Panache

I think you have Libertarians confused with Anarchists.

Libertarians don't want to get rid of government, they just want a government that will protect individual liberties rather than restrict them.

What vital function do you believe popular soverenity serves?

Mach

Good question. Representative as opposed to direct democracy was intentional and based on evidence.

Also, what about people too young to vote, and the child/parent relationship?

-Mach

__________________
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

Mach

two primary:

Efficiency.
Human psychology.

That's like saying what vital role does a leader serve in an organization. It should be obvious. What you have is grass is greener syndrome. You sit back from the pleasant meadows provided in party by popular sovereignty, then dream about the ideal that is BETTER, which is to have all of that PLUS, the lack of other people co-ruling with you. Well, sure, and I want my cake and want to eat it too.

Individual - has dreamy freedom then immediately loses freedom to a sovereign nation that outcompetes them.

Soverign nation - have to give up some freedoms to ensure overall maximized freedoms = win

-Mach

Panache

That is a lovely soliloquy to pragmatism, but I fail to see its application. Give me a specific example by which the philosophy outlined in the video is insufficient.

new coup for you

holy crap we've all reached chapter 3 in high school modern history class: The Enlightenment.

This is why I can't stand libertarians. Your ideas aren't obscure or radical. You're not special for knowing who John Locke is. Every college freshmen in the country knows who he is.

The rest of the political world has progressed past 1800, please catch up.

We're all talking about class now. It's rad.

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

Panache

I don't recall claiming to be obscure or radical. Nor do I recall mentioning John Locke. Your contention that the ideals of individual liberty and personal responsibility are a ghost of the 1800s is unfounded.

new coup for you

I'm thinking more "we're saving America with our secret knowledge" Ron Paul cultists.

Libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the right.
Some neo-con guy wrote a great essay about it for Heritage.

Panache

And modern Liberalism is the Neo-conism of the left. That hardly speaks to the relevance of its premises though. Do you have any specific contention with regards to the video?

Mach

lol, I do believe it's the idealistic libertarian case that has not been applied in such a way that we have access to sufficient evidence to support it as viable. Do we. We do have evidence of popular sovereignty thriving in reality.

Frst, you didn't seem to agree or disagree with what I posted with regards to your question about sovereignty, you just asked a new question. Can you verbalize the reasons for your objection (if that's the case).

As to your new question, I already posed four relevant questions in the 3rd post, quid pro quo, I think they are important to lay out, else, there may be no debate. And they should be short to answer. We may already agree.

Now, your new question, I don't see how popular sovereignty is necessarily in opposition to the video. Popular sovereignty doesn't arise from mystical sources of power, in many cases it arises from agreements of choice that humans make.

-Mach

Panache

We also have evidence of tyranny thriving, non-representative democracy thriving, Imperial dictatorships thriving, etc... It isn't really relevent to whether or not popular sovereignty is strictly necessary. It is just more evidence that people like to make other people do what they want.

If I understood your post, you believe the majority are entitled to use force or fraud for their own benefit at the expense of the minority because it provides for a more efficient society.

Furthermore you believe that my ideals with regard to individual Liberty derive from the fact that I live in a society in which the majority uses the initiation of force to steal from or place limitations on the minority, and thus have no experience with a society in which force or fraud is only used to combat another initiation of force or fraud.

Popular sovereignty is exactly that. The popular of sovereignty over the unpopular.

As an example, if I own a peice of land and want to put a car that my neightbors find unsightly on it, my neighbors can get together and initiate the use of force to prevent me from putting my own car on my own land.

According to the video, they should have no right to initiate such force against me.

If I choose to engage in homosexual sex with another consenting adult, no one should have the right to initiate force in order to prevent me from doing so simply because it isn't "popular."

Sure.

I don't believe the US government is particularly ethical, no.

Not really. That is a bit of a different topic though. Even if I did, a free country is not just any country where you were "free to leave."

3. If so, what are the philosophical implications relevant to the idealistic presentation that was made?

The philosphical implication of having a reasonable amount of choice in being able to leave the U.S. and break all obligations to the society there would be that you have the option to avoid an unjust initiation of force or fraud rather than to confront it. It does not exuse the initiation of force or fraud.

If a woman is free to leave an abusive husband and break all obligations to him, does that mean that he isn't an abusive husband?

It is just to form and petition a government to protect you from the initiation of force or fraud. It is injust to form and petition a government to initiate force or fraud on your behalf. That is all there is to it.