tlmorg02

I have greatly enjoyed this discussion. I would simply add that in order to reach a form of government advocated in the video, the constitution of the United States would need to be thrown out and a new one formed.

In the Federalist Papers, John Madison asserts that if men were angels, government would not be necessary. The founders were well aware of the principles of Liberty, yet they understood that human nature negates the idea of a perfect liberal government. If a form of government was not created that protected from potential tyrants that may arise within the new nation, as well as those abroad who pose a threat, then no liberties would be possible.

SouthernDemocrat

It would be insufficient anytime you are dealing with finite resources that exists "in the commons".

Its economics 101 that private incentives alone consistently fail to provide adequate maintenance and sustainability of finite public resources. You can't privatize everything, for example you can't fully privatize the oceans, the atmosphere, all wildlife, and so on. Thus, these are resources that primarily exist in the commons.

Perhaps you should read the Tragedy of the Commons:

The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin - The Garrett Hardin Society - Articles

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Charles Krauthammer describing Obama:

"He's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament."

Lachean

What was true in 1800 is true today, and in no way would I regard THIS status quo as "progress."

The protectionism that you advocate is hardly new under the sun.

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"Men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality. " - Ayn Rand

new coup for you

no, the world is very different today and the interconnectivity of human behavior, particularly economic behavior, means an ideology basically designed for agrarian land estates is unworkable. Enlightenment style libertarianism is incapable of managing entities like Wal-Mart or Halliburton which due to technological advances are capable of projecting just as much force, and removing just as much "personal sovereignty", as any government.

Saying it's "all about personal choice" is just as ludicrous as when Marxist's say "it's only about material conditions".

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."- Keynes

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And why does your tone suggest that you do not care about children?

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike.

Mach

I never wrote they are entitled to it. I think in our discussion we will uncover is that in the U.S. you still have a choice to lease your power to people, as long as you retain the choice to retract it, help shape what it's used for, and gain some other power of your own choosing, in return.
In fact, that is the hallmark of efficiency and prosperity and freedom. I did NOT earn the land I live on distinct from the market in which I purchased it. You must accept that basic fact.

I haven't commented on how the power is derived from your vantage point except to note popular sovereignty. And to me it's not necessary that popular sovereignty excludes choice.

10 men live in an island. they divide the land up equally. 1 wants individual sovereignty. the other 9 band together and divide up labor willingly through negotiation based on desire/skill, etc. They come up with barter/money rules, and work out ways to use each others land for their own wants/needs. You trade with them, but they always have the advantage of a more efficient system.

Now, where in there did they force something on you?
Now someone women come ashore, 10, fancy that. And a son is born to the 9, and a son is born to the One. Now, the One rules over his son by who's authority? Apparently not in line with your idealism. But continuing, the 9's son is raised with the expectation that he will contribute, as they have, to their mutually beneficial way of life. After all, he reached maturity safely not through his own will, but via a shared will and effort that he is NOT privy to take with force. Once of age enough that they decide youth can fend for themselves, they offer him a choice. Their way, or he can live like the one (you), on a nearby island. The son has a choice. There is no fraud, or force. If he stays, only if he's a complete moron will he claim that he owns his house free and clear of any of their attempts to enforce building codes. HE is the one using force. YOU are the one attempting to justify your use of force.

Your land came with restrictions that you already agreed to, and now you want to deny it so you can have your cake and eat it too. You ignore the underlying premise, you want to use force on those before you who already through sweat and blood obtained that land, and you commit fraud because I know we can find the papers and the legally binding agreements you made.

Incorrect, the video is an abstract ideal, it doesn't know you already agreed to neighborhood or state or city ordinances. In fact, if you did, and break them, YOU committed fraud.

You gave them the right by living there, voluntarily.
You were not privy to the negotiations that went on to secure the land in which you are sodomizing someone on, you don't own it individually, so you have, by your definition, no such rights. You miss the premises, again, and go about happily claiming your "Fraud" is justified via a philosophy that claims it's not.

So, when you band together to defend your land, by hiring a militia, it's unjust? You can't mean that.

-Mach

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Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content.- Conan

Panache

Sure, if I purchase an apple, I did not earn it distinct from the supermarket in which I bought it, but I just don't see how that is relevant.

The agreement between me and the supermarket is that they will transfer ownership of the apple to me, and I will transfer ownership of US currency to them. Once I have purchased the apple, regardless of whether I earned it "distinct from the market in which I purchased it," the supermarket has no more right to tell me what to do with my apple than I do to tell them what to do with their money.

How is it more efficient? One of the nine will be more prosperous/productive than the other eight. Naturally the other eight will decide to force the more productive one pay for everthing, reducing his incentive to be productive.

Seems to me it is more efficient for the one sovereign one to continue being productive without freeloaders leeching off of him.

The one does not have a right to initiate the use of force or fraud against his son.

If the son's labour/skill/ideas are valuable, they may offer to give him land in exchange. When the son's father dies, assuming he passed all that was his on to his son, the son would stand to inherit his 1/9th share of their communal property. If this "mutually beneficial" agreement where the son does all the work and the other eight "democratically" reap the benefits of it, no longer suits the son, he is well within his rights to take what he has earned through his own labour and what he has inherited from his father and leave the other eight to fend for themselves.

If he actually agreed to abide by building codes, then he should abide by the building codes. If the nine offered him a peice of land in exchange for something of value that he produced for them, then he can do whatever he damn well pleases with the land.

If they want him to build in a particular way, they can pay him to build in a different way or they can threaten to cease trading with him.

If you can find a peice of paper with my signature on it that says I agree to let the popular kids tell me what I can and can't do with the land I bought, you might have a case.

I read my purchase agreement very carefully, and it didn't say anything of the sort.

Show me the paper with my signature on it saying that I agree to state and city ordinances. I guaruntee you it doesn't exist.

Nonsense. Even if I were renting an apartment, it doesn't give the landlord authority to initiate force or fraud against me.

As I have signed no documents stating that I will not have sex with other men, it is not fraud for me to do so. The popular claim of sovereignty over me is invalid as I have entered no such agreement. Simply living here is not a contract.

I don't mean that, and that is not what I said. Hiring a militia to defend your land, is not an initiation of force. It is a use of force to protect you against other uses of force.

Mach

And when do supermarkets tell you via force, how you must use their product? Typically if you use a product inconsistent with their label, you forfeit the right to sue, that's your choice. The state or federal laws however, may tell you EXACTLY what you cannot do with that apple. And ignoring the laws are fine, but ignorance of the law never has been a sufficient defense on most matters. Why do you think that is.

.... trimmed responses to help save us time

So you are not aware that as a citizen you are obligated to follow the law? No really, you are or are not aware of this. Disagreeing with it is one thing. Not being aware of it, I want to read you write that so we can see how unrealistic this argument is.

You accept them by squatting in their territory. You are free to not accept them, by choice, by exiting their territory. If you want to use force to override their rightful claim, you can and violate your premise. You can also lie about "not knowing" or "I implicitly accept it by being here but will ignore it", which is fraud, again, violating your premise. They are all public record and your feigned ignorance of city/state/federal laws is just not acceptable.

If you agreed to it, it certainly would. Else, you'd be fraudulent again.

I know of no law against homosexuality, so I assumed you meant "in the public square", as having sex in public is not legal. I responded in context. And yes, the public land does have restrictions for doing such things (even solo).

Ah, there it is. Popular sovereignty is invalid because you say it is. I say it is valid. What now? Force?

It's not bad enough you leeched off the nation for your youth, and then leeched off the public lands and the market economy, in the safety afforded by public works. Even if you left today, you'd still have mooched, and if that was the normal course of things (people mooching for years then leaving) then the system would eventually evolve to force you to sign things stating exactly that, and either denying those things to you or ensuring you compensate them for it. Fortunately we live in a more efficient society that doesn't require to you to sign everything, for every action, that simply WOULD NOT WORK. Apparently we don't have a mass exodus of anarcho-libertarian types do we? They like to sit and mooch and then bitch about moochers. They don't leave because they accept it.

You ignore the laws out of choice, then oddly claim that by simply exchanging money for something, that it necessarily means there are no restrictions on the exchange. I don't recall the video making such wild claims.
That's why I have less issue with the video (since it's just a generalized ideal tutorial), and I do have issue with how people attempt to apply it to their society.

-Mach

Panache

Certainly I am aware. And if the law serves to protect against the use of force or fraud, it is a just law. If the law serves as an initiation of force or fraud it is an unjust law.

If a woman is aware that her husband is beating her, does that mean that he isn't beating her? Does it mean that she chooses to get beaten? Does it mean she has implicitly agreed to be beaten?

If the majority wants to make it illegal to do in your own home, they have the power to force you not to. Might makes right and all that.

That is fine, you say it is valid, I say it isn't. AS long as you don't initiate the use of force on me I won't initate the use of force on you and everything will be hunky dory.

Mach

OK, conditionally.

He may have told her that they needed X amount of money for their child's education and his retirement. He may have coached her on this and gotten her verbal agreement. He may have even told here "I will beat you out of uncontrolled rage if you don't abide by your verbal contract." She may have agreed to this. She may then have then spent all the money on crack, and gigilos, willingly and obviously. And maybe he shouldn't have beaten her, but God damn, maybe we can understand is reaction no? And she perpetrated fraud against him, can he not use force to enact justice? So. What now?

I don't think they do, and under U.S. law it supports minority rights against the majority. Just because sometimes it takes time and effort to correct it does not imply the system doesn't fuction as good as possible in meeting your ideal. Individual freedoms is a core of liberalism which is a very prominent and active part of many democracies. It's not margianlized at all.

But if I act on my belief, it's upheld by the agreement that you defacto agree to by remaining in the sovereign, which you can exist any time, and which is public record (not hidden), then I am by definition justified. And if that agreement grants me the right to use force against you, you agreed to it by choice.

On the other hand, if you act on YOUR belief, that it's not valid, then you have comitted fraud or used force to attack me when I attempted to use force on you, because you have violated that agreement.

Some people believe they have agreed to the law of the land by remaining there, some do not. I believe you will find it hard to justify that you don't have to accept it on personal grounds.

-Mach

Panache

Let us suppose for the moment that she is just a nice girl and he is just a jerk. Do you believe that the fact that she is free to leave the relationship justifies him beating her for no reason?

That is something I agree with. It is conceptually at odds with the notion of popular sovereignty, and the attepted union of the two in our society is hardly a smooth and cordial one.

And when individual freedoms triumph in our society it makes me very glad. I am not saying the US is the worst place on Earth, far from it. We protect individual freedoms a lot more than many other countries do. I just want that ideal to continue to grow in our society.

There are still plenty of occasions where the rights of the individual are trampled by the "collective needs" of the hive.

Eminent domain for example. Laws setencing people to jail time for letting their grass get to tall as another. Laws telling people that they aren't allowed to sell services that it is perfectly acceptable for them to perform for free. Laws telling people what herbs they are and are not allowed to consume/inhale.

And if I steal your car then it is upheld by the agreement you "defacto" agreed upon by parking it in a garge that I regularly steal cars from. "Defacto" just doesn't cut it. When we are talking about individual freedoms, we are talking about individual contracts.

The idea of a "social contract" is a nice one, but it assumes that a society is a type of "person" who can enter into a contract. In order for a society to act collectively in such a way, one must assume that an individual component of said society is in fact the property of that society. I don't buy that assumption for a minute.

That is to me the very crux of the Libertarian contention.

I did not however initiate the use of force or fraud, so no foul.