so we all say how we need to educate people but how many of us actually do it?
this might not be that great but I've made some people think about Obama's policies, linked to krugmandebate and engaged with democrats today. i felt good because some people today told me they had never heard of the NDAA, extension of the patriot act, kill list, obama's economic policies.
on the other hand, i could use some help with this channel mainly shitting on austrian economics (and peter schiff)
http://www.youtube.com/user/SchittReport
I remember subscribing to that channel for the comic relief.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I woke up today.
@ Daniel Muffinburg
How could you stand it? It's probably Cenk Ugyur in disguise.
so you guys do nothing and expect to change the world?
Ultimately, I think this is a war of ideas - a propaganda war. It will be won by changing people's minds. Today, I've spent a lot of time on Twitter and YouTube just trying to spread our message. It was watching debates between a well-informed libertarian-leaning economics professor and a crowd of socialist students that ultimately converted me from socialist to libertarian, so I'm hoping to spread the message along the same lines - by engaging in debate with the hardcore statists, in the hopes of winning over those open-minded people on the fence.
I'm writing and trying to publish short stories and novels from a libertarian perspective. And also will move to a seastead asap.
I think education / informing people is needed, certainly, but it can be really effective when combined with actions and events that force the issue.
For instance, the Repub party may very well self-destruct in the next decade or so, and libertarians could find positions of influence in a realigned party after all the republican statists bail and become democrats in the wake of a failed repub party.
On the seastead front, a viable and existing seastead will mean people take a second look at libertarian ideas now that they're embodied rather than theory.
The biggest comeback I get talking to people about libertarian ideas is that they think they are somehow naive or pie-in-the-sky and never gonna happen. When we can take that excuse away from them via an existing liebrtarian social-structure, change can begin to snowball.
my LvMI hoodie and a gold watch i ordered came in today!
I also talk about related issues every chance i get and ive never get a bad response. For example i was at Wal-Mart today and i bought a couple of track suits for $60 and i told the cashier how awesome wal-mart is because like all track suits online cost 80-100$ a piece. Then i told her i wish there were more wal-mart that drove all these other over priced businesses out of business. The employee looked at me like i was crazy, and i told i was serious that i want all these small businesses that cannot provide goods and services as well as wal-mart to go belly up and file for bankruptcy.
the employee (probably an obama supporter) looked at me and 'so you dont think wal-mart makes too much money? how can you say it is good that wal-mart forces smaller companies to go out of business?!" (great loyalty btw)
so i told her last fiscal year walmart made like $444 billion in revenue (i was going off the top of my head, but i think this is the number i read it a few weeks ago) providing goods much cheaper than everyone else. These tracks suits are like 120% cheaper than Wal-Mart's competition. I only have to work less than half the time now to buy this suit. (i pull out my calculator) Lets say wal-mart provides goods on average of 30% cheaper than their competition. That means wal-mart has saved their customers $133,000,000,000 last year alone. The average annual salary of all Americans is about $30,000 a year so using that number Wal-Mart gave their customers over 4.4 million years of life back to them to do what they want with. And thats just last fiscal year! That means Wal-Marts customers got to spend 4.4 million more years with their families, working towards christmas gifts, paying for health care, buying video games, owning a home, going on vacation, or staring at a wall whatever they want want to do with their 4.4 million years is up to them. Isnt that awesome? and on top of doing ALL of that they personally employee 2.2 million jobs where the next closest company in the world employs 700,000 people less. Not to mention the 10s or maybe even 100 millions of jobs that sell there products through wal-mart.
she was delightful after hearing that and said wow never even thought of it that way. kind of makes me proud to work here!
(i had read wal-marts employee stats and total revenue a few weeks ago so thats how i knew those numbers)
Have you ever read Why You Should Quit Politics on Lew Rockwell? It's pretty true. Not every liberty-minded person is a liberty activist.
I told my mom that Wal-Mart cashiers should be paid at whatever is appropriate in the market place. lol.
Great job, Grant!
@ Grant: Need to get that on film, yo.
i wrote a letter on why government funded hosbitals should should shut down and stop payments and life support and let current clients die
Right now I'm writing a short story that I plan on publishing in a literary magazine. The story is somewhat libertarian-themed. I plan on submitting it to the New Yorker.
EDIT
I'm also working on a novel for the 50,000 words contest, that is, again, somewhat libertarian-themed.
Wheylous: so you guys do nothing and expect to change the world? Have you ever read Why You Should Quit Politics on Lew Rockwell? It's pretty true. Not every liberty-minded person is a liberty activist.
cab21: i wrote a letter on why government funded hosbitals should should shut down and stop payments and life support and let current clients die
Har har. The question isn't whether people should be allowed to die but whether it's ethical to force others to pay for maintenance of others lives.
No, I only do something in my own self interest and expect to only change what's in my own self interest.
Did cab21 go back to trolling? :P
people that don't want to pay would not longer pay under the event of stopping all opperation imediatly. any contract with government involvement can be instantly nullified.
cab21: people that don't want to pay would not longer pay under the event of stopping all opperation imediatly. any contract with government involvement can be instantly nullified.
The question of how one would transition away from our current system is completely different from whether our current system is just.
Of course simply ending welfare would cause mass disruption. That might not be the way to go, even if it would be the most ethical way.
Probably, more likley, you'd let people take whatever voluntary option they wanted. Those who wanted to remain giving and receiving benefits could be sectioned off into a private mutual aid company, of national scale perhaps, and live within the confines of that system, using voluntary payments.
And those who want to opt out and stop being forced to pay would be able to do that, without any guarantee of mutual aid.
That would be a just and workable system.
It would be just going forward, but is unjust towards people who contributed a lot to the system during their lifetime, via taxes or otherwise, and now, when they became old or sick, hope to receive some of their contribution back. I do not think auctioning off all the govrnment's property will cover this debt (at least, not in all countries). One may say it's their fault to trust the government, but inmost cases they were forced to participate. Having said that, I do not know, what IS a just way out. Maybe there is none, as the original thieves already spent the stolen wealth, and are dead anyway.
Andris Birkmanis: That would be a just and workable system. It would be just going forward, but is unjust towards people who contributed a lot to the system during their lifetime, via taxes or otherwise, and now, when they became old or sick, hope to receive some of their contribution back. I do not think auctioning off all the govrnment's property will cover this debt (at least, not in all countries). One may say it's their fault to trust the government, but inmost cases they were forced to participate. Having said that, I do not know, what IS a just way out. Maybe there is none, as the original thieves already spent the stolen wealth, and are dead anyway.
It would be unjust perhaps in the sense that these people innocently and willingly trusted the promises of liars and thieves. But their paying into the system is much like the T-bill holder's buying a share of the ill-gotten goods of taxation receipts. By paying into the system, welfare and SS, etc., citizens expected to receive their share of ill-gotten goods in due course. Just as the government bond-holder expects to be repaid.
It would not be unjust to take away that unjust expectation built on an unjust mechanism, of taxation. Rothbard uses the same argument to show why nullifying public debt would not be unjust to bondholders--because they're essentially buying a share of the proceeds from robbery which is unjust in the first place. Similarly it would not be wrong to take away a man's slaves and not compensate him for lost property, as slavery is innately wrong.
But your point is taken and in actual practice we'd want to ease transition. If we ever got a chance to remake the system, it would make a good deal of sense to sell off government assets and try to pay back people for what they've paid into the system, especially those currently relying on that promise to pay and those just about to.
But from there, the system would have to be allowed to wither on the vine, and the unjust appropriation of funds via taxation ended once and for all, to be replaced by the voluntary system of mutual aid I laid out previously.
wrote a amendment to the constituton
Article. VI.
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
change this to
all depts and contracts, including this constitution, are nullified, start over
will be interesting to see how people fare with renegotiated contracts or having to find other people to contract with. the invisable hand can work it's magic.
if the state just nullifies it existance, it will be a good test for free market private courts.
But their paying into the system is much like the T-bill holder's buying a share of the ill-gotten goods of taxation receipts.
Not really. In most cases the payments were not voluntary. Even in capitalistic countries the payments of "social" taxes were forced, but in socialistic countries the people were not even given (most of) their money in the first place. The party told you where to work, how much to get for that, and even if you managed to save, "denominations" and defaults made sure noone had any wealth in cash or bonds by the time regimes crashed. And any kind of investment was illegal for most of the time.
Ok, I realize most people on the forum care about the US first, but as I said, even in the US the payments were not voluntary.
Andris Birkmanis: But their paying into the system is much like the T-bill holder's buying a share of the ill-gotten goods of taxation receipts. Not really. In most cases the payments were not voluntary. Even in capitalistic countries the payments of "social" taxes were forced, but in socialistic countries the people were not even given (most of) their money in the first place. The party told you where to work, how much to get for that, and even if you managed to save, "denominations" and defaults made sure noone had any wealth in cash or bonds by the time regimes crashed. And any kind of investment was illegal for most of the time. Ok, I realize most people on the forum care about the US first, but as I said, even in the US the payments were not voluntary.
True enough, which makes a good case for liquidating state assets to pay them off for value stolen.
One of the best articles on I've ever seen on LRC!
Why anarchy fails