Do you guys think it would be deceptive to join leftist/conservative internet groups and put forward libertarian position without mentioning them as libertarian positions? then a person could try to persuade non libertarians of our views without frightening them off. seems a bit risky to me and i’m not sure if it’s a good idea.
Sure why not? And what do you mean risky? What is risky about it? But yea that’s pretty much the only way to approach anyone farther than center left, I like snow flake’s idea combined with yours
It doesn’t work. You will come across as a passive aggressive, and everyone gets frustrated. The best approach is to state the ideals they uphold that you find honorable, and then tell them of the ideas that you find honorable, and why. You will at least find the left more tolerent, and able to listen without blowing a gasket.
Actually, I think we shouldn’t let them get away with this kind of word-play. Markets when left alone are regulated by profit and loss. The only impact government can possibly have on a market is to remove regulation by preventing the market from punishing certain types of behavior - whether it be anti-social behavior or just plain uneconomic behavior. The second is clearer, but the first works too - government employees are allowed to engage in anti-social behavior without facing any of the consequences that would be faced in a free world.
This fact can be useful rhetorically, particularly in our day and age, when the corporate welfare has become so much more obvious than in the past. We can even engage in historical analysis to talk about how FDR saved the corporation (not in a debate, of course.)
I love going to a party and busting out with “Markets must be regulated if they are to work properly. Unregulated markets just lead to concentration of wealth” then, when everyone gapes in shock at ME saying that, go on to demonstrate how a particular program has unregulated some aspect of the market from its natural regulation.
I agree. As a longtime leftist until a couple months ago, you will find that being ‘left’ is as much as lifestyle and worldview as it is a system of (anti) economics.
Very much so. Also, engaged individuals are not typically sitting around with their mouths open, waiting for someone to trick them into learning something they didn’t know. The only way to change someone’s opinion is to educate them. The best way to do that is through intelligent and courteous dialog, and even then, it’s a struggle.
Especially true with people accustomed to viewing life as a zero-sum game.
BTW thought your username was Keith Olbermann for a minute there [:)]
That’s a great observation.
There is no one correct system. Other than the speed of light in a vacuum, there are no absolutes. More blood has been spilled trying to reach Utopia than any other endevour. We are actors inside a dynamic system. Every time someone thinks they have found a cycle, they act on it, and break it. The only steady state is stasis, and that is not an option until we claim our final 6 feet of real estate.
Don’t take my remarks as those of a pacifist. I’m a pragmatist, and a pretty good fighter.
I had a depressing experience the other day/
After trying to talk to my mildly lefty(he says he agrees with some of socialism but admits equality couldn’t work except income equality and opposes revolution) friend about libertarianism for at least a couple of weeks , I’m having to admit defeat. He’s not willing to be open to different ideas - which is what he accuses me of! I sent him libertarian info and he never even looked at it and told me he didn’t want to. He 's strongly opposed to the idea of legalising drugs and prostitution.He believes that all prostitutes are exploited.He seems to think that I believe in no laws at all which I continually tell him I do not .Oh and he thinks allowing people to own guns is crazy. he favours rehabilitation too which makes me worry.
He’s older than me and he said something which basically came across as your younger than me and naive I’m older so more knowledgeable.I’m not too worried though because he said I should tone my ideas down because then people would listen to them more.He’s also extremely ignorant of economics - he thought an increase in supply of goods will result in increase in price !!! this is his ‘argument’ against legal drugs.
I think he’s just scared about admitting I’m right.I noticed he’d started reading george orwell books on socialism again like he’s reading his bible to escape a loss of faith and prevent doubt.Maybe this is a good sign ,I’m not sure.
I despair.
Tell him to voice his philosophies on this forum… we’ll tear him a new one [8o|]
There’s a mod on a liberal forum who has a Phd in econ who has literally banned me every single time I’ve ever gotten to the point in the conversation where he actually has to answer a question he doesn’t want to answer.
For example, one time we were talking about how I thought the reliance on corporate and government risk models for ascertaining the health and stability of the stock market and/or the economy was silly because ultimately both parties (big corporations and the government) often have an incentive to lie to make things look better than they really are. At which point he said “Well, I design some of those risk models and I can tell you that if mine were ever proven to be false I would become useless and I would lose money not to mention I have people who are checking my answers to make sure I get things right.”
At which point I simply asked him “Well, who’s checking your answers? Is it someone from one of these corporations or the government?” And he banned me. So it goes.
When you get into a political debate it really depends on the audience. You have to be able to read people pretty quick and adjust accordingly.
Once I got into it at a party with two fellows over the regulation of home-brewing by government. I stated that if I produced beer in my garage and someone wanted to buy it from me, and it was mutually agreed upon, why should I have to get licenses and pay fees and follow government regulations? They emphatically declared that it was to protect the consumer. I asked them if it was ok for the government to put a gun to my head to enforce that? They said yes.
Then you begin to deconstruct their argument. I asked them, what makes it morally ok for the government to point a gun at someone’s head to enforce laws? The two of them answered: we live in a democracy, if you don’t like the law, then change it. So I asked, any law is justified as long as its democratically decided? They answered yes. So I said to one of them “what if you and I vote to take away the other guy’s house and car, you and I are a democracy so we outvote him. Sounds like a good deal to us. If he doesn’t give up his house then we’ll point guns at his head. It’s ok as long as it’s the law, right?”
Surprisingly enough, the fellow who we would theoretically be taking the house from disagreed, but the other guy honestly looked stupefied. He walked away, horrified I think. You win some, you lose some. But I swear the original statist fellow would point a gun at my head if the gov made a law requiring giving up your first born in service to the state.
I like what someone on this forum said about prefacing any argument with “I don’t condone the use of violence and won’t debate with someone who does.”
So he’s just not worth your bother. That’s not defeat; that’s a problem on his end. He refuses to think, and that isn’t your problem. Let him ask for your help from now on, but don’t offer it.
That was me and the reason I said that was because I also had someone say that, yes, they would put a gun to my head. I’m a pretty mellow guy but, F@#$ people who say things like that. They’re not worth your time.
And I guarantee if anyone else was listening when that happens you win the debate.
If you were to uphold that principle, you would not, if you are consistent, debate with even the correctly-described anarchocapitalists because they advocate violence, also. (How did you believe that a successful “private-defense agency” would function? Did you believe that they would just convince each would-be murderer or thief via some sort of verbal rhetoric?)
Its more than that. Setting ground rules before a conversation begins is a sales technique. The purpose is twofold:
It helps to weed out people who aren’t good prospects, and it can be a way of leading someone to answer their own objections.
I once had asked my dad how depressions occur and he said it was due to lack of demand. I then asked if lack of demand led to falling prices. He said yes. So then I asked why this wouldn’t serve as an incentive to buy again. He responded that buying was limited only to a few people. I responded that if one person not buying leads to a spiral of not buying then one person buying will lead to a spiral of buying. He said that when buying occurs it takes a long time for the money to circulate. I said that if buying is just not buying in reverse then why won’t buying take a similarly quick time to make its effects known?
The conversation ended after this but I think that he at least now has the choice of believing something else (rather than the demand theory of depressions), also when getting into an econ. debate, one should honestly want to answer a question & not just rhetorically draw someone out to convince them.
It seems that you misunderstood my post. When I wrote “[…] via some sort of verbal rhetoric?”, I was referring to the hypothetical, self-contradictory, non-violent “private-defense agency”, not to you.
I just re-read it.[Y]
Do you condone the use of violence in the context of debate?
Pedantism cuts both ways.