Or Canada or Mexico. Both my parents got laser eye surgery up in Canada.
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Why Aren't you a Libertarian?
- Thread starter Nakosis
- Start date
The point is, royal governments started out as private land/business owners who became so rich and powerful that they simply became governments by default (because there was no other government powerful enough to stop them). They have a similar mentality as the wealthy in this country, who believe that they're in the position they're in for reasons other than dumb luck.
I've never had a government point guns at me or try to draft me. Although, I have run into quite a few privately-employed security guards who appeared a bit power drunk. Not to mention being threatened by punks who claimed to be "connected" to some private sector entity who felt they were above the law (although they were likely bluffing).
As for taxes, all I can say is that I pay far less for government services than I do to the private sector for goods and services which could just as easily be distributed by government (at lower cost). Health insurance and healthcare is a prime example, but there's also housing, transportation, utilities, and other such products which would be considerably cheaper if not for so many private sector "middlemen" sticking their hands in the pot. All those CEOs have to get their 7- to 8-figure salaries (or higher), while government employees earn considerably less money and have no incentive to gouge the public.
I don't like it any more than you do, but many in the business community seem to believe that America has enemies all over the world and that we need to be defended from them. Many of our biggest war hawks are/were staunch anti-communists who felt threatened by all these boogiemen around the world. But they never sent their own sons to do the fighting; they were content to leave that to the poor and disadvantaged.
Somehow, organized crime still became powerful enough to operate with impunity to the point where they became a de facto shadow government in many urban areas. I would consider most political machines and corporate bodies to be in the same category, and there's a reason why "banksters" is a popular play on words sounding like "gangsters." It doesn't matter what party they associate with, since they control the game from both sides. As Boss Tweed once put it, "I don't care who does the electing, I just want to do the nominating."
Local governments have very little power relative to the power of state governments.
Although, this has been a serious bone of contention among the political parties, at least as far as the issue of states' rights is concerned. I do find it ironic that many of those who are big advocates for states' rights say they want the federal government to give states more autonomy, but they don't extend that same philosophy to state governments giving more autonomy to county and municipal governments. All they really want is for the federal government to allow state governments to be able to act like tinpot dictators in their own private fiefdoms.
Most of the electorate are hapless and ignorant, easily manipulated by propagandists in the media (which are also privately-owned entities and controlled by monied private sector interests). Most of the warhawks crow about "defending American interests," which translates to private businesses earning profit. It's what drives our policies in Latin America (e.g. United Fruit), the Middle East (big oil), and elsewhere around the world. All throughout the Cold War, they spoke loudly and stridently about how international communism was such a grave threat, but it was no threat at all (except to organized crime and other highly-placed aristocrats and royal families).
How do you feel about labor unions? They're private sector entities exercising their right of association. What about consumer unions, tenants unions, and similar groups of little guys banding together for their own interests?
A government is simply the politico-legal aspect of the society in which you live in. If you wish to live in a society or community, you have to live by the rules of that community (you will have your say in those rules, but one say among many others). If you don't want to live in a community, renounce the world and become an ascetic in a mountain. Those are your options.
You could renounce your country and seek citizenship in another country. Many do. But then, you are simply switching one community with another..the constraints stay the same..you will have to follow the rules and obligations laid down by that other community.
You are obliged to everyone and everything that makes it possible for you to live the life that you do. You speak a language that comes from a community, you use ideas invented by a community, you use stuff made by the community...you contribution to the identity that is "you" is quite miniscule. You are simply a "new mash-up" of all the various cultural, social, ideological, ethical and material elements that are jointly invented and created by the human community over countless generation. Your identity and your existence is in complete and total dependence to all the ones that has gone before and all the one that exists around you. So no, you do not own very much....its more of a lease...given to you ideally from life to death...but it could be forfeit under certain emergency circumstances or if you break the commonly agreed upon constraints and obligations.
For my part, I have no "I" so to say....what I am is simply an unique and hopefully useful manifestation of "we". I consider myself as one note in a symphony, or one node in a network....and I value myself in terms of how much I can contribute to this "we"...which includes not only my near and dear community (family, country etc.) but also to this entire civilizational endeveour and ultimately to this adventure called "life" that has evolved on earth...from that first prokaryote to whatever future lives there could be. Thus my individual identity is entirely as a member of the many communities to which I belong (scientist, family man, Hindu, Indian, human, living thing on this planet). Without these, there is no individual identity that exists.
None of this means that one cannot dissent loudly and forcefully from popular opinion. But when one is a dissenter, and believes that her cause is just and good...she must also accept the censure or punishment that such dissent brings...particularly in a democracy. Many activists have been jailed or endured even worse tribulations for dissenting from what their community considers right at that point of time. But the point of trying to reform society is nullified if one disregards its current constututional edicts because it has become inconvenient.
I can say no more than what Socrates told to Crito,
Soc. Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreedupon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another, when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the premise of our agreement? Or do you decline and dissent from this? For this has been of old and is still my opinion; but, if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.
Soc. Then consider the matter in this way: Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: "Tell us, Socrates," they say; "what are you about? are you going by an act of yours to overturn us- the laws and the whole State, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and overthrown by individuals?" What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which requires a sentence to becarried out; and we might reply, "Yes; but the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence." Suppose I say that?
Soc. Then the laws will say: "Consider, Socrates, if this is true, that in your present attempt you are going to do us wrong. For, after having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good that we had to give, we further proclaim and give the right to every Athenian, that if he does not like us when he has come of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him; and none of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and the city, and who wants to go to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, and take his goods with him. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong: first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his education; thirdly,because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are wrong; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us; that is what we offer and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above all other Athenians.
And first of all answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true or not?" How shall we answer that, Crito? Must we not agree?
Cr. There is no help, Socrates.
Soc. Then will they not say: "You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but having had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, which you often praise for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign State. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the State, or, in other words, of us her laws (for who would like a State that has no laws?), that you never stirred out of her: the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito."
This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you will say will be in vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
Define "harm."
And consider being the first libertarian iin this thread to respond to my post about company towns.
Because the cost for care of serious conditions is often overwhelming for one person, but manageable when it's pooled.
Because having a single entity purchasing all the health care services allows for negotiation strength and economies of scale that would be impossible for an individual, so the same quality of health care will be cheaper.
Because health care often deals with life-or-death situations, so a laissez-faire approach will often lead to situations where individuals can be coerced.
Because there are tremendous barriers to entry in the health care field, so if it was left to market forces alone, it would often result in monopolies and other market inefficiencies.
Because the typical American system of attaching health insurance to a person's employment can make them less free to leave the job they have for one they want more.
... but to get back to my question: I take it that you're opposed to universal health care. How do you reconcile this with a "pro-freedom" position? Is the freedom to choose between watching your child die of cancer and living with crushing debt for the rest of your life the sort of "freedom" you're after? Personally, I think there's more freedom in another option: paying an affordable amount all the time to have health care when you need it.
But all that is without libertarians in charge. I expect that many libertarians would want to get rid of that government "interference" in the free market.
On that...
What would stop this in the system you support?
I take it that you agree that private ownership of military weapons (at least small arms, anyway) should be legal, as well as allowing people to organize themselves into private militias... so is there anything that would stop, say, a company from putting an enforceable clause in an agreement saying "as a condition of this job/tenancy/vital service/assuming your debt/etc., you agree to perform military service in my private militia when we direct you to do so?" Anything?
Relying just on market forces likely wouldn't work; it was common throughout history for landlords to draft their tenants, so apparently the market will sometimes support the practice. It was regulation, not market forces, that stopped it.
So what mechanism do you suggest to prevent this?
That's a lot to respond to.
I'll pick the union question.
Treat unions the same as business....
- Allow their formation
- No law giving neither unbalanced power over the other.
- Prevent monopolies
As for which has the greater power to pose a danger to us, we'll
have to agree to disagree whether it's government or business.
Your experience & mine differ too greatly.
I'm an expert in landlording. I can say with certainty
that we've no power to draft anyone in any of the states.
And the Libertarian Party would oppose changing that.
We also oppose government having that power.
... so far.
It would? By what means? Does it propose to limit the ability to enter into agreements or the ability of private individuals to arm themselves?
To steer the country in a more libertarian direction.
I'll guarantee that we'd never gain such popularity that we'd
ever create a wholly libertarian society.
Even non-Libertarians often agree with some of our goals, eg,
less foreign military adventurism, lower taxes, legalized weed,
no excessive punishment for crimes.
We oppose the military draft.
A private sector draft isn't even a remote possibility.
This is simple.
So I don't know what you're really arguing about.
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
... and most conservatives are small minded, selfish wowsers and bigots pretending to be conservatives.
In other words, we can’t sell it, but give us power anyway.
Nice how Libertarians claim for themselves noble aspirations that have existed in other groups for long before there were ever Libertarians.
That's an odd inference.
Instead, just ask yourself....
Does the party platform have any policies which you'd like to
see compete with the Big Two?
Does the platform appeal to you more than the other parties'?
We know that for most people, the answers will be a resounding "No!".
But this is true for all third parties. Nonetheless, we seek to influence.
I don't claim originality or exclusivity for any item on our platform.
Tis only that our mix of policies suits us classical liberals.
One cannot go to Dems or Pubs for an agenda of such extensive
social and economic liberty
Jollybear
Hey
Why become a libertarian? Because we need support in order to produce a working example of a society based on its principles.
It's not a possibility because of laws that prohibit private armies and that prohibit unreasonable terms in various types of contracts. Your party would remove a lot if the limitations on how two parties can contract with each other, right?
Of course, libertarians wouldn't call it a draft, because there's an agreement. Quite possibly a coerced agreement, but still an agreement.
If you're actually arguing that we favor forced servitude
(a violation of the 13th Amendment), you're wrong.
We oppose that....unlike Democrats & Republicans.
Cart before the horse thinking. If Libertarian principles worked, they would manifest themselves first, then the voters would follow in due course. But Libertarian principles haven’t mainfestly demonstrated that they work, not in the many decades since the party was founded. Blaming the market (the voters) for not buying the product the erstwhile producers wants to sell (the Libertarians) is wrong. For all the talking Libertarians do about free markets you would think they would “get it”, but they don’t seem to.
At this point I'm not sure what you support. I'm asking if you would support coerced servitude... e.g. where the person agrees to serve as needed, but only because it was a condition of getting a job, getting a place to live, getting rid of a major debt, etc.