I don’t care if you respect me or not. I have asked you simple, direct questions, related to your assertions. You have evaded providing responses in nearly every case.
Another dodge.
Well, you’re right. I suppose we are done. I can’t see you displaying any less credibility in debate. Might have been wise to let sleeping dogs lie earlier in the thread, insteading of picking an argument you didn’t have the stomach to see through to a conclusion.
Lie. But if lying to yourself makes you happy, by all means, do it.
The record of this thread, speaks for itself.
What argument ? That after years being a ‘liberty student’ you have not yet learnt basic terminology ? Sorry, it seems you really are not as clever as I thought you were.
yes i found the cheesiest response. it’s Hammertime:
Indeed. You don’t know what free will means.
Asking “what is anarchy?” is like asking “what is freedom?” You’re likely to get thousands of answers that are similar, but different.
I think anarchy is just another word for freedom.
Yes, I think so.
Still makes perfect sense (not sure what you mean by “legal” though). I think the confusing thing is that most libertarian scholars seem to avoid pointing out that anarchy is in some sense a matter of degree. So we get people realizing from time to time, “We already are in anarchy!” When really, it’s just that there is a spectrum and it is true that we are not now in total non-anarchy (omniscient, omnipotent totalitarian State). Or also, that exclamation sometimes springs from the realization that most of the State’s power derives from the legitimacy attributed to it by a percentage of the population in the subject territory.
Legal and illegal are based on laws decreed by the monopoly (if one exists), so I don’t think it’s necessarily useful to include that in the definition of State.
The problem brought up in this discussion is, some people (Juan for example) insist there is an objective definition of freedom. This means that we are either free, or not free.
If we’re free, then we’re in anarchy right now.
If we’re not free, then anarchy may be unattainable, because if we don’t have the freedom to change our circumstances, then we’d have to hope for something like the state to fall, and people to (almost universally) give up violence.
Like most people who try to impose the objective on the subjective, or precision upon nature, we’re left with these unresolved contradictions. It is all well and good to run up the black flag, and to shout the righteousness of libertarian ethics. But not if we have to fudge our way out of things we cannot explain.
Better to know your foundation is imperfect, than to pretend it is. And by imperfect, obviously I mean, that it is not absolute.
The disturbing thing for me, is the behaviour of some of my fellow “libertarians” who become incredibly petty when questioned on these basic assumptions. To disagree, is to promote heresy. And that sort of anti-intellectualism is as deadly to the world as straussian neoconservatism or progressive socialism.
freedom like many words in the english language has multiple meanings and connotations in different realms of speech. the good news is, so far as political philosophy is concerned, there is an objective definition of freedom.
you are either totally free or you are not totally free. if you are not totally free, you can put in some effort and discover what dimensions of political freedoms you enjoy and which you don’t. you can identify your coercers from a crowd of fellow travellers etc. things aren’t as awful as you make out. in fact you know this since you routinely refer to tax producers and tax consumers. (for example). you routinely run up the righteous flag of libertarian ethics in opposition to slavery and oppression. this would be absurd if those who were slaves were actually free (by your definition of freedom) all whilst you were getting upset about their being slaves.
although we might have various freedoms, we lack political freedom, anarchy is a state of being politically free. we aren’t there yet. it will take effort on our part. if we are there already shouldn’t we rejoice and pack up and go home?
Indeed. And if you are not totally free, then you aren’t meeting the definition of freedom under political philosophy. Not free.
If you have no political freedom, how do you get it?
there is not one single way. there are many ways and many strategies. how much detail do you require at this point ? (i understand you already know the answers to this question anyhow).
Right - and other people insist that there’s no ‘objective’ definition of freedom since freedom is just a ‘subjective’ and arbitrary idea detached from reality. The problem brought up is only a problem you have. It’s a failure of your understanding.
Whether an individual is politically free or not is dictated by his circumstances in the real world. It’s not strictly a matter of definition - it’s a matter of fact. So, your conclusion doesn’t strictly follow from your previous comment about definitions.
But ‘we’ are not free. Again, a matter of fact. Not to mention that your usage of the word anarchy is non-standard.
Nonsensical non-sequitur. Not to mention that if we were free, then talking about achieving freedom would be absurd or at least pointless.
Yes, that’s what you again don’t get, or perhaps don’t want to see. A free society is only possible when the majority of people give up violence. That is just another fact.
I try to impose nothing - I simply stick to sound reasoning. The unresolved contradictions exist in your mind and are caused by your error ridden position.
What is disturbing is how some people don’t understand common sense morality and try to refute it using sophisms. You know, all the fanatical believers in their ability to disregard any sort of claim because they as individuals are above any sort of ‘rule’ - hey! that’s real freedom.
Good thing you took me off your ‘friends’ list. Better not be associated with a nutcase like you how believes that ‘freedom’ is shooting people in the back.
You know exactly what I am asking. If you claim to be unfree to change your circumstances, then how will your circumstances change? Kismet?
Significantly is the word that is bothering me. I’m wondering at what point does the average criminal end and the state begin? I guess it is a matter of degrees, like you said…
Juan, you’ve still got questions to answer. If you’re not going to answer them, then further posting is just time wasting.
You just described yourself.
You’ve been the one to resort to abusive behaviour time and again, while claiming the righteousness to tell me that I have poor morals or lack ethics.
But then that is the objectivist case many times. Based on faith, fear, name calling and shame, rather than reason and cooperation.
Throughout history, people who try to think freely, are “crazy”, “lunatics”, “nutcases”. A typical appeal, to defend the nobility of lies.
ron paul is free to run for election. he is not free to stiff the state on his income tax.
walter block is free to write a book educating the public about private roads, he is not free to stiff the state on his income tax
get it yet?
What happens when Paul and Block are not free to run or write books? Do they control that, or does the state?
I thought anybody who knew the abc wouldn’t
- get his ‘knowledge’ from wikipedia.
- use a wrong definition of monopoly in a forum like this.
I guess AJ doesn’t fulfill either of these conditions…Hell even ordinary dictionaries have the correct definition : monopoly : “an exclusive privilege to carry on a business, traffic, or service, granted by a government.”
With respect to the nature of government : the average criminal and the government are basically the same thing and both are what prevent people from being free. You could argue that government is organized crime, however, a system of decentralized violence and crime - which is what anarchy can be, according to some ‘libertarians’, is no different than a government.
The issue is not ‘monopolistic’ crime, but crime per se, and the issue is the amount of crime, regardless of organization.