The question libertarians just can’t answer

[RKMBrown]

Some posters make it too easy. It's easier disproving an argument than quelling a tantrum.

Arguing would be pretty boring if it was always easy, and all too quiet without the occasional tantrum.

 

[Oddball]

I also wonder about those private defense companies that the anarcho-capitalist hires to defend his property. Who defends the anarcho-capitalist against the defense company should it decide it would be more fun to take his big screen TV instead of protecting it against thieves? Who does the anarcho-capitalist appeal to for remedy for that? Who protects the home owner from THEM?

 

[Foxfyre]

I also wonder about those private defense companies that the anarcho-capitalist hires to defend his property. Who defends the anarcho-capitalist against the defense company should it decide it would be more fun to take his big screen TV instead of protecting it against thieves? Who does the anarcho-capitalist appeal to for remedy for that? Who protects the home owner from THEM?

Okay let's pretend you're being serious here. But if this is the solution, why hire the defense company in the first place? Why not just make it a free for all, survival of the fittest, the spoils go the the strongest and baddest, and all that? If you can outgun those who are coming to hurt you and/or take your stuff, then you can claim that you are free. But having to live with one eye open is not how I define freedom.

That kind of scenario is explicitly what the Founders wanted to prevent with the Constitution along with protecting us from any kind of despot, monarch, fuedal lord, pope, or other authoritarian government who would take power and then assign us the rights (make that privileges) that we would be allowed to have.

 

[MarcATL]

Sadly there is no overarching canon of beliefs that defines LIBERTARIANISM

No, but there are traits like that we recognize that liberty doesn't come from government

Really? We forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

Powerful stuff.

 

[MarcATL]

ok. Let's you and i discuss 'free markets' shall we? First of all that is a misnomer. There is no such thing as a 'free market' all markets are constructed and all markets have rules.

Do you understand the concept of stakeholders and the malfeasance created by absenteeism?

markets are the construct of human action. That is, voluntary exchange of goods and services. Markets are not the construct of any other authority. All authoritarians do, is attempt to control human action by dictating rules through the use of force for compliance.

A free market means just that. People are allowed to enter into exchange with one another without interference or coercion from a thrid party.

Your giant post full of strawmen shows you dont understand this and believe that not only are thrid party interference and coercion good, but necessary.

a very, very immature view. The theory of a free market can work very well without a 3rd party or rules (what you call authority) under ideal (utopian) circumstances. How? Where everyone is an equal 'stakeholder'. What does that mean? It means that your stakes serve as the 'authority'.

An example... A small community with a self sustaining local economy. Every member of that community is a stakeholder. They all contribute something to the economy and they all rely on others for what they don't produce. So, the blacksmith will not pollute the river, even though it would increase his profits to dump waste in the river instead of properly disposing of it. Why? Because he drinks from that river and he doesn't want to be ostracized and blackballed by other 'stakeholders' who he relies on for milk, meat, dry goods etc.

What is the malfeasance created by absenteeism?

Joe outsider builds a factory on that river. He doesn't drink from that river and he doesn't relies on 'stakeholders for milk, meat, dry goods etc.

He lives in another state, or another country. He is not a full stakeholder.

preach!!!

 

[MarcATL]

Or something like this from a lying republican
Reagan’s Racially-tinged Narratives
Reagan’s bogus tales of food stamps chiselers and welfare queens tended to employ racial imagery and often outright racist references to blacks (e.g., in telling a tale about food stamp fraud to a Southern audience, Reagan referred to a “young buck” (“buck” is a derogatory term used in the South to denote an African-American man) using his food stamps to buy T-bone steaks and to northern audiences he spoke of the apocryphal story of the “Cadillac-driving” Chicago welfare queen (Reagan's anecdotes were a wild distortion of the welfare fraud case involving a Chicago woman named Linda Taylor. These bogus stories were a double whammy: 1. They worked to break off a significant chunk of the white working class (the “Reagan Democrats”) by appealing to their worst instincts and fears; and 2. They served as a justification for Reagan’s economically regressive policies (also see the addendum)
If you dare read more but of course you are closed minded tea party insulting individual.
Ronald Reagan: Racism and Racial Politics
What made these narratives particularly toxic is that this race-baiting was justified by the argument that Reagan and his allies were trying to better the situation of racial minorities. Reagan repeated these fabrications years after they were debunked. Having been a Hollywood star, Reagan knew that stories are more powerful persuaders than facts.

Lets get real. Would a racist treat black patients?

Would a Texas NAACP President (Nelson Linder) come out in the open in defense of a racist?

Ron Paul defends blacks - YouTube

Reagan was the most divisive president in modern history. He came across as very likeable, but his message was toxic. He created a whole religion-like group of haters of anything 'government'.

This is one of the most telling videos for anyone who doesn't know Reagan was a puppet of his handlers.

Thank You Mr. President - 49 second video

Reagan and the press...

When President Reagan first took over the oval office, we would throw questions at President Reagan, and he would answer them.

Well, his three top aides were apoplectic. They didn’t know what was coming out of his mouth. They taught the president to say “this is not a press conference”, and they had him quite trained on that.

And one day we asked him what was happening, and he said to us: “I can’t answer that”. We said ‘why’?

“Because they won’t let me”, he pointed to Baker, Meese and Deaver standing behind, very grim.

“They won’t let me”…I said, ‘but you’re the President’…


"Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan couldn't tell the difference."
Mort Sahl

Reagan has about as much to do with liberty as you do, Bf.

I am very big on liberty. My own personal beliefs on SOME issues are a libertarian as it gets. Issues like privacy, the absolute adherence to the presumption of innocence, hatred for the war on drugs, hatred for 'free speech zones' Bush used to crush free speech, hatred for SWAT teams and the belief you have to be breaking the fucking law to be pulled over by a fucking cop. I have much in common with and great respect for civil libertarians. People like the late Harry Browne and Barry Goldwater are among the people I have much agreement with.

Where libertarians and I part ways is on economic issues. BIG time. That is where these 'laissez-faire' libertarians are more in line with Mussolini than Madison.

KAPOW!!!!!

Total knockout.

 

[MarcATL]

The social contract is our collective laws.

One might reasonable include in that the customs that are also in place in society as part of the social contract.

I note that we are still debating the issue of what the world LIBERTARIANISM really means.

Until we can COLLECTIVELY agree on a clear and precise meaning, this debate will continue to be contentious and pointless.

Contentious and pointless debates seem to be the favorite kinds of debates we have here.

We USMBers just seem to love WEASEL WORDS like libertarian, liberal, and conservative because we can use them knowing perfectly well they have no commonly accepted meanings.

WEASEL WORDS --propagandists and partisans absolutely LOVE em!

No, laws passed by an authoritarian government without the consent of the people is NOT social contract. Most especially laws that take from Citizen A, who will not benefit, for the benefit of Citizen B who did nothing to earn it are NOT social contract. The welfare state is not social contract. Obamacare is not social contract. Environmental laws that restrict my property rights on pretext of protecting habitat of some endangered rat or turtle are NOT social contract. Laws that dictate what toilet and I can buy or what lightbulb I will be obliged to use or what sort of automobile I will be required to drive are NOT social contract. Dictating what I must pay my employees or what benefits I must provide fro them is NOT social contract. Dictating that I cannot choose what to pack in my kid's school lunch is NOT social contract. Dictating to me what kind of health insurance I will be allowed to have is NOT social contract.

One more time: social contract is citizens voluntarily organizing themselves for MUTUAL benefit; i.e. that which will be mutually beneficial to all without respect for politics or individual circumstnces or socioeconomic status.

Actually, you just made up that definition when you wrote it. That's not what it means.