Of course you’re functioning on the basis of some false assumptions such as:
The idea that these parties are truly “pro-market” in substance
The idea that voting for such parties is the only sign of the people’s ideology
The idea that voting reflects the ideology or will of the people
The idea that the individual voter has a meaningful set of options
These assumptions are false.
No, I’m not assuming any of those things.
I’m simply observing that Europeans consistently vote for political parties tremendously more statist than Americans could currently stomach. Eventually, America will certainly reach the sad state that Europe is already in, but we’re talking about the present; he said Europeans are more libertarian than Americans and that’s simply not the case.
Well I will observe this: Europe is more decentralized than the U.S. merely by the fact that don’t have a federal government (if you discount the EU). The U.S. is actually extremely centralized and draconian when I think about it - a government over all that land and federated between all of those states that are roughly the size of an entire European nation (often larger).
I don’t buy this. I think it’s just polarity warfare, like class warfare, a collectivist idea. Libertarianism always existed. To say it is descended from the left implies that statism is descended from the right. Unionism, socialism and communism are not rightist, no matter how loudly Nicky screams it.
How we got here is much less important than where we are going.
You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right.
There is only an up or down–up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order–or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
Thanks for replying. From now on, you are expected to monitor and conform to all changes and notices in my sig. This is a positive obligation I am placing on you without coercion. You will simply do it and like it.
A lot.
Or else. [8o|]
Well of course Europe is decentralized. It’s divided up along ethnic lines.
How else are you going to run a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural empire?
The only comparison that would support this is the one that sees the EU as a federal government à la US federal government. This comparison, at this point, is false (but might be apt in the future, as EU integration progresses).
This leaves us comparing various European states with the US. And in this scenario, the US beats pretty much all European states in every category I can think of. The only exception might be Estonia, but even there the process of creating a social democratic state is well underway. Developed European countries are massively centralized. And everything I have observed indicates that centralization is increasing as a cost-cutting measure.
Block seems to share this opinion with you, (no I have not read it yet, but the title more than says it and he has made vocal such an opinion elsewhere) and with me in some degree. He does not find either term fitting and I would have to agree. I do not really think there is much ‘left’ or ‘right’ to anything in libertarianism, there is only unjust compulsion and freedom. But that sense of liberty and justice IS apart of the old concept of ‘left’. It is only in this context I prefer to call libertarianism left, as it is not conservative, it is revolutionary and free. I think Block is using left and right in their modern contexts both of which, yes, are anti libertarian and why I avoid using left and right.
You gotta admit though, the back to the future thing was funny… right? 
In everything I have seen, ‘left’ and ‘right’ are used as vehicles for derailing libertarianism. They create an illusory semantic alliance, where one brand of tyranny is accepted to get rid of another brand of tyranny. Of course that doesn’t mean that I oppose working with the left or the right. But that terms should be kept pure, to avoid 20 page online discussions on semantics…
On a side note: perhaps a moderator should dissect this thread into separate, more meaningful, threads? The OP concerned some remark made by Obama and I haven’t seen a reference to it in about 5 pages.
I still dont like the terms left and right Left and right just carry too much baggage. I would much rather view a spectrum literally as liberty on one end and authoritarian on the other. But hey, I suppose I am a bit of a hypocrite because I refuse to let people use the word liberal in the way that they do today as I like to think of myself as a consistent one. I also tend to have a lot of similarities in opinion with Mr.Block with regards to spectrum, but I think Block is working his conception of left and right out of its modern American context.
unrelated:
Hey am I the only one who thinks the picture thing was funny? come-on, throw a guy a bone.
I liked it. This forum is very dry most of the time. Everyone is so serious, lighthearted stuff like that gets overlooked.
What did you think of the bolded quote in my post @ Wed, May 21 2008 4:38 PM?
Hey, I’m funny too! I just posted about a brilliant plan to setup a pot growing operation on a ship in international waters and sell it to passing cruise ships or something. Granted, I was 20% serious in my post, but still.
I was thinking one would need a big boat for the growing and a small, agile boat for traveling along side the cruise ships. Maybe some crane and vending machine combination: lift the vending machine on the deck so people can get their fix and lift it off when done. Brilliant!
I think that is a very good idea. Working in International waters… You could do a lot of different stuff.
I’m not so sure about that, but I do know they’re trying to get rid of standard light bulbs and make everyone use those twirly ones (forget what they’re called) or LED ones.
But what’s really frightening is an Article I read in my Engineering Class about having tracking devices put on all cars and alloting X ammount of hours per week/month that each person can drive without being fined After that, the device would supposedly record the hourly ammount of driving you do and start charging you rates.
The good thing is They would have to run it off an RFID chip, and you could just get around it by using a RF Jammer. The bad thing is someone could clone your Assigned ID and drive around under your name and start charging you.
No and I’m not a weatherman either. I somehow manage though.
Fine,
They are against economic coercion, exploitation, and collusion. All of which occur because of and for these world governments and their statist lackies.
I’ll tell Pavia University that “Libertas est Veritas” from the Mises forums sees their research as merely a “massive guesstimate.”
Italy accounts for a portion of the underground economy in their GNP estimates.
Also… I can clearly tell you’ve never been to either Germany or Italy.
You don’t understand.
The rioters in Genoa were not all Genoese. In Europe, there’s something called a Black Bloc. You might want to look into it.
They are?
No, no. I asked for ACTUAL EVIDENCE. Hear-say, perceptions, and subjective beliefs don’t count. Could you link me to a study? Perhaps a qualified article even?
Sigh… Yes, the economics of it is known - though as a studen in economics, I find it quite humorous that you, someone who I doubt has any training in the subject is lecturing me on it.
But that is not important. What’s important, in the context of the riots, is the perception of the rioters and the fact that the protestors were probably teenagers with white market jobs and not teenagers with black market jobs. Especially in this instance, the loss of this regulation would see minimal effects in employment, as the problem is not resolved. The problem is the state and its regulation on business production. Of course, labour plays a part in that and the regulations are evil, but they aren’t as evil as say, the TVA tax - something I know conservatives like you prefer.
The Black Block kids don’t vote. They’re on the right path. As Konkin once said,
I listened rather than preached to the anti-globalist anarchists in Los Angeles (after Seattle, Washington, Prague, etc.) in 2000 but they, including the Black Bloc, had their hearts in the right place. They were being used by the Old Left apparatchiki through hyperfeminization and other guilt trips. When former anarchist Jello Biafra (of the great old punk group, The Dead Kennedys) called for support of Ralph Nader for president, I started a call for Nobody for President and was immediately and eagerly joined by the Black Bloc kids. They had less trouble grasping the contradiction of an anarchist supporting a presidential candidate than the “libertarian” partyarchs.
I’m not sure if you are delusional or if you just get your kicks from spewing random bullshit. Let’s look at the various groups at the G8 protest:
ATTAC:
The main issues covered by ATTAC today are:
¡Ya basta!
““Ya Basta Association” was the name of a major anti-capitalist activist network of groups in Italy which played a central role in the Anti-G8 protest in 2001.”
Globalise Resistance:
3 minutes of browsing their site was quite revealing:
“no major social or economic change has ever arisen from volunteerism and the suggestion that it can is a deliberate strategy to prevent any real challenge to business as usual.”
“Voluntary actions didn’t get us civil rights, and they won’t fix the climate”
How delightfully non-coercive.
In fact, the only “anarchist” group I could find reference to was the FAU. And being anarcho-syndicalists, I wouldn’t call them actually anarchists.
Appeal to authority will get you anywhere, I suppose. Oh, and look what your link says: “Twenty years ago Fiat Chairman Giovanni Agnelli reckoned that Italy’s true output was 25 percent larger than official figures indicated, due to the vast amount of off-the-books economic activity. Academic estimates generally supported Mr. Agnelli’s guesstimate. By 1987, economist Mario Deaglio of the University of Turin put Italy’s underground economy at a minimum of 15 percent of GNP and a maximum of 25 percent.”
Could it be that having figures that go from 15% to 48% means we are dealing with a massive guesstimate? Surely not…
You deduct this from the fact that I don’t agree with you? While you, on the other hand, possess secret and intimate knowledge about entire nations of German and Italy and of their underground economies?
And? I am aware the protesters were not all Genoese. This does not change the factual nature of my statement; a couple of protesters that destroy private property on purpose are not representative of Europe.
Also, do you consider Black Bloc to be libertarian? I’m hoping you’ll say no, but deep down I suspect that you will probably answer yes…
It makes me sad that you can call yourself libertarian while so blatantly generalizing based on nationality.
I’m sorry, aren’t you the same guy that just irrationally implied that Americans are pro-state?
Let’s look at the the Index of Economic Freedom. Only two European countries are in the top 10: Ireland and the UK. Neither of which really fit into your category of ‘cool, fuck the state, countries’. I think it is a safe assumption that actual policies reflect political rhetoric to some degree. And people vote more or less based on political rhetoric. So considering that the US is higher up than any of your ‘cool, fuck the state, countries’, we can assume that voters in those countries prefer more government than voters in the US.
Niccolò,
as an attentive European observer, you may have witnessed the massive German “tax evasion scandal” about 2 months ago.
What happened? People unwilling to put up with giving half their earnings to the state had invested in a tax-exempt Liechtenstein foundation. Unfortunately, a recently fired employee of that foundation stole (as a last service to the company, so to say) intimate customer data and sold them to German intelligence services. So, in order to successfully pursue its criminal aims of stealing peoples’ income, the state even engaged in another criminal act: fencing. Not to mention the histrionic way in which those “tax criminals” were presented to the public. Pictures of police task forces arresting the alleged “criminals” were shown on every newspaper for weeks.
Now, Niccolò, from what you told us about the “inherently agorist” European mentality, one might expect especially those groups which protested against G8 or similar organizations to take sides for the tax evaders.
Did they? No. They cherished.
The only ones who actually dared defending the “criminals” were these neoliberal capitalist pigs also known as libertarians. Even self-proclaimed “classical liberals” defended “getting tough on tax evaders”.
I personally know some G8 protesters. While I don’t want to generalize, it appears to me the vast majority of protesters are as detached from free market economics as North Koreans are from their southern brothers. None of my acquaintances viewed the G8 protests as being against “state corporatism” or “state interventions hurting the little man”; they considered it to be “anti capitalism”. The global economy, they say, has gotten “out of control” which needs to be changed. The very implication of an economy being “out of control” and therefore undesirable is as unlibertarian as it gets.
Concerning the “black bloc”, Wikipedia states as a first introductory sentence:
A black bloc is an affinity group, or cluster of affinity groups,[1] that comes together during some sort of protest, demonstration, or other event involving class struggle, anti-capitalism, or anti-globalization.
Class struggle? Anti-capitalism? Come on, Nick. I sure see your enthusiasm regarding such groups. You seem to think “As long as they are against the status quo, they are allies”, but they are not. In a battle between one group of statists trying to overthrow another group of statists, where’s the role of libertarians?
I would guesstimate that every country has around a 10% or more underground economy. Problem is that it is more telling of opportunities to avoid taxation than about an intent to undermine the state. Beyond hardcore libertarians, I have never met a European who could fathom decreasing government involvement in our lives. At least Americans, outside of hardcore libertarians, seem to have a desire to limit the size of government. Which is why Niccolò’s claims are a bit too fantastic to accept without drastic evidence.
Exactly. I see no point in these alliances with the left or the right. It just leads to vulgar libertarianism and to compromising on freedom. I have no problem with socialists who wish to form a communal society within a voluntary society. But a minimum requirement should be a clear commitment to volunteerism. But I have yet to see a leftist who can tolerate the free market.
Do you think everyone who isn’t an anarchist is on the right?