"Freedom" thread or something

I wish I could be that way all the time but I'm not.

David, you are a fine fellow yourself.  Even if we continue to disagree, you maintain my respect. 

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: ^You say, "of course..." but are you going to try and prove that statement?  Can you explain to me in what way I have an obligation to do something I haven't agreed to do?  Or in what way the government or society has the right to impose their will on me?  There is no "implicit understanding," law and justice are not implicit and you cannot base the right to coercive practices on an "implicit" contract that nobody actually signs and that some people (quite obviously from this thread) do not agree to.

Edited by Gerinski - July 20 2013 at 05:51

Gerinski wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: ^You say, "of course..." but are you going to try and prove that statement?  Can you explain to me in what way I have an obligation to do something I haven't agreed to do?  Or in what way the government or society has the right to impose their will on me?  There is no "implicit understanding," law and justice are not implicit and you cannot base the right to coercive practices on an "implicit" contract that nobody actually signs and that some people (quite obviously from this thread) do not agree to. The 'understanding' is not implicit, it is very explicit, it is called the set of laws and they were agreed on your behalf by your ancestors for the simple reason that it would be rather impractical that laws need to be rediscussed with every newly born person. They somehow found it best to established a set of rules which every person living in the community was 'invited' to follow if he wanted to live there. They thought that leaving each person the choice whether he wants to abide by the laws or not was really impractical, if you allowed your neighbours to decide that 'no sorry, I prefer to live outside this set of laws' was going to create a lot of trouble, so they decided that 'you are not forced to follow them, but if you want to live here you have to, otherwise you are free to choose but then go live somewhere else'. Nobody forces you to live in the State you live in or in the US for that matters. I believe that Nevada has rather low taxes because it gets funds from the gambling taxes, if you go live there and refrain from gambling you will pay low taxes, or you can go live in the Cayman Islands, or to whatever country has laws and taxes you agree best with, or if you don't agree with any laws or taxes then you can still go live in some desert island and fish and collect fruits. Don't expect an hospital when you will be sick though. I said it before, the laws we have are just the accumulated result of having had to deal with conflicts among humans during all the past history. If there were no conflicts we would have many less laws. Sadly that's not the experience we have had trying to co-exist with one another. Actually a way of having less laws is having more severe ones. In some countries even very small crimes are punished with cutting your hand, so people refrain from any misbehaving and the country does not need a huge catalog of laws to deal with every kind of possible conflict as we have in countries were we try to have more freedom and less severe dogma. It is this freedom which results in needing a lot of laws.

Your long-dead ancestors can't agree to something on your behalf.  Let's say that, at my birth, my grandparents had pledged me to serve for life in a Hindu temple (just for the sake of illustration).  Do you think it is just to bind me to their decision?

The idea that someone shouldn't have the right to live in a country if they're not willing to do what the government tells them makes the assumption that the government owns the land which they govern; which isn't true.  The government does not own me or my property.  It's mine, and they have no right over it. 

dtguitarfan wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: Gerinski wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: ^You say, "of course..." but are you going to try and prove that statement?  Can you explain to me in what way I have an obligation to do something I haven't agreed to do?  Or in what way the government or society has the right to impose their will on me?  There is no "implicit understanding," law and justice are not implicit and you cannot base the right to coercive practices on an "implicit" contract that nobody actually signs and that some people (quite obviously from this thread) do not agree to. The 'understanding' is not implicit, it is very explicit, it is called the set of laws and they were agreed on your behalf by your ancestors for the simple reason that it would be rather impractical that laws need to be rediscussed with every newly born person. They somehow found it best to established a set of rules which every person living in the community was 'invited' to follow if he wanted to live there. They thought that leaving each person the choice whether he wants to abide by the laws or not was really impractical, if you allowed your neighbours to decide that 'no sorry, I prefer to live outside this set of laws' was going to create a lot of trouble, so they decided that 'you are not forced to follow them, but if you want to live here you have to, otherwise you are free to choose but then go live somewhere else'. Nobody forces you to live in the State you live in or in the US for that matters. I believe that Nevada has rather low taxes because it gets funds from the gambling taxes, if you go live there and refrain from gambling you will pay low taxes, or you can go live in the Cayman Islands, or to whatever country has laws and taxes you agree best with, or if you don't agree with any laws or taxes then you can still go live in some desert island and fish and collect fruits. Don't expect an hospital when you will be sick though. I said it before, the laws we have are just the accumulated result of having had to deal with conflicts among humans during all the past history. If there were no conflicts we would have many less laws. Sadly that's not the experience we have had trying to co-exist with one another. Actually a way of having less laws is having more severe ones. In some countries even very small crimes are punished with cutting your hand, so people refrain from any misbehaving and the country does not need a huge catalog of laws to deal with every kind of possible conflict as we have in countries were we try to have more freedom and less severe dogma. It is this freedom which results in needing a lot of laws.  Your long-dead ancestors can't agree to something on your behalf.  Let's say that, at my birth, my grandparents had pledged me to serve for life in a Hindu temple (just for the sake of illustration).  Do you think it is just to bind me to their decision? The idea that someone shouldn't have the right to live in a country if they're not willing to do what the government tells them makes the assumption that the government owns the land which they govern; which isn't true.  The government does not own me or my property.  It's mine, and they have no right over it.  My long dead ancestors decided that murder was wrong.  I don't agree with that.

You think that murder is wrong just because your long-dead ancestors agreed to it?

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: The government does not own me or my property.  It's mine, and they have no right over it.

Gerinski wrote: JJLehto wrote:   Does trade mean we are destined to be a service economy?  Don't fall to that trap, Europe came first, many told us that services were the way forward after having lost the productive competitivity, the truth is that services are not helping much either.

...soooooo pretty much I am right?
Sorry if my ramblings made that unclear but I do NOT think the transition is a good thing.
Especially since the US is so massive, maybe smaller countries can make the transition to a high tech economy  but I don't see that as possible here with hundreds of millions of people.

Honestly, in the long run I see a pretty bleak future, esp for the youth. Im a college grad stuck in the service sector but I still have time...future generations may really be in trouble.
And there is really nothing to be "done" this seems inevitable in an open world. The ONLY way I can imagine service sector helping out competitiveness is that the US/Europe become poor enough to compete with other countries, for the lowest way possible.

And I know why trade is technically good, but unless I can be shown why my beliefs are wrong IDK if I can support the idea.
Edit: I do like the idea of getting healthcare out of employers (if you want state or free market IDC) and regulations that are costly, but would that still be enough to keep the US competitive with poorer nations?


Edited by JJLehto - July 21 2013 at 15:06

My wife decorates cakes. 

Awesome




Amazing




Cakes





Anyway, I met a lesbian today who said she was turned down for her cake because she was to wed a woman.  She was afraid my wife would turn her down also, and asked me if that would be a problem.

We love freedom, and we love profiting from freedom. 


Edited by Epignosis - July 21 2013 at 17:24

dtguitarfan wrote: That's exactly my point.  You can't just come along, like a whiny teenager, and say "you're not the boss of me!"  There are reasons that we have these standards.  Thousands of years of reasons.  You want to come along and say "there should be no government - there should be no regulations."  What you basically believe amounts to this: there should be no referees at the Football game - the lineman should be his own referee, the quarterback should be his own referee, the defensive back should be his own referee.  If everyone is just allowed to be their own referee, everything will just work.  But there are years of reasons that have brought us to this point where we decided that referees were needed.

Your criticisms of Libertarianism are poor, and your understanding of Libertarianism is worse.

No, our belief isn't that players should be their own referees (horrible analogy, by the way).
No, our belief isn't that poor people should die.
No, our belief isn't that rich people should make all the rules.
No, our belief isn't that charity is stupid.
No, our belief isn't that greed is awesome.
No, our belief isn't that government is inherently evil.
No, our belief isn't that organizations are bad.
No, our belief isn't that people should f**k other people over.
No, our belief isn't that everybody ought to smoke weed.
No, our belief isn't that people of other opinions are jerks (as you have called us).
No, our belief isn't that Libertarianism solves social problems you want to solve.  It isn't meant to.

Libertarianism states that aggression is always wrong.  That's ultimately it.  Do you agree with that?

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: . Libertarianism states that aggression is always wrong.  That's ultimately it.  Do you agree with that? That depends on what you mean by "aggression".  Do you have kids?  Not one kid, kids.  If you do, you know that the following is true: they fight.  Achieving peace between multiple kids is very, very hard to do.  And it's not going to come about through wishy washy parents who say "now kids, don't fight."  In my mind, this is the number one problem with Libertarianism - you have a basic truth down there: that "aggression" (depending on what you include in that category) is wrong.  Yes, on a fundamental level I agree with that.  But life is a little more complicated than that.  If you want to achieve peace between the "kids", you can't just say "now come on, let's be nice to each other!"

As I do not mind defining my terms: Aggression is the initiation of force against a person, his or her property, or the threat of such.

Yes, we have three children.  We're not a "wishy-washy" parents and our kids still fight, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Padraic wrote: What's the implied discipline approach here for parents who are not "wishy-washy"?

You make an interesting point.  It's never easy.  Every child is different.  However, here is what the Libertarian approach sounds like to me:
So let's keep this to two kids.  I have three as well, but let's stick to a situation with two.  I have a son and a daughter that are almost exactly a year apart.  They are each others' best friends and each others' worst enemies at the very same time.  One situation that has come up multiple times goes something like this: I hear loud noises coming from the two of them and it sounds like fighting.  I go to see what's up, and sure enough they are pushing and hitting each other as they both try to gain control of the same toy.  I snatch the toy away and separate them (which is not an easy task, mind you).  I ask what's going on, how did this start, etc.  I can't get a satisfying answer as to how exactly the whole thing started, nor can I come up with a clear answer as to whom is at fault (it kind of sounds like neither child is exactly Snow White, if you catch my drift).  In the end, I decide that what I should do is put them both in their rooms for a few minutes, and confiscate the toy for a while, because I can't figure out who the toy should go to, and they are both in the wrong for the way they conducted themselves.  Now this works out because I am in authority over both of them, and don't have a dog in this fight, thus I am impartial. 

But my children have a bit of Libertarian in them, and they often think I am unjust.  They don't really bother putting much into their explanation of why they think this is but they just seem very upset that I did anything at all.  Yesterday, my daughter was messing with the drapes and I told her multiple times not to, and eventually because she didn't listen I had her sit in time out for a bit - she made a nasty face and an ugly sound at me because I was so "unjust" in her eyes (very Libertarian of her, I'd say).  They would prefer a Libertarian system where they pay for the authority figure only if they want one, in which case they'd probably never pay for the service in the first place, in which case my son and daughter would fight until one of them died and the other was beat up and bloodied and the toy would probably be broken beyond repair at this point.  But let's just say that my son and daughter were smart enough to decide that they wanted to pay for the service of an authority figure.  Lets say my son chose me, and my daughter chose her mother.  So now we've got the same situation.  But this time I'm not very impartial.  My daughter didn't pay for my services, so why should I care about her?  I just want my son to get control of the toy and for my daughter to be punished for the grievous harm she has inflicted on my client...er, son.  But my wife is fighting for my daughter with equal vigor.  So now, instead of my son and daughter having a fight and me putting a stop to it and giving them a chance to cool down, now the whole family is fighting.  Husband and wife are pitted against each other as well as son and daughter.  How lovely.  Libertarianism is great, isn't it?