You're right. You understand the entirety of socialist theory better than any and all socialists combined.
If you're going to critique something, actually critique it rather than a strawman.
I suppose it would blow your mind to hear that there's a communist critique of the USSR and Communist China. It shouldn't, just as it doesn't blow my mind to hear there's a capitalist critique of the US.
Birthday Pony: You're right. You understand the entirety of socialist theory better than any and all socialists combined. If you're going to critique something, actually critique it rather than a strawman. I suppose it would blow your mind to hear that there's a communist critique of the USSR and Communist China. It shouldn't, just as it doesn't blow my mind to hear there's a capitalist critique of the US.
I understand bodies on the streets, blood in the gutter, and starving children in the alleys. That tells me everything I need to know about communism. I don't care what the communists think they know of their own theory, they've proven resistant to the testament of reality itself.
Any political theory unable to look at the horrific results of its philosophy in the multitudinous places around the world where they achieved total political domination, and still refuses to abandon its obviously destructive philosophy, does not deserve respect in the slightest. It deserves outright contempt and derision.
Left libertarians are just repeating the same mistakes that Rockwell and Rothbard made with the right. Allying with a group is okay for certain issues, IDENTIFYING WITH THEM IS NOT. Stop using socialist and conservative rhetoric. Social views are irrelevant to political views, it does not change your political identity. Everyone is a "thick libertarian" by default, because everyone has values outside of libertarian theory.
What I hate the most is when I see retarded divisions and polarization within the liberty movement over stupid labels. Really? REALLY GUIZE WTF
We are not left. We are not right. We are for liberty. We are libertarians. /End of story
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
Libertyandlife: We are not left. We are not right. We are for liberty. We are libertarians. /End of story
The problem is that freedom is a middle concept. Neither too much freedom nor too little freedom can really be called a state of freedom, but rather right in the middle. The anarchists want too much freedom, want to undercut the foundation of a free society by dispensing with law and needed legal institutions needed to enforce the protection of individual rights. The rest of the world wants too little freedom, such as the US has today, a freedom within the box they allow you to survive in and little more.
Thats absurd, you can't have too much freedom. if you think those laws are necessary in the first then you must not understand the anarcho-cap argument in the first place. Which laws do you deem necessary and why?
cajaik: Thats absurd, you can't have too much freedom.
Thats absurd, you can't have too much freedom.
Too much freedom, meaning anarchy and absense of any law or institutions at all. This is what the anarchists want. But it's actually a return to tribalism. It is foolish and naive to want anarchy.
cajaik:if you think those laws are necessary in the first then you must not understand the anarcho-cap argument in the first place.
I understand their arguments; I reject them. Again, if coercion can be used both ethically and unethically, then what's proper for a government to do is use ethical coercion, ie: responsive coercion to stop aggression. What possible argument could one have that a government which only uses responsive coercion to uphold individual rights is tyrannical? It's the exactly opposite of tyranny, it's the establishment of justice.
cajaik:Which laws do you deem necessary and why?
As an essentialist (my term), I would limit the function of government to those irreducible essentials that we need a government for and cannot do without.
The first is the form of the republic--a nation ruled by a body of law and not of men (men & their whim would rule in any anarchy).
Secondly, a method of dispute resolution that allows the establishment of justice in conflicts withought resort to violence--the civil and criminal courts.
Thirdly--national defense from outside aggressors in the form of some military organization.
Personally, i like the bastiat quasi ancap paradigm wherein there is still a place in a nation for nation defense, and a justice system. Of course, the reach and power of the justice system would be pointedly limited, but i think having courts and established protocol is essential for obtaining justice in a free society, and both protection with a national defense (albeit limited due to a free society being largely protected with militias and easier access to armarments.)
While yes, of course, there could be slippery slope arguments applied here, but completely dismantling everything including the justice system and national defense would make it simply too easy for the establishment of tyranny by warlords and gangsters and the like--with or without armarments common throughout society.
First of all the fundamental basis for my anarchist beliefs are that taxes amount to nothing more than theft and are therefore wrong and unjustifiable. Having said that I think you miss the over arching argument that while your argument of minarchism or essentialism might sound decent on paper the existence of a state will always tend to corruption and crime, it is the nature of the beast, for example the USA was founded on essentially minarchist or "essentialist" grounds but look where we are now. On the topic of national defence, I don't think the state structure is necessary for national defence of course I can make the point that if there were not states there would be no need for national defence. In response most minarchists bring up the idea of the warlord but the warlord can be combatted by a militia does not require the existence of a state structure, and the worst thing a warlord could amount to is another state.
I do agree that the, as you call it, minarchist model does leave room for possible slippery slopes, as i conceded. However, the "minarchist" style is, in my opinion, the only realizable anarchistic model that could be politically insulated from power hungry forces seeking to undermine the anarchist state (or anti-state, if you will).
Furthermore, i feel like the current technological state of things, particularly militarily, enables those with superior firepower--particularly tanks, battleships, fighter jets, and so on, so have incredible power--power that no militia could not possibly resist in any way other then a prolonged and poverty inducing guerilla campaign.
Yes-- the ideal would be a global shift in awareness(--or what have you) that would enable people to realize the potential of free and voluntary association, but until there is a global shift in that direction, the only way to keep a free society insulted from destructive influences is with a national defense program of some kind. I just simply could not trust a militia to have tanks, nor could I expect militias with limited firepower to have any effectiveness against a military technology endowed interest.
Great, I love it, let's talk :)
cajaik:First of all the fundamental basis for my anarchist beliefs are that taxes amount to nothing more than theft and are therefore wrong and unjustifiable.
I agree, and I'll tell you why I agree. I agree because, in our current system, taxes are foisted on you and there's no connection between any choice of yours and taxation.
The issue is whether it needs always be like this.
In the society I propose, no one could lay any tax on you that you didn't agree to pay up-front, and you could rescind that agreement at any time. Because of this, I like to think of it more as a subscription than a tax. You would subscribe to something you felt was worth doing and paying for on a broad-societal basis.
Thus, if someone wanted to setup a city with wealth-redistribution, tax the rich and give to the poor, they would be free to do so, but they would have to convince the people being heavily taxed to stay in that paradigm, and I doubt they'd have many takers.
So, I hope you can see that if you were offered a choice, there might be some things that you would willingly put your tax money towards, like paying for national defense in the form of a military, knowing that you could pay as much as you wanted and end the payment at any time.
Choice, voluntary "taxation", are the watch-words.
For the same reasons I don't think children that reach independence should be considered automatic citizens of a jurisdiction. They should choose the jurisdiction they want to become a part of, allowing them to choose what laws they want to abide by--or even to start their own jurisdiction.
cajaik: Having said that I think you miss the over arching argument that while your argument of minarchism or essentialism might sound decent on paper the existence of a state will always tend to corruption and crime, it is the nature of the beast, for example the USA was founded on essentially minarchist or "essentialist" grounds but look where we are now.
This is why the system I propose is based on a right of political separation. A structure tends towards ossification, this is true, and towards growing power. How do we deal with this? What we really need is a way to cull political structure over time and allow organic change and growth. That's why I dispense with the concept of states and place virtually all governance at the city level, leaving a confederal entity that cannot pass laws at all, but can only enforce individual rights and ensure cities are doing the same. The entire system would be one of charter cities.
I also have another proposal to address this concern. It seems to be that the nature of the beast known as government tends to build upon its body of law. Laws get passed and stay on the books forever and become a trash heap which even more abusive laws become predicated and passed. Instead, imagine a system in which all laws expire a set number of years after their pass date. Say, five years.
This would create two excellent incentives. First, it would keep the legislature busy, re-debating old laws that are up for passing away, keeping them from becoming too clever with making tons of new laws. Secondly, it would keep the debate about first principles in everyone's mind, because there's the question of whether you pass an old law unchange or not. And I'd build in some protection to keep laws from being passed in a bundle without debate or w/e.
The problem of lobbying also becomes relatively moot when you distribute power widely like this and new jurisdiction are dying and popping up all the time. And when people can escape bad governments by choice by changing jurisdictions without changing physical locations.
cajaik:On the topic of national defence, I don't think the state structure is necessary for national defence of course I can make the point that if there were not states there would be no need for national defence. In response most minarchists bring up the idea of the warlord but the warlord can be combatted by a militia does not require the existence of a state structure, and the worst thing a warlord could amount to is another state.
I tend to agree, mostly. I think a small defensive military is adequate, leaving the citizens as a ready militia as needed. I think there needs to be flexibly room on the defense front. You dont' want to end up like Japan with no offensive military capability--even they have begun ignoring that provision of their constitution because it's irrational. And you need to leave some room for a world war scenario.
I think the best way to go about it may be to treat a war as needing a justification. In the US we pretty much let the Pres do whatever he wants. But imagine if he needed to make a case for war every time he wanted to do it, say to the supreme court. That would be a pretty significant limit, and you'd need to consider somehow snap decisions where the pres would need to take immediate action. There may be other ways too, I'm exploring the concept.
You can't really be a propertarian in any sense while not being a propertarian on land - where does any physical object originally come from if not the land? Every physical object that people buy, sell, and own is land mixed with labor, which may or may not be in a portable form.