This.
If you click the “replied on” link in the header of a message you’ll see which comment is replied on. =) In this case it was just simply love for this thread.
I mean, depending on where you set the goalposts for “freedom/liberty” America could either be seen as being high on the freedom/liberty scale or low. So the question I ask is “what criteria are we using to define freedom/liberty?” From a radical libertarian point of view, the criteria are obviously going to be much harsher than the criteria that someone of the classical liberal persuasion (like myself) might accept. I can already see this as leading to an "A=A’ argument, but obviously the terms freedom/liberty are ambiguous and up for interpretation.
Do you have a link for this?
Can you not make the argument that people who refuse to defend the country whose benefits they enjoy are rent-seeking?
The price to be paid for protection and taking home a machine gun.
One thing they don’t force them to do is to fight some colonial wars in some far-off alien country.
We don’t have to be radical here; let’s just compare United States with your ordinary First World nation.
Denmark ranks much higher on business freedom than United States, and has a far less demanding regulatory environment.
Netherlands has far more in way of civil liberties than United States, where drugs are illegal and where Nixon declared a federal war on drugs.
Hong Kong does not have taxes the way United States does, other than a property sale tax, and earns most of its revenues from parking tickets.
Japan is not as heavily unionised as United States is, where the United Auto Workers Union earns six figure earnings in terms of all salaries, benefits, and other perks, not to mention seven-months paid vacations each year, and job banks to be maintained where they can continue earning that money when they don’t have jobs.
Switzerland respects your right to arm yourself, whereas many parts of United States (like Chicago) do not allow you to carry firearms in public.
Monetary and credit policy is strictly controlled by the Federal Reserve in the United States, while such is not the case in Switzerland and in typical micronations like Liechtenstein, Luxembourg,.etc.
People do tend to use their own pictures for their avatars. If I was Hoppe I would be very annoyed.
From what I’ve read perhaps one or two years ago, that right to bear arms in Switzerland isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Concealed carry permits supposedly range from statutory may-issue and effective no issue (think New Jersey or Maryland) to shall-issue, depending on canton, whereas your phrasing of them “respecting your right to arm yourself” makes it sound as though all of Switzerland had gun laws like Vermont or Alaska.
I think you should really word your assertions more carefully. For one, if I didn’t know any better, I’d understand your above quote as implying that drugs were legal in the Netherlands, whereas their drug laws are only marginally less immoral and insane than those in most other parts of the world. Effectively legalizing possession of small amounts of some drugs isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Of course it’s a step in the right direction, but you’re making it sound as though heroin was sold prescription-free at Dutch pharmacies.
I’ve seen at least several posters use the likeness of a Mises fellow, both living or dead, as their avatar, and yet that guy is the first to get flack over it.
I don’t get it. It’s not like he’s impersonating Hoppe or anything.
That’s certainly possible, but it could also be seen as a form of flattery. I mean, you use a person’s picture as your avatar because you think they look good and/or you admire them.
I’m in full regalia in mine.
Nice, thank you! I will read through it.
Lol. While I’m the guy on the right in mine [:P]
Fuck no, not car hating Switzerland.
American units carry a list that gives guidance on payouts:
The death of a child or adult is worth $1,500-$2,500, loss of limb and other injuries $600-$1,500, a damaged or destroyed vehicle $500-$2,500, and damage to a farmer’s fields $50-$250.
http://www.thestate.com/world/story/1165153.html
The greatest country on earth.
Switzerland may hate cars but gasoline is much cheaper than in the rest of Europe and I think it has the highest concentration of luxury car anywhere, even fancy Chelsea (a fashionable London district). Go to Lugano, a medium-small city, any day and you’ll see fleets of Bentley, Aston Martin, BMW M-series, even the odd Maybach cruising down the streets.
But it’s also true I have been pulled over in Switzerland for actually respecting the speed limit. I should have ridden (I was on my Honda bike) using an higher gear: I wasn’t fined because it’s not an offense but just “reproachable behavior”.
Until I clicked on the link I thought you meant the Arctic.
Least the Arctic has never waged an imperialist war or had a bloated welfare state.
Damn if it weren’t so inhospitable we could all homestead it .
Back in my Randian days when buying all her The west headed by america vs the east nonsense I would’ve agreed.I also agreed in my minarchist days because the US constitution inclines you to think American has some freedom.
Now I disagree. While totalitarian and communist countries are worse,because of America’s huge government and strongly imperialist foreign policy I would say it’s probably the most tyrannical government exceptiong those countries already mentioned.
The only way America is the “last bastion of freedom” is in that there are those who believe in liberty -us the libertarians and also just ordinary folk who while inconsistent at least aim at liberty.
" I don’t see any hope for the Europeans."
(Hopefully you can read this because someone else said they couldn’t before.“non matching quote blocks” is annoying.
Europe is damned I’m afraid to say.All the tradition of classical liberalism appears to have been forgotten.People these days rarely even seem to know anything about it.
Britain is particularly bad in my view.It’s big brother Britain.
Scotland is drowning in socalist dogma which pains me so much to see my native land killed by the likes of the SNP.It’s hard to completely love a country that gave the world Adam smith the moderate,Tony Blair,Gordon Brown,Jonh Maclean,the Scottish Socialist party,Tommy Sheridan,Alasdair gray and others.Scotland’s history lacks so much alot of classical liberals that even England has(the most is the afore mentioned Adam Smith and a Scottish classical liberal Thomas Mackay (it appears the liberty fund have got it muddled and think he’s English), lord Kames,James Mill and a few others.
The EU is especially troubling with it’s drive towards a world state.