When I was at school I shared a dormitory (I attended boarding school) with a kid who had an unhealthy obsession with the military. I know boys like books on war and playing soldier, but this kid’s interest in the military was seriously unhealthy.
He didn’t just have a few books on war. Every book he seemed to read was on war. His part of the wall wasn’t plastered with pictures of girls or rock stars, but posters of planes, tanks, and everything else military. When out of school uniform he often would wear war military issue clothing and had a load of military equipment: regulation army canteens, rucksacks, and goodness knows what else.
No surprise that this kid (who was called Peter) was a member of the army cadets and wanted to join the army when he left school.
Teachers often asked us what we wanted to do when we’d finished our education and how best they could help us accomplish that. They gladly helped advise Peter what he needed to do if he wanted go into the army.
Geez, I find it totally sickening that there were supposedly responsible adults who were prepared to support some kid in signing up to kill people. It’s particularly sickening because if I told those same teachers I wanted to be a Ladyboy dominatrix you know the response I’d get? You’re severely disturbed and need therapy.
So wanting to go and kill people for a living isn’t disturbing, but wanting to pleasure people is? My moral compass must be severely screwed up, because I’ve always thought that caring about people is good while killing people was bad.
Now, I didn’t tell any teacher I wanted to be a Ladyboy dominatrix but the point is I knew the kind of response I’d have got if I had, which demonstrates to me the disturbing direction society’s moral compass is pointing.
I’d not have been surprised if Peter had masturbated over one of his books on war, yet if I’d had a stash of porn it likely would have been confiscated. Ironically, from what I heard Peter failed the medical when enlisting. Thank goodness Peter only got to masturbate over the thought of killing people, rather than the actual practice.
Libertarian, atheist, punk rocker, 
Take any major culture, look into their past two or three hundred, even a thousand years. You find soldiers. Lots and lots and lots of them. If we admit that war as a way of life is morally questionable, we cast doubt on countless generations of our own families.
Sure I think that it’s pretty messed up and that kids who dream about war are pretty sick, but as a cultural icon, the soldier still represents an important ideal to a lot of people. Telling a kid that soldiers are monsters so he shouldn’t’ be one, would amount to telling a kid that grandpa was a monster.
Also, the Ladyboy Dominatrix analogy is not accurate because you chose an occupation that is SUPPOSED to be taboo. Most the participants, both patrons and providers, of Ladyboy Dominatrix services would probably prefer it remained taboo.
Is it so terrible to seek to be trained to protect your family and your Nation? Surely everyone and every nation has the right to bear arms?
I thought that was the basis of Libertarian thinking. Perhaps both ladyboy and the soldier provide a service, but one demands the possible sacrifice of self, the other ………
Perhaps: The concept of “nation” is pretty ignorant and not worth protecting, in my humble opinion.
Individuals have rights. Nations do not.
Wow – I love these randoms slogans – With the consent of its citizens, a Nation arguably does.
What if not all citizens consent?
Speaking of random slogans…
No, a nation cannot have rights. It does not have a mind nor a body. It is a completely conceptual thing, and a conceptual thing cannot have rights. It would be like saying that the imaginary dragon under my bed has rights if I say it does. Do you agree that the imaginary dragon under my bed has rights if I delegate rights to it?
Ed, Why not – a Nation is only the sum of the total. In other words the collective rights of all the individuals. Mr Ziggy is, I think going down the path of Democracy and whether it is a fair system. My problem with everything you guys write is weather it is practical or possible. Human Nature, the nice and the nasty will not change to accommodate your ideas and if Libertarianism can never be viable why discuss it? We are all wasting our time. I have looked at many similar blogs in the last few days and none of it seems real. I know you hate answering a direct question but I will try. Do you honestly believe there could ever be a society based on libertarian principles?
Perhaps:
I can’t answer for the others, of course, but I believe there could be such a society.
For one perspective, see here: http://mises.org/story/2542
And now I’ll ask you a question. If a Nation is, indeed ‘only the sum of the total’, and has no more than the ‘collective rights’ of the individuals who are part of it, then do you believe that such a collective has any more rights than any of those individuals?
For example, does a hypothetical ‘nation’ of, say, 10 individuals have a right to take one of its members’ property to build a road (eminent domain) if any one of those individuals does NOT have the right to take another’s property to build a driveway?
In another comment you mention an hypothetical need for conscription “if the enemy is at the door”… does our nation of 10 individuals have a right to force any one of its members to protect another’s property?
What if our hypothetical nation has 100 citizens? Or 1,000? At what point does a group of individuals become saturated enough to become a Nation; to have ‘collective’ rights that no single individual would?
Jac, Thank you for such a straight answer – I can’t see how it can work except perhaps, and I do not joke, in a monastry. The monastic life is pre programmed and they seek to serve each other.
I have only glanced at the article but will read it tonight.
Now to your questions
And now I’ll ask you a question. If a Nation is, indeed ‘only the sum of the total’, and has no more than the ‘collective rights’ of the individuals who are part of it, then do you believe that such a collective has any more rights than any of those individuals?
Yes – sadly. Supposing one has a deadly disease , which will be transmitted to the others killing all, if the one is not killed. Surely one killed to save the many is right.
For example, does a hypothetical ‘nation’ of, say, 10 individuals have a right to take one of its members’ property to build a road (eminent domain) if any one of those individuals does NOT have the right to take another’s property to build a driveway?
Same answer the good of the many must be TOPS – sorry
In another comment you mention an hypothetical need for conscription “if the enemy is at the door”… does our nation of 10 individuals have a right to force any one of its members to protect another’s property?
Slight problem here, I have little truck with people of conscience, although I should. Since ‘concis’ are often very brave; in times of war ’stretcher bearing’ under fire etc.
Probably, since as ever, I believe the need of the many to be paramount.
What if our hypothetical nation has 100 citizens? Or 1,000? At what point does a group of individuals become saturated enough to become a Nation; to have ‘collective’ rights that no single individual would?
I think that is the choice of the group 10 or million to decide what defines the Nation. I appreciate this is at complete odds to what you believe. but….
I fight daily for Free Speech for all and I hate to accede to the majority view, but I can’t see any other way which could work today. It was Ed I think, who questioned my statements on the bad side of Human Nature and suggested that such people are mentally sick, sadly he is so wrong.
I like the idea of the rights of the individual, but I understand the individual must be sacrificed for the many – and it matters not what I believe – it happens in Third World countries or in the most advanced such as Japan or the USA. How can you change it? You can’t. It is that reality which galls me and with that comes all the paraphernalia of the state which started all this off. I would love to agree with you but I don’t think it is realistic.
By the way most soldiers do not join up to fight, they are trained to that end – and our friend is wrong – I wonder how many soldiers he knows. I say again the soldier is a brave man.
A nation, to the extent that any collective concept exists outside your imagination, has power. If it is a nation state based on consent, then it has only those powers it was delegated.
The state can have powers even without consent, by taking them. That’s called tyranny, or arbitrary government. It can derive its just powers from the consent of the governed (the exact language from the Declaration of Independence), but it almost inevitably grabs more power.
What a nation state cannot have is rights. There are no such thing as “state’s rights.” The document usually trotted out by the state sovereignty crowd is the Tenth Amendment, but you should read its text carefully – it outlines powers reserved to the several states and to the people. Then go back one and read the Ninth Amendment which points out that the non-enumerated rights are also held by the people, and are not denied nor disparaged by the enumeration of other rights in the constitution and in the amendments.
All the rights are held by the people individually because only individual natural persons can have rights. Rights are again one of those imaginary constructs, and rights theory is an integral part of the tradition of classical liberalism. Keep in mind that classical liberalism has utterly failed, has proven to be lined with essential fallacies, and has been entirely abdicated by every major government on Earth.
The classical liberalism fallacies include the pretty notion that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed – provably false in numerous examples; and that governments are instituted to protect the rights to life, liberty, and property of the people. Rather, as even such governments as were originally derived from consensual and limited powers delegated by actual persons have subsequently shown, governments are in fact established to separate the unwary from their property for the benefit of those who run the state. All states come to exist for the exclusive benefit of those who run the state, and thus for the imposition of surplus order.
So when a statist says that the state “has a right to do that” what he really means is, he thinks the state is exercising an authorised power that was duly delegated and is one the state ought to be free to exercise. But this thinking is full of holes. It is madness to suppose that everyone against whom the state is exercising power has consented – or they wouldn’t be doing things like owning contraband that upset the state.
Nor is the state “free to exercise” a power, because the whole point of limited government is to bind the beast, to restrain its powers. That’s why powers were separated into three branches of national government, and by having state and provincial governments as a further check, and by having the people armed as yet a further check.
George Washington warned that government is like fire, a powerful servant and a terrible master. He warned that to bring government into proper service, it has to be bound down with restrictions. Yet every president, including Washington, loosened those restrictions. Washington added a central bank and a whiskey tax, and suppressed a rebellion with a mighty army. Adams added the alien and sedition acts and ignored the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. Jefferson vastly expanded the territory in what he himself regarded as an unconstitutional move. And so forth.
Government is not meant to be free. People are meant to be free, government is meant to be enslaved, tightly bound, and kept from bullying the other children.
But it is all so retarded, so ignorant, so pointless to talk about government as though it were a real thing. Government is an illusion whereby men and women by wearing fancy hats and carrying important badges of office can murder, rape, steal, and destroy with confidence, impunity from punishment, and the adulation of their adoring sycophants. There is no government. Only men and women behaving badly.
I’d like it very much if the British army did protect Britain but with the possible exception of the Falklands ever since WW2 the British army like the US army have been the hired goons of the corporatist interest particularly the Military Industrial Complex.
Korea,Aden,Palestine,Malaya,Cyprus,Northern Ireland,First Gulf War to name but a few,- those wars were hardly fought by the British Army to keep the Military Industrial Complex (sic) in shoe leather. To refer to the brave men of the American and British Armies as ‘hired goons’ even if you do question their masters’ intentions, is somewhat sick. Soldiers don’t ’sign up to kill people’ or to be killed but for a life that has adventure and meaning.
Perhaps,
Perhaps your view of such “good wars” is not well informed. Starting at the end of your list, perhaps the first Gulf war was more about oil (and domination, though not of a consensual sort) than you would like to admit.
Though my father (and mother’s brother) were sailors, neither of my grandfathers was a soldier. The story I hear about my great great grandfather is that he was a soldier in the Prussian army who came to America and never went back. If that is true, and I have good reason to believe it, then I am proud that at least one of my progenitors was a “deserter” from a gang of state controlled killers.
I advocate the right to keep and bear arms, but I suspect that as many, if not more, military organizations have infringed that right of private individuals than have “protected” it by doing their state’s bidding.
Funny Old World, I quite like the idea of being a Libertarian, until reality strikes. Rights are earned. You need to be protected in your bed. I have never heard one, PLAUSIBLE argument for an alternative to the State. The State is not perfect but individuals demanding this right and the other is just not viable. Survival comes from strength like it or loathe it. Every Libertarian I know gives less to the cause yet takes more from the pot. Libertarianism is a nice idea but not realistic – prove otherwise by debate, I would love to join your ranks. I would find it hard to be proud of a man who deserts his comrades – sorry but where is the merit?
After my great great grandfather (Albert) “deserted” the Prussian military, he lived free with his wife and three children. Albert and his wife raised those children free in the best place to accomplish that at the time: North America. He lived in Minnesota, but one of his sons moved to Wisconsin and had four more children, one of whom was my maternal grandmother.
Albert lived free, but each successive generation lost more of their freedom, even though they probably were not very conscious of it. The political rhetoric told them they were still free like Albert had been after leaving Prussia (not a bastion of liberty by any account I’ve heard). Often that freedom in North America was credited to the efforts of men who slaughtered innocent people in places like the Philippines, Vietnam or Iraq.
I don’t think conscripted soldiers should be automatically assumed as “comrades” to replace family in a person’s thinking.
Perhaps said: “Rights are earned.”
Actually no. They’re not ‘earned’. They are inherent, granted by the creator, and inalienable.
Before you get to the libertarian literature, you should maybe read through the Constitution and check out the Bill of Rights. It says nothing about those rights being alienable or encroachable for the ‘good of the collective’.
Furthermore, there are a number of reasons Germany didn’t attack Switzerland. It would have been stupid, considering that Switzerland housed the (very well guarded) unfathomable riches of Europe’s monarchs, and the spoils of the Bolshevik Revolution, etc. Hitler was financed by the crew of international bankers who would have been deeply offended if not amused by that sort of betrayal.
History shows every grab for power by every regime, the genesis of every dictatorship, genocide and mass killing has been preceded by, and enabled by gun and weapons bans – all over the world. It’s impossible to subdue an armed populace. I believe it’s the only reason we in the US have not shared the same fate as the Russians/Soviet Union. We either forget, or never learn what horrible atrocities happened there… and in China/Indochina under the flag of communism – which is what those bankers still want.
Perhaps: Look at their actions. People who “sign up” to be “soldiers” most certainly do it to kill people for a paycheck.
Adventure can be found in many other places.
Life has no meaning so claiming that someone is looking for it is either ignorant or a lie.
Tom Ender, Well said.
I don’t think there should be conscription period its a form of slavery
How else do you propose to protect your family? In the USA and UK there has been little need for conscription since the Second World War, but if the enemy is at the door ….. You guys always use think, but never offer how you would solve the problem. Would you have let the Germans take over Europe without a fight or would you, like the US and UK, conscript forces to show them the door? There are many forms of slavery some essential to our well being.
Perhaps: You seem to be an unthinking, paranoid. No one can see the future, but I doubt if the head of the snake called “the enemy” would be left to survive by the big business interests, unless a “government” claiming to have a monopoly on “protection” and “authority” over the big business interest prevented the removal of the snake’s head.
No Ed, I try to think; just a bit of a realist. Like it or not, there are people who will use force to gain dominance over us and our way of life. Unhappily, often the only way to protect our families and extended families(you could call that a nation)is by a show of force. If you know a better way and would like to share it with us – this time without insults, I would love to hear it.
Sorry if you felt insulted.
We disagree. I don’t believe there are people stupid enough to try to gain dominance over more than 300 million governmentless people.
Even if there was still somewhat of a government in it’s present form we, more than likely, wouldn’t be attacked because there has never been an attack on a group of people who had a nuclear weapon.
Ed, We must leave this debate here it is getting nowhere – Perhaps we need a new subject to take it forward – however I must ask one question?
Do you really believe that 300 million people could live together without a Police Force, a Jail, ambulance service, an army – just a bomb? Blimey, it is just isn’t real. Sadly Human nature, being what it is ‘evil’ people would seek and gain dominance. The growing powerful would gain followers etc etc.
I never said what 300 million could live with or without. A free market will allow people to have whatever they want. Although, I highly doubt if there would be much of a market for an army, jails, or anything similar to the present day police force.
You made the comment that “I quite like the idea of being a libertarian”. Yet you’ve done next to nothing about looking in to it.
I suggest that you go to: http://www.freedomainradio.com/ (among other places) and educate yourself. There are free books to download and podcasts. You could start your with the podcasts concerning DRO’s.
How else do you propose to protect your family?
By liberalising gun laws & stronger property rights
Ask yourself why Nazi Germany never invaded Switzerland
My response to you is be sensible – a response which I would find insulting if it were not true. Do you really believe that Germany did not invade Switzerland because they carried personal weapons? Do you really believe any invader would overly care, even if every citizen had a little gun? Of course not. Glib responses don’t make for a reasoned argument. If you preach Libertarianism support your beliefs; it is not some mystical religion with an infallible Holy Book. Hate the phrase, but Get Real sums it up.
Perhaps: Put together a plan on how YOU would invade a group of people in which every member had a gun, and see how it works for you.
Quite simple Ed, but this is a pointless path to go down. Frighten the first couple of hundred with your superior power – the rest give up. Happened many times.
There has never been a time when one individual had that kind of power.
Why is it there’s no Islamic terrorist blowing themselves up on the streets of Zurich?
The first Islamic terrorist attack happened on British soil after British troops participated in the invasion of Iraq.
9/11 happened because of the US government following a policy of meddling in the Middle ast, do you know why I know that because that is what bin Laden said.
You want realism well here’s some if Britain followed a non interventionist foreign policy its far more likely you going to get Islamists blowing themselves up on streets here & in the US.
Because with respect to Zurich, it is hardly a Multicultural city, nor the capital of one of the world’s largest economies.
You have no proof except conspiracy theories for the cause of 9/11. Bin Laden, if he said it has the brain to set man on man. Why do you always take at Face Value the utterings of those who are the enemy of the country in which you live? Something slightly wrong somewhere. Your last sentence is not what you intend so I will leave it. All this is fine and dandy, but can somebody please give a reasoned reply to my earlier questions?
Why do you always take at Face Value the utterings of those who are the enemy of the country in which you live,
ed already kind of answrr4ed that but to add what he said concerning bation states I’ll say that unlike yourself I’ve not a fetish for land which you evidently have.
ed already kind of answrr4ed that but to add what he said concerning bation states I’ll say that unlike yourself I’ve not a fetish for land which you evidently have
What the hell is a ‘fetish for land’? I would like somewhere to live and bring up my family without some overgrown gorilla saying ‘Bugger Off’
What the hell is a ‘fetish for land’? I would like somewhere to live and bring up my family without some overgrown gorilla saying ‘Bugger Off’
Duh! That’s why I said that libertarians believe in liberalising gun laws & stronger property rights
Duh! That’s why I said that libertarians believe in liberalising gun laws & stronger property rights
So Mr Ziggy, I am thick? Who is going to enforce your stronger property rights, not you with you little sharp shooter – that is for sure.
I like the idea of much smaller government buy we have to be realists, and that is my problem with all that you, Ed, and others say in support of these ideas. You cannot change Human Nature – you and I might find Genesis, just a nice story but it does sum up all that is wrong in our Human Nature, which is why we need strong government – sadly. If I have more than you, you want it. You will get others around you to take it from me. Might is right -very sadly. I agree the might of Nations is not good but it seems the best idea – tell me a better one WHICH IS REALISTIC not a fanciful dream.
Soory where did I suggest getting rid of the police force or the army entirely?
I’m merely suggesting that if the individual was enabled to be able to protect themselces adquetely then there wouldn’t be a need for such a large police force & if the british & US governments learnt to mind their own business foreign policy wise then there wouldn’t be a need for such a large army.
Mr Ziggy – we are going nowhere. I don’t agree with Ed and others that Soldiers join to kill – not true ask any soldier and I do think that a military life should be encouraged since a solider is an honourable man and nothing you have said changes my mind.
Your arguments are never supported, but plucked as a nice idea from thin air. Maybe next time we can carry this debate on. Thank you for starting it.
I don’t agree with Ed and others that Soldiers join to kill – not true ask any soldier
Do you think that if you asked any tyrant they’re going to fess up to being a tyrant…LOL
Perhaps: Sorry, I was going to walk away from this debate, but I can’t let your comment on “Human Nature” go unanswered.
Putting together a gang to take another’s property is not Human Nature, it’s mental illness.
Above, I suggested: http://www.freedomainradio.com/ Please make use of it.
I’m done here. We’ve used up too much bandwidth as it is.
Ed, Positively the last from me on this. Sadly it is Human Nature – you can call it mental illness, but when people have less, they want more and they take it. You are changing how people always act and react since the beginning of time, to fit your views. Why do you guys NEVER answer a question?
Its a common misconception that the sole job of a soldier is to kill people; one of the reasons to have a strong military is so you don’t have to use it; its the same reason why you would be more likely to punch a guy who looked unarmed compared to a guy carrying a weapon. The threat of retalition is there, and that is why armies build up and train. Believe me, people don’t join the army to kill people, and people don’t stay in the army to kill people.
Nik – certainly a portion of armed forces subscribe to this. But the institutions focus on aggressive and forceful tactics, and because they have no competitive forces there is no consequence for when force is used wrongfully except for more war. The need for protection service is undeniable, the methods of implementation are abhorrent and an affront to humanity.
You may form and idolize armies and navies, to protect “our” way of life, but if I believe that I can defend my property myself, and with voluntary security, where do you get off subsuming me into your “nation”? Why, if your “national security” is so necessary, do I have to be taxed to pay for it? You just get off on pointing your guns around and telling people that you know how they should do everything. Those of us support liberty are the REALISTS: we all understand that we don’t know everything, we can’t know everything, and we don’t want to all be forced into the same course of action – no matter how “successful” it seems to be from the inside.
Monopolies are bad, eh? So why are they magically good when you are told you have some ownership in one? And lets not even get started about how much central govts actually respond to the best interest of their citizens (as opposed to interests of the State entity).
You are free to support militias, just stop stealing from me to support it.
if I believe that I can defend my property myself,</B?
Here’s an irony with terry sorry I meant ‘perhaps’ he supports direct democracy because elected representatives can’t genuinely represent an individual’s opinion, he’s right but direct democracy is pure tyranny of the majority & I suspect Terry supports direct democracy so the middles classes can beat up upon anybody who doesn’t consent to their mediocre bullshit.
I suspect Terry supports direct democracy so the middles classes can beat up upon anybody who doesn’t consent to their mediocre bullshit.
Wow that really takes the discussion forward Mr Ziggy – I suspect Jac and I are poles apart but we might get somewhere – if a concept is held sincerely, can it really be described as bullshit by a thinking , man?
Fact remains you’re an authoritarian bully as you’ve proven here
Mr Ziggy, Why the personal insults- surely you cause is above that?
I wasn’t being insulting I was stating proven fact
First “perhaps” informs us that we have no rights until we earn them by doing things he deems essential. “Ya can’t have any pudding if ya don’ eat yer meat!”
Then he alerts us to the need for each of us to be protected in our beds. He neglects to mention that the most frequent late night visitor is the state, kicking in the door to drag parents from their screaming children for the non-violent non-crime of possessing contraband drugs, guns, literature, or ideas.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who shall guard us from the guards themselves? Oops.
Oh, no, wait, the state will also safeguard us from the state. By dividing itself into branches of legislative, executive, and judiciary, and by having some powers held by state and local government while others are retained by the people, and by guaranteeing that no one who stands accused of a crime shall be deprived of life, liberty, nor property without due process, there was supposedly a way for the state and its minions to defend the people from the state, and its minions.
But, as Dennis Blair has just announced to the House intelligence committee (a committee with intelligence? do tell!) the United States of America has taken upon itself to kill American citizens without due process, without any process, by declaring in star chamber that an American is a threat of some sort to nationalist security. Go through that again. No trial, no jury, no judge, no witnesses, no confronting the witnesses against you, no writ of habeas corpus, no authority to compel witnesses in your defense to be heard on your behalf, no appeal. Summary judgement, summary execution.
In so doing, the United States has abdicated government, placed all the people of the world outside its protection, and declared war on each and every one of us. The United states, by the admission, and enthusiastic testimony of Dennis Blair is an arbitrary government by tyranny for the sake of those who run the state. You have no freedom, no life, no property, only what the state in its whimsy, or most likely in its ignorance, fails to take from you.
If that is your government “perhaps” and if you support it, if you look upon the mangled bodies of your fellow humans without remorse, then you are a coward and a churl, not fit for association with free men and women. Go from us now, and disturb us no longer. We seek neither your counsel nor your arms. May history fail to record you were ever interested in liberty, may your chains and manacles chafe and bind, may they sit heavily upon you, and may you burn forever in the flames of perdition. -spit-
I was surprised that Jim Davidson does not give the courtesy afforded to him of intelligent debate, but in that perhaps, I was unwise having known Ziggy for several years. My argument with the so called Libertarian Movement is that it is unrealistic in its aims.
At no time has anybody explained who will protect us, the meek and the children from the aggressor, whether that aggressor be the mob down the street or the Nation State eager to impose its will on the rest of us. To deny that people of like kinds will come together to take what is not theirs as a mental problem, is facile and does not answer the question.
In this Libertarian World who is decide right from wrong and, I am sorry, punish the wrong doer? Will you be prepared to see your sister, your wife, your child be raped and let the perpetrator go unpunished. What happens if you are out gunned by his friends – are you happy with that? I would hope not.
You condemn democracy and the state – yet who is to organise the health care and the benefits which you so willingly accept. Do you not think it hypocritical to condemn the state yet live on the benefits provided by others’ labour? That is what I mean by earning rights. You use the roads, rely on the state to ensure you have safe food, to train the Doctors and like it or not to protect you from the wrong doer. I would be foolish to suggest that the state is perfect or that all its police are saints, but for the most part it works.
I would suggest that however attractive the Libertarian concept maybe it is so unrealistic as not to be viable.
Like it or not there is no evidence that the evil majority would accede to Libertarian ideas and it seems to me never would. Might is probably right.
Just answer one question how would you organise the people, each with his own need, his own ambition for this children, and his own political views?
Before you spit and defile me, just for once think through your logic. Are you really more intelligent than the rest of us? Have you succeeded in life or are you like so many that I have met, a failure blaming the rest for your inadequacies? I do not suggest you are, but I do ask the question.
As I said earlier I have known Ziggy for several years as a friend and respect his right to his own views, but he hates debate, accuses me and other of bullying and expects everyone to jump to his dictum even when his arguments are flawed, not by opinion but by fact.
Ziggy’s hero is a certain Mr Mills. I note the following:
On Liberty involves an impassioned defense of free speech. Mill argues that free discourse is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he contends, that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. He also argues that allowing people to air false opinions is productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of ideas. Second, by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from declining into mere dogma. It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an unexamined belief that happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is the true one’
I find it hard to square that circle with
If that is your government “perhaps” and if you support it, if you look upon the mangled bodies of your fellow humans without remorse, then you are a coward and a churl, not fit for association with free men and women. Go from us now, and disturb us no longer. We seek neither your counsel nor your arms. May history fail to record you were ever interested in liberty, may your chains and manacles chafe and bind, may they sit heavily upon you, and may you burn forever in the flames of perdition. -spit
I await the abuse
“Just answer one question how would you organise the people, each with his own need, his own ambition for this children, and his own political views?”
Perhaps: Your question is illegitimate to the “libertarian”. A “libertarian” would never try to organise people. A “libertarian” would leave the individual to organise his/her own life. A free market will provide the individual with what the individual needs to organise his/her life.
With the exception of the mentally retarded, people without conscience are mentally ill. As long as you and others continue to deny it, the mentally ill will not be exposed and encouraged to acquire the psychological help that they need. When you rid the world of people with mental illness, you create a world of people with conscience. People with conscience do not come together to take what is not theirs.
Please, think about it.
Ed – I understand what you say, but it is not realistic. Greed and and jealousy of others is a sickness, even I would agree, but factually all but a few will take what is not theirs if they can get away with it. Of the many, many studies undertaken through the years, the majority have admitted they would take from the stationery cupboard at their work, steal by finding, or steal ‘if the thought they could get away with it’ I will ask this question again and again, forgive me. Do you think we could live under Libertarian Ideals taking into account Human Nature? Few are ever satisfied with what they have.
Greed and jealousy: Hierarchy is the best environment for greed and jealousy. Greed and jealousy come into play when it is felt that someone else is granted a privilege by the ‘master’ that I don’t have. It is quite easy to prove that we are responsible for, and create our own experience here on this planet. Libertarian/Anarchists simply are interested in consciously taking full responsibility for themselves – the infrastructures for that responsibility will all look different. Good ideas will stick. Bad ones will be discarded. You have very negative ideas about people, it seems. You and a lot of others… You should definitely arm yourself if you have a mob down the street. Maybe you watch too much tel-lie vision. TV shows seem to be all about controlling how we think about people. Maybe you attract those sorts into your life, otherwise you probably wouldn’t say some of the things you have about ‘mobs down the street’, etc. Is there really a mob down the street, ready to rape your wife and children and gun you down? Down the street from me are just more people trying to be happy and survive, working 60+ hours a week. Most of them are lonely and occasionally chat me up when I take a walk. I admittedly have negative ideas regarding false ideologies that the mainstream culture hurls in my general direction… about women and men, about black people, about white people, about Arabs, about Jews, about soldiers, about ‘Merricuns (southerners), about everybody. Everybody is a caricature… until you go out there and talk to people, be a part of a community. Yes, there are bad people. But those people are at the top running things with no conscience, no responsibility.
Perhaps – If you equate “Libertarian” with Anarcho-capitalist, then yes, I do believe we could live under those ideals.
I don’t know how accurate those studies/polls you speak of are, but I’m pretty sure the people who were polled lived under an oppressive corrupt/criminal sociopathic government, as did their ancestors and their ancestors’ ancestors and so on. If the only environment that they’ve ever known is sociopathic then there is a pretty good chance that the pathology has rubbed off. Human nature is not sociopathic/psychopathic. If it was we would have exterminated ourselves by now.
Oh, no, wait, the state will also safeguard us from the state
Oh the irony LOL
@Mayhemm
Did you know that IBM provided the punch cards used in the concentration camps & the Coco-Cola produced Fanta specifically to sell to Nazi Germany.
So – at what stage did Nazi Germany become beyond the pale? Would you stop all trade with China or Zimbabwe to name just two. These two,left to their own devices would probably be just as evil as Germany in the late 30s.
It’s not ‘Germany’, or ‘China’ or ‘Zimbabwe’ or the ‘US’ that conducts trade. It’s corporations and banks who trade – and who, by an unseen hand, run the machine of state. Those who still believe we are nations dealing and doing business with nations ought to remove their heads from their arses.
Your foreign trade policy model is dead, Perhaps – it exists no more. We have multinational corporations who have no loyalty to any ’state’ ideology, simply view states as groupings of laws and regulations. ‘States’ are simply hosts for the parasite. Those lands who will accept low human rights standards, lower wages, lower environmental standards are the most desirable hosts.
The second most desirable host is a wealthy country with a liberal taxation system, and whose people have fallen asleep to the workings of their now corporatized government. The parasites that have infiltrated can now grant themselves contracts to provide services and have unlimited access to fiat money printed by the central banks. The parasites can, through regulation and deregulation – monopolize an industry, and not be held criminally accountable for any harm their product or service causes.
A stout Libertarian Anarchy would not support such nonsense. A stout Libertarian Anarchy would be the only defense against it, the only way humans could thrive by their own wits, their own labor, form community, with no chains to bind them to serving as hosts for the parasite of the corporate state.
Oh yes, Ziggy. It goes much deeper than that also, I’m sure you’re probably aware. (IG Farben executives tried at Nuremburg for war crimes were brought to the US, and into the UN to shape public health, trade and agricultural policy…) When there is money to be made providing goods, services and arms to despotic authoritarian regimes, there are international bankers waiting in line to offer their help because of the strategic potential that arises from destabilization that is created. That’s the game, it appears. It’s not the ‘mob down the street’ we have to worry about. It’s the mob who run things at the top of the hierarchy.
What do you have to worry about. Most of us I think, would whilst not being happy with the ’status quo’ would fear the alternatives offered here. How do you earn your living? Do you sell your expertise, do you sell a product which you make or what. Without the expertise of big business, the phenomenal increase in the world’s population would ensure starvation for even more people than sadly exists already. Are you going to deny this?
i’m absolutely going to deny it.
the ‘expertise’ of big business?
expertise at what? they hire slaves to make the things they sell. there is no expertise there. those people could be making things and selling them for a living wage.
what’s with the corporate worship?
yes, i’m self employed. self contained. that’s the basis for a really good, prosperous life – on my own terms. it’s the answer.
heartfelt advice: deprogram your mind.
you have so much fear – it’s compromised your humanity and integrity…
Is Zimbabwe threatening the borders of any other country?
That is a non sequitur as well you know. Was Nazi Germany in the early 30s?
Its was by the late 30s