much time following me). However, I don’t respond to your posts unless it is a rebut to one of your fallacious or diversionary replies to an earlier post of mine.

In fact, I don’t think I ever responded to a single post from you.

I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it is obvious that you are not capable of engaging in any substantive discussion, hence your previous post that doesn’t contribute anything to my assertions that

Anarchists question the utility of coercive means to obtain desired ends – yet they are subordinate servants of the very means (coercion) and actors (statists) that subjegate them daily.

114

See? I knew you wouldn’t just go away after wishing me good luck (yet again). I can only surmise that you do that in the hopes that I’ll finally shut up. You should know by now how futile that is.

Whether you can be said to respond to a single post from me depends on the definition used for “respond”, doesn’t it? From the standpoint of the forum software, though, you certainly do respond to me.

I suppose my posts are fallacious in a Bizarro-World sense where logical truth and falsehood are inverted. And I suppose my posts are diversionary in the sense of calling you out on your intellectual bankruptcy.

Now you try to throw another red herring in my path. You should know by now that my last few posts have been calling you out on your appeal to authority. You should also know by now that I’ve already responded to that assertion - by calling you out on your trollish refusal to differentiate between initiatory (i.e. aggressive) and non-initiatory (i.e. defensive) coercion. Apparently to admit these things publicly is too painful for you.

115

if argentina wasnt a liberal democracy during the falklands war than how is the united states a liberal democracy in iraq? That is what my QUESTION was leading up to. Your pathetic attempt to dodge the implications of this fact is par for the neocon course. Please answer this question.-Malachi

Your logic on this issue is lacking.

Of course Argentina was an autocratic regime during the Falkland Wars since there were no free elections and free speech rights in that nation. And of course the USA was a liberal democracy during the Iraq War since there ARE free elections and free speech in that nation.

Projecting your moral repulsion of the war in Iraq (despite tens of thousands of innocent lives saved and the removal of a brutal miscalculating despot) does not change the fact that the US was a liberal democracy in 2003 and Argentina was not in 1982.

Equally important is that the Authorization to use force in Iraq was approved by Congress in 2003 AND the war continued to be funded by that elected body. Argentina had no such mechanism for balancing power and funding of military missions.

How is the united states a liberal democracy when we put a military dictatorship above human beings? --Malachi

It is hard to explain geopoltics to those who think in utopian terms.

But the motivation behind the attack was primarily to remove a brutal, miscalculating and destablizing despot near a high percentage of the world’s most accessible oil reserves. A secondary goal was the establishment of a democratic government.

The end result even at this early stage is far more preferable than (1) continued sanctions that were killing innocent Iraqis or (2) do nothing (advocated by anarchists) that would allow Saddam to reconstitute his WMD program or (3) support Saddam to promote US interests.

YOur logic is flawed since a third option of supporting Saddam to protect American interests would indeed represent the USA supporting a autocracy.

In truth, Bush acted in principle to promote democracy by removing instead of coddling authoritarian govts which is the opposite of the point of your misguided diatribe.

It is illogical that you are criticizing the Iraq war as support for absolutism when the exact opposite was the rationale for the war.

While Iraq is not a higher order democracy, it has far more optimistic future than previously under Saddam.

116

@autolykos

See? I knew you wouldn’t just go away after wishing me good luck (yet again). I can only surmise that you do that in the hopes that I’ll finally shut up. You should know by now how futile that is.

Whether you can be said to respond to a single post from me depends on the definition used for “respond”, doesn’t it? From the standpoint of the forum software, though, you certainly do respond to me.

I suppose my posts are fallacious in a Bizarro-World sense where logical truth and falsehood are inverted. And I suppose my posts are diversionary in the sense of calling you out on your intellectual bankruptcy. – autolykos

Is there a more childish post demonstrable of a fragile ego than yours ?

You should also know by now that I’ve already responded to that assertion - by calling you out on your trollish refusal to differentiate between initiatory (i.e. aggressive) and non-initiatory (i.e. defensive) coercion. – autolykos

I didn’t respond to this misrepresentation because I am fully aware that anarchists consider their use of force to be "non-initiatory or defensive. Indeed, this fact is fundamental to my assertion that anarchists significantly restrict their ability to gain and hold power by limiting their use of armed force to purely defensive uses.

However, statists impose no such restrictions on the use of armed force. They will and have effectively used ‘initiatory’ aggressive armed force to obtain desired ends, particularly against anarchist interest which remain on the trash bin of history.

Of course, you are the only reader who manufactured this strawman that I claimed anarchist are coercive when the exact opposite was fundamental to my argument – namely that anarchist are living under statist power because they statists are far more effective at utilizing coercive means.

That is why I am loath to waste my time responding to someone who doesn’t have a base understanding or recoginition of a basic point in my argument.

With respect to this statement:

Whether you can be said to respond to a single post from me depends on the definition used for “respond”, doesn’t it? – autolykos

It is obvious that I don’t and haven’t responded to any of your posts unless it is a rebut to your initiating some strawman or fallacious argument, like the preceding and no doubt the next one.

More specifically, you seem to follow me around and respond with fallacious comments to many of my posts.

I guess I should be flattered that you are so diligent about monitoring my posts, more so since you seem to focus on minutia, semantics, and fallacious diversions which indicate that you don’t have the wherewithal to engage them with anything substantive.

117

Keep escalating this. Please. I’m not going anywhere.

Hence your argument boils down to “if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em” - right? I mean, if you’re advocating “out-aggressing the statists”, what real (i.e. qualitative) difference is there between what you’re advocating and statism?

Whoa there, Tex. Where did I say that you claimed that anarchists are coercive? For someone who loves to jump on perceived strawmen, you seem to have no problem manufacturing them yourself.

But on another note, why don’t you make up your mind? Either you think anarchists are willing to use force more than never - and thus are coercive to some extent - or they aren’t. Which do you think is the case? You’ve already made both claims in this last post of yours, which means that you’re refuting yourself.

So it’s obvious that you don’t and haven’t responded to any of my posts… unless you respond to them. Well done - you’re apparently an expert at refuting yourself.

Asserting that my comments are fallacious does not make them so. You should know by now that I’m not intimidated by bare assertions. Einstein’s definition of “insanity” keeps coming back to me…

This coming from the person who thinks “substantive debate” means trying to browbeat one’s opponents with bare assertions until they shut up. Komedy!

118

@ autolykos

Your latest post is confirmation enough.

No additional comment is necessary.

119

Think about that for a second. Because you didnt find any conspiracy theorists talking about mcc, it is irrelevant? Is that how you evaluate all claims you are unfamiliar with?

perhaps the reason conspiracy theorists do not talk about it is because it is not a “conspiracy theory,” it is a derelict chemical weapons facility in iraq that was publicly accessible from 2003 to at least 2008, and more than likely still accessible, since the brass did not take our reports of suspicious activity in that location very seriously. You can dismiss this because you do not have any information, or because it contradicts your beliefs, or because it makes you uncomfortable. But at least an iraq war vet told you where to find the wmd’s. – Malachi

Dude I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.

Please clarify. What does this derelict weapons facs have anything to do with my assertion that statists have effectively used coercive means to obtain desired ends?

actually, the potential terrorists that may be conducting hanky-panky operations in mcc are not spending my tax dollars, they are defying your beloved state despite the trillions and trillions of foreign debt (not tax dollars) being pissed away. You cannot explain why your beloved state claimed to want to secure the wmd, but actually doesnt care, so you resort to non-sequiturs again. You are one boooooooring troll. – Malachi

See my response above.

you asked for a period in history. I gave you one. The fact that you cannot argue against my example (indigenous peoples in precolonial americas, to include pretotalitarian agriculture europe and asia) is just an example of how limited your philosophy is. Your nonsequitur is not even worthy of a rebuttal. --Malachi

Indigenous people lived in an inferior system that was immediately destroyed by statists from Europe. It was neither prosperous, stable, or free since it was a failed system doomed to predation and extinction. In addition, the life expectancy in this ‘paradise’ was probably less than 40 years. The technological inferiority of these failed collectivist societies was palpable.

I never stated that you stated that us foreign policy is perfect – in fact I challenge you to produce the quote in which I stated this.-- Malachi

True, which begs the question – which nation or society has contributed more than the USA to the promotion of free markets, peace, stability and freedom ?

isnt it funny how you can make hundreds of thousands of years of human history disappear by calling it “prehistory”? I see you remembered the regions besides europe that you were asking about. My answer is still the same, read about indigenous societies. --Malachi

you mean the societies that crumbled like a house of cards from the first European intrusions ?

Democracy did not “make people free prosperous peaceful and stable.” people did that, representative government was the result. We could be even more free, prosperous, peaceful, and stable if we would, as a society, stop granting the ability to initiate violence without repercussion. Power corrupts, you see.-- Malachi

Representative government is the vehicle that enables capitalism to flourish in the absence of coercion because liberal democracy specifically forbads violence against like minded citizens and societies. However anarchist society has no institutionalized restrictions or prohibitions, balancing, transparency, or limits on violence.

We could be even more free, prosperous, peaceful, and stable if we would, as a society, stop granting the ability to initiate violence without repercussion.-- Malachi

Interesting statement which begs the question:

How does the anarchist presume to take power from the statist who uses coercion to hold you under his thumb ?

120

This sounds like another one of your “good luck” posts, but without the “good luck” at the end. Sorry, dude, I’m still here. I haven’t gone anywhere.

Let me know when you’d like to actually engage in some substantive debate. Until then, I accept your concession.