Or maybe one refuses to give up what is theirs but also has the sanity to know that now is not the time to openly revolt. Please stop acting as a thinly veiled apologist for the state. Because that is all you are right now. A boring troll.
-Jon
Yes, we have already established you are unwilling to give up your cable TV and SUV in order to obtain freedom. It’s your constant whining that you are being victimized by the “crushing power of the state” that makes your claim of slavery disingenuous. You have options your just unwilling to give up watching TV in order to exercise them. Don’t confuse being lazy with being a slave.
Freedom is generally realized as lack of negative consequences. This takes both natural and societal forms.
Knowledge, technology, and material wealth allow us more freedom in relation to the forces of nature. That is, the better our ability to combat the forces of nature that threaten to harm us, the freer we are in our choices of action without concern about natural consequences. For example, my refrigerator allows me to not bother going to the market regularly without hurting my quality of life. This isn’t laziness - this is prosperity. Whether I use that extra time to watch cable TV or resist the state may indicate more about my degree of acceptance of governmental oppression, but simply because I enjoy the freedom of prosperity doesn’t mean I’m lazy. The entire point to having freedom is to enjoy life.
Conversely, becoming a hermit would provide incredible amounts of political freedom, yet very little freedom over nature. Most of my day would be spent overcoming the oppression of nature against the human body. Maybe there is virtue in hard work, but not stupidity. Here we could say we chose to be less free overall, because we chose to work harder to sustain a similar lifestyle. Whether an individual prioritizes societal freedom or natural freedom is their own choice to make.
Choosing between being a slave to nature or a slave to an oppressive political system is not a simple matter of choosing laziness or hard work. If there were a location where I could be both freer in regards to prosperity and law, I would certainly consider moving there. At the same time, there is a huge difference between lazily whining for ideals and pursuing change via less than direct methods. Just because I’m not fire-bombing DC doesn’t mean I consent to or fail to resist their governance. Just because my free time involves some leisure as opposed to 100% work doesn’t mean I’m consensual, nor does it mean I’m lazy. Maybe the reason I have free time at all is because I work hard. And maybe the reason I don’t take on the entire world is because I know that doing so would create more negative consequences than slowly working towards a smaller government and eventually anarchy.
In America, we have enormous freedom from economic prosperity. I would additionally like freedom from both government and criminals. The point of maximizing freedom isn’t fighting an increasingly uphill battle to increase one’s workload. It is the opposite. It is to add quality to life, in the forms of leisure, peace, prosperity, and confidence.
The best method of maximizing freedom isn’t necessarily moving to somewhere without governmental oppression.
And what if I give up cable TV and SUV’s voluntarily here? I’m still not free. Again, hard work may be a virtue, but stupidity isn’t. That is what I think of your proposal of moving to Africa. According to you, ML, we’d all move to Africa, then bitch because we have to work harder to maintain a similar lifestyle. Well, then it is obvious that you have a poor conception of freedom.
Let’s say I spend an extra 40 hours working per week to somehow elevate myself above state infringements upon free actions that I feel are just. According to your idea, I should be happy in this arrangement. Yet if there were no state oppression in the first place, I could save myself 40 extra work hours. In other words, even if you avoid the state, the effort it takes to avoid it means you are not free.
Personally I think you should give up your internet for freedom.
No, what we have established is that you are a troll with a big mouth, who continuously whines about the supposed (because you have no real knowledge of anyone’s personal life on here) inaction of others. What we have established, is that I refuse to give up my holdings and escape to some third world locale, just because some group of bandits demands it, and what we have established is that prudence may require waiting until conditions are optimal. That is what we have established. And if you continue with the whining, I’ll be establishing that you are banned from these boards.
-Jon
Now, now…
He may be annoying at times because his sight is limited to the inner walls of his rectum but there’s no need to start throw threats of banning him around.
If he continues sidetracking/derailing threads with his inane rants, I will act on my threat.
-Jon
…
Does anyone else feel like daddy just slapped mommy at the dinner table and now no one’s eating?
…
More like applying acid to the troll. He’s free to discuss the matter, provided he stops trying to make generalized attacks on forum members, attacks he cannot even substantiate in principle, unless he’s a mind-reader of some sort, and so long as he stops de-railing threads. We’re not here to cater to ML’s complaints, we’re here to learn about/discuss Austrian economics and libertarian political philosophy, and if he wants to whine about supposed inaction and eleutherophobia he can start a thread on it, or even better his own blog. At the very least, I intend to bring back a forum of the calibre of the old Austrian forum.
-Jon
Act on your threat. I dare you. Do you really think that intimidates me? The only source of power you have against open debate is to try and use whatever influence you have at this site to ban me. You don’t wan’t discussion Jon, you want everyone to agree with you. Someone comes along and doesn’t bow down to your philosophy and now they should be banned.
Your afraid of discussion Jon because it exposes your hypocrisy.
Which has not been demonstrated. Pathetic, how deluded you are. Making grandiose assumptions about people you know nothing of (veiled ad hominem attacks.) Now, either respect this forum’s ground rules, or hit the road.
-Jon
You’re not even intimidated by the government right?
This has nothing to do with you not bowing down to his philosophy and everything to do with you using every opportunity you can to attack forum members for lack of actions.
What rule exactly was broken? Other than disagreeing with you. In fact the disagreement I had with you is basically detailed in the blog on the front page of the website today. I argued that freedom is something you have to do yourself and is not dependent on the state. Since that doesn’t mesh with your victim mentality you are going to use your crushing powers as moderator and ban me.
We are witnessing a good demonstration of where this site may be headed. How dare anyone suggest that we may be responsible for our own freedom, I can see why you see me as the enemy Jon.
This all seems like semantic bullshit by this point to me. This is my last post on this thread.
Jon, don’t ban MaxLiberty. A) It’s kind of a cool name. B) He raises some insight into this debate. C) I don’t think he’s gone overboard in any personally offensive remarks in defending his point…no more than many others already have without such threats.
Now - could someone please answer one of my posts:
FED Q’s and Show me the inflation.
What rule? The fact that you constantly berate forum members accusing them of inaction, when you have not even the slightest basis for such an allegation can be easily interpreted as ad hominem. You don’t just disagree, you belligerently whine about people doing nothing, as if you’d know. So, my warning is you either stop this pathetic act, and limit your arguments to the intellectual sphere, or I’ll put an end to your antics. If it were mere disagreement with me, I’d have banned you from the minute you set foot on this forum. LS holds a similar philosophy to you, yet I have not banned him. Reflect on why that might be. In fact I disagree with nearly everyone here on a wide array of issues. Yet no banning, except when necessitated by bad behaviour. The concept of a community having basic rules should be familiar to you, should it not?
Meambobbo, ML isn’t the only person to be warned to cease the childish behaviour.
-Jon
Back on topic:
The argument that not leaving = consent can never justify the state. Because it doesn’t address the question of who can rightly do the demanding and who must do the leaving. In order to do this you have to have a theory of how governments form.
This argument assumes that whatever government currently exists is a rightful government, but of course, thats the point in dispute.
I think a different method of creating the forum, & a vastly different organization of the maintainers of the forum (such as not necessarily having mods, maybe no point accumulation, etc.) might be the right way to go.
I think the natural organization of authority & power found in forum setups kind of goes a bit counter to the subject matter being discussed & in many cases, those discussing the subject matter, despite the general agreement upon joining the site to forum rules & etiquette.
Sadly, I’m unable to think of more solid suggestions.
ML is baiting you to ban him & is forcing a catch 22. Don’t play into his game, as it’s quite transparent by now & is ultimately not going to any harm because of that.
Imo, I just don’t see it ending well, and it would further divisions in a forum that needs to get back to the topics instead of these schoolyard spats.
I agree.
There was agreat article on the front of the site today. The writer is more eloquent than I but the jist of the article is that freedom starts with yourself. There are always going to be criminals, if that is the criteria that makes you a slave then you will never be free. Does the fact that you might get robbed in the street make you a slave?
The goal is to live your life as free as possible given that the world does have criminals. You have to do your best to deal with the criminals but if your mindset is you are slave to everyone who might attempt coercion against you then you can never be free.
The obvious conclusion being that we should move to some obscure country in Africa.