I still believe we should seriously consider “Voluntaryist”.
Any word will do. The point is the word itself isn’t worth defending.
I thought it was a biological “concept”?
It is a sociological concept, and a fallacious one at that. There is only one human race. The physical differences between the so-called races are completely irrelevant to any rational discussion about the human mind, and it is with the mind that social sciences are concerned. Personally I reject the concept of “race” altogether, but if someone wants to talk about race they should limit themselves to the differences in pigmentation, bone structure, muscle density, and other such superficialities.
Wow. Didn’t get too far off topic, did we? [:P]
I, personally, still prefer anarcho-capitalist, but probably the most important point is that no label is going to be a magic bullet to understanding and communication. Nitro and McFall seem to have the most sensible position: know your audience and how to approach them. Have multiple labels handy and try to pick the most appropriate one for your audience, so that you’ll have a chance to actually talk about the concept and not get hung up on the label or semantics.
At this point, I see no reason to abandon any particular label–words always go through shifts in definitiions and meaning over time.
Then you reject reality.
And genetics can account for differences in intelligence just as much as they can for differences in running ability.,
No I do not. Race is a false concept. It has nothing to do with reality. It was a sociological theory, presented by racists, and has since been disproven.
Genetics != race. There is no inherent difference in intelligence between a “black man” and a “white man”. Once again: PEOPLE ARE INDIVIDUALS.
My God, I can’t believe I’m arguing against polylogism with an Austrian.
Of course there is. Just like there’s differences in running ability. You might as well claim that there’s no difference in intelligence between members of one family, and members of another. Only, this time it’s a bigger family.
Um, polylogism and racism are two different things. Only if one claims that the logical structure of the mind differs by race (or class, or whatever), are they a polylogist. That entails a mind for which true inferences are not truth-preserving &c. “Thinking differently” is not sufficient for polylogism.
No. Once again.
PEOPLE.
ARE.
INDIVIDUALS.
There are blacks who are far smarter than the average white, whites who are far faster than the average black. There are blacks and whites who are far slower or less intelligent than the average of either or both averaged together.
But intelligence follows a bell curve, and the bell curve for blacks happens to be smaller than that for whites because there are fewer of them. If you were to separate whites further into their countries of origin, then it would appear that blacks are more intellegent than any of those groups. If you were to seperate people into their immediate families, Catholics and Muslims would appear to be more intellegent than everyone else combined. It has to do with a simple difference in numbers, and nothing to do with the race of the person in question.
And again: the real-world outcome of welfare states is not equality. It’s more poverty. The state does not and cannot create actual material equality.
Stranger, consider this post to be my signature on your petition to stop being called an anarchist. When people who call themselves anarchists damage private property (i.e. what is going on in Greece at the moment) it is time to call youself something else. I know they are not “real” anarchists - they are confused Marxists - but we cannot risk being associated with people who damage private property.
Signed,
ryanpatgray, Florida, North America
Voluntaryist - I like that. Voluntaryist would be fine with me and it emphasizes the very thing that we are for - voluntary action. It emphasizes what we are for and not what we are against.
You just totally side-stepped my point. Christianity is not inherently anti-statist. ANY ideology, including both religion and egalitarianism, can be anti-state or pro-state depending on how they are approached. And for the millionth time, the state never actually abolishes private property.
This is insanity. 1. The property values of the state are irrelevant from the perspective of the subjects and it does NOT follow from one being a monarch that they will “respect private property”. This is total nonsense.
Actually he tows an ambiguous line between denying their legitimacy and painting a rosy picture of them.
No states abolish private property. Abolish woud mean that there literally is no private property anymore. Private property clearly is not outright abolished by any state, even communist ones. Property tax and income tax are violations of property rights, yes - this by no means means that they actually “abolish private property”.
You claim strawman and then CONFIRM the accusation. Amazing.
Again: the state does not actually increase and equally distribute material prosperity.
When the state uses billions of tax dollars to bail out banks and industries, it is quite clear that the costs of the bad decsions of the people in those areas and their inability to compete is being externalized onto society. I don’t know why you’d argue against this. That’s how protectionism works.
Rich interests connected to the government recieve far more welfare.
And what’s your point? That we should be cheering for the bail-outs out of a concern for the alleged “plight of the rich”? Please!
It completely overlooks the inherently involuntary nature of the state and the degree to which people have no choice but to comply or face jail or death.
We’re not talking about the same things. You’re talking about this big bad evil “egalitarianism” that you’ve blown up as a concept in your head.
You just erected a strawman about animals. Me (and Rothbard) meant universal as in applied to all human beings.
This claim is outright false. You’re just being a bigot. There is no reality behind your proposition here. All human beings are generally capable of rational argumentation - they don’t have to agree with your worldview or share your culture to be able to do so.
You’re very clearly dehumanizing people now, with analogy to dogs and all.
Once again, it is absurd to make analogies to animals.
It isn’t necessarily true that “primitives” or less developed cultures have no concept of property. All humans have had SOME concept of property ever since our tribal past, or we would have not survived to begin with. Even tribal societies had some recognition of property, by the very least a concept of possession and occupancy. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter what concepts are in people’s heads - in actual fact, they DO posses property. Your position is highly untenable.
It DOES belong to someone and they very easily CAN prove their ownership. It would be absurd for you to point me to a non-nomadic tribe with their own dwellings, tools and commonly used hunting grounds and say that they have ZERO property. You’re just rationalizing theft.
Nonsense. Everyone can be and everyone is to one degree or another. You’re just expressing extreme prejudice.
Nonsense, and how do you intend to do this without violating their liberty and their property rights? Suppose they clearly already have their own home. Are you going to force them off of their own home? You’re just making a rationalization for conservative communitarianism.
It isn’t necessary for them to be violating property rights to be in this position to begin with. You assume too much.
Noone’s very existance is incompatible with property rights. That’s ridiculous.
Stop making sweeping prejudici statements about people in the attempt to rationalize mistreating them.
I have no white guilt, and there is nothing remotely reasonable about your conservative communitarian claims.
Second & Seconded. Voluntaryist cuts more to the point of the (increasingly more apparent & visible) conflict of “choice vs. coercion”, “involuntary vs. voluntary”, “liberty vs. authority”.
The recent riots in Greece & seeing my statist-leftists friends root for the violence, did little to see how allying myself with the label anarchist (despite it being technically correct, to those who know better) would continue to be a positive thing.
Hmm, why not simply “voluntarist” in that case? it does, at least, have the virtue to refer to an existing philosophical concept… though it obviously doesn’t only refer to a political but also to an epistemological stand; hence, it doesn’t have the exact same scope as “anarchism” -
That claim is ridiculous. You’re just assuming that people who agree with your worldview will inherently be vastly superior to everyone else. It by no means necessarily follows from the fact that one is a cultural conservative that they will actually be more productive or talented than anyone else.
Once again the french socialists have coined this word already to mean a politician who willfully intervenes.
Talented no, productive yes. It is in the way talent is used that wealth is or isn’t accumulated, and conservative behavior makes better use of talent.
Willfully intervervenes in what sense? I am not arguing I am simply asking.