Is to convince Hispanics of the evils and errors of socialism. No! Don't hit the Back button-please hear me out! From my understanding, there is a ferocious, yet imperfect(and I'm hoping malleable) streak of collectivist philosophy deeply embedded in the psyche of the young Latino male. You can tell from their support of Chavez, to apologizing for Castro's regime to the deification of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.
(Per the last case, I am convinced that this is not an explicit internalization of communist ideology and more along the lines of youthful rebellion... Latin style)
So I'm looking for translations into Spanish of the beginners' Libertarian texts. I think it would be very profitable indeed if we filled our libraries and schools with these translations. Not to mention the churches, community centers and streets.
Your thoughts?
ChicagoIllinois:Your thoughts?
I'm not sure that's THE solution, but I certainly wouldn't be against spreading more Spanish-language texts of libertarian books.
The problem is not collectivist hispanics, but collectivists in general. I'm with Walter Block on this, I just don't think people are wired to understand implicit cooperation. A few get it, most don't, and likely never will, hispanic or not.
Yeah, it's not "the" or ''a" solution. The title is not anything for that matter, it was just an attention getter :)
xahrx:The problem is not collectivist hispanics, but collectivists in general. I'm with Walter Block on this, I just don't think people are wired to understand implicit cooperation. A few get it, most don't, and likely never will, hispanic or not.
In my senior year of high school I campaigned for Ralph Nader.
In my freshman year I watched, and was wholeheartedly convinced, by Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine.
In my sophomore year I was a pamphleteer for the campus recycling movement.
All through my undergrad days I believed that global warming was a valid ecological problem. I avoided Wal-Mart because an indie media tract told me they created pollution...
A year after I earned my B.Sc. I picked up Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics and it changed my life(but not without a large measure of resistance.)
I don't believe, for a second, that people out there are just can't understand free markets and the value of government coercion strictly confined to the rule of law. I am living proof that a mind can be changed for the better
ChicagoIllinois:I don't believe, for a second, that people out there are just can't understand free markets and the value of government coercion strictly confined to the rule of law. I am living proof that a mind can be changed for the better
I did allow for a few who can get it. However it requires a modest amount of intelligence to understand the cooperation implicit in markets, and the simple truth of the bell curve is that most people are of average or below average intelligence. And they all vote.
In a way you have a point....we need to educate new immigrants about The American Republic and why it's good and essential to sound govt. and freedom. However, all of us need to be convinced that in any sound govt. our laws need to be enforced and our representatives need vote in the best interests of their citizens !!
Jim E.
macsnafu: ChicagoIllinois:Your thoughts? I'm not sure that's THE solution, but I certainly wouldn't be against spreading more Spanish-language texts of libertarian books.
The Cato Institute has a number of websites spreading free-market ideals in many languages including Spanish.
Their Spanish site is:
http://www.elcato.org/
A list of all their international and non-English sites is here:
http://www.cato.org/foreign/index.html
The International Society for Individual Liberty also has Spanish language leaflets.
I am an eklektarchist not an anarchist.
Educational Pamphlet Mises Group
I'm certainly for the spread of more libertarian texts to Spanish, among all languages, including English (Mises spoke German, after all). It's a little preposterous however to think that a streak of collectivist philosophy is deeply embedded in the psyche of the young whatever population, any more than say other earthlings in general. Let's not forget, von Mises' mother tongue is German . . . I don't need to mention what kind of psyche the German speakers were presumed to have in the 1930's. Von Mises probably spent a few days in the "enemy civilian" detention centers when he immigrated to the UK then the US.
In any case, back to the young Latino male, in case it's not obvious, Chavez supporters are mostly in Venezuela not in the US (in fact, even in Venezuela, the college students are in the forefront of the opposition to Chavez), the Cubans in the US are "virulently" (for lack of a better word) anti-Castro, and "Che" is far more popular among the left-leaning anglo whites in the US than among Latino Americans. Let's not forget, even as "Che" was holed up in a cabin plotting "revolutionary raids" to get his medicine (was it diabetese?), and the anglo white youths in the US were chanting their support for "Che" . . . it was a group of Latino militia men in Bolivia that hunted down and killed "Che," with the help of some CIA agents who spoke fluent spanish.
The quickest way to alienate an ethnic group is presume them to be inferior. Considering that we libertarians are polling only 7% or so in primaries, we certainly can't afford to alienate anyone who has a chance of joining in our cause. Those who have bothered to pull themselves together and move thousands of miles in search of better opportunity are certainly far more likely to be individualists than those who have stayed home and never left the state safety net.
xahrx: I did allow for a few who can get it. However it requires a modest amount of intelligence to understand the cooperation implicit in markets, and the simple truth of the bell curve is that most people are of average or below average intelligence. And they all vote.
It doesn't take above-average intelligence to understand the cooperation implicit in markets. That's why freedom is a universal desire. On the other hand, our current public education system is quite adept at suppressing the basic human instinct for freedom . . . dressing up the repression in all sorts of flowery languages of socialism and nationalism (the two basic pillars of collectivism).
jimeckland:However, all of us need to be convinced that in any sound govt. our laws need to be enforced and our representatives need vote in the best interests of their citizens !!
On the other hand, any freedom-loving people also need to understand that law-making in a free society has to be about the minimum set laws, not prohibitionist laws that create "crimes" out of victimless behavior.
The mass colonization of hispanics to the virtue of limited government exposes just what Americans fear when they claim that hispanics are coming for the welfare system. The problem is not so much that they are consuming welfare, the problem is that they are going to take control of the political system as they grow in number and thus impose more welfare government. This is an expropriation of the government from the hands of American citizens, and this problem must be examined separately from that of labor competition, which dominates the debate on free immigration.
Because the idea of one-man one-vote is unchallengeable in the political debate, conservatives have fallen back on economic arguments against free immigration. Were property rights protected, the problem of excluding foreigners from local communities would be solved, and social tensions would be largely diminished. What would remain would be that Americans and hispanics would still be forced to associate politically, and that problem cannot be resolved under a democratic system. So long as the democratic system is in place, open immigration cannot be supported.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Stranger:the problem is that they are going to take control of the political system as they grow in number and thus impose more welfare government.
In case it's not obvious, the last time Hispanic votes influenced a presidential election, they were voting for a man who was running on smaller government, just like the rest of us libertarians who bothered to vote (how many libertarians voted for Gore?) If not for Hispanics (Cuban Americans) in Florida protesting and blockading the recount office, the southern Florida recount would have taken place, and Gore would have been president. Now, W turned out to be a terrible president, but how many libertarians would have preferred Gore over Bush based on their 2000 campaign pledges?
Stranger:So long as the democratic system is in place, open immigration cannot be supported.
That's as silly as saying "so long as there is a democratic system, reducing taxes cannot be supported." You know, borders do not close themselves; bureacrats have to be paid to patrol the borders, bureacrats have to be paid to run national ID systems, and bureacrats have to be paid to run employability verifications, and bureacrats have to be paid big times to run raids on private businesses and private homes to stamp out the "smuggling." It's ironic that a country that started off with tea smugglers and tax resistors now have self-proclaimed believers in that spirity of liberty advocating having the government to enforce a feudal system that attaches individuals to the land.
Mises observed long time ago that government interventions inevitably lead to failures in the market place; the solution to that is not new interventions to correct the "side-effects" of the old one, but abolishing the first intervention to begin with. BTW, if you have no faith in that your own political credo can make new converts out of non-believers, it would mean that you have a morally bankrupt and hopeless credo.
JimS:BTW, if you have no faith in that your own political credo can make new converts out of non-believers, it would mean that you have a morally bankrupt and hopeless credo.
I for one certainly don't believe that 100% of the people can be educated to reason. Only a slim minority of people are educable, maybe less than 5% of the population. The rest only follow leaders.
This is why democracy is so dangerous, particularly if the people massively immigrating into a democratic state have an even lower level of education than the locals.
Stranger:Only a slim minority of people are educable, maybe less than 5% of the population.
If you truely believe that less than 5% is "educable," you shouldn't be a believer of libertarianism at all. What would enable the less than 5% to rule the remaining 95+% would be some kind of extreme caste system enforced through government sanctioned violence against the overwhelming majority. There is no way even a constitutional republic would be able to enforce a system that make 95+% of the population having no say in politics. Even in the Indian caste system, the ruling top two castes constituted much much more than 5% of the population. The ruling and voting class of Sparta was more than 5%, even with all women ineligible to vote. The ruling white minoriy in apartheid South Africa was more than 5%. You vision is quite a hopeless situation.
Luckily, people in general are actually quite educatable, and most people are born with a natural yearning for freedom and liberty.
Stranger:particularly if the people massively immigrating into a democratic state have an even lower level of education than the locals.
If the local public education agenda is consisted of turning 95+% of the population into sheeples and worship the less than 5% feudal overlords, then I suppose having a lot of new comers, especially stateless individualists who have a track record of thinking for themselves and voting with their feet, would indeed be dangerous to the existing feudal order.
Byzantine:Most Hispanics are not Cuban, and they vote Democrat and for ethnic identity politics very strongly (as do the Cubans, actually).
They vote whichever party that does not virulently discriminate against them, just like all immigrants in the US history. German, Irish, Italian immigrants all voted overwhelmingly against the parties that embodied nativism.
Byzantine: Which, in the end, is fine with me when the US finally breaks up along its ethnic and cultural lines and we can reverse the 200 year process of centralization. God grant this inevitable break-up is peacable and not violent when the Reconquistas decide the gringos owe them more water. The other alternative is the conversion of these groups to secular democracy, in which event I suggest you learn to live with the US hegemon a long, long time
Which, in the end, is fine with me when the US finally breaks up along its ethnic and cultural lines and we can reverse the 200 year process of centralization. God grant this inevitable break-up is peacable and not violent when the Reconquistas decide the gringos owe them more water. The other alternative is the conversion of these groups to secular democracy, in which event I suggest you learn to live with the US hegemon a long, long time
The third, and most probable, outcome would be the one that truely follow the Anglo-American tradition: voluntary economic integration without politicaly enforced integration or apartheid. When Voltair was exiled to London from a turbulent France, he observed that there was a most miraculous phenomenom happening in London: Christians, Jews and "Mahamedians" peacefully traded with each other in the exchanges during the work hours without any regard to each other's religion, yet when the bell sounded for the market close at the end of the day, each trader would retire to his own church, synogogue or temple without the least of care what altar everyone else worshipped . . . that in stark contrast to a continental Europe that wrapped itself in waves of bloodshed between Caholics vs. Protestants, Aristocrats vs. Plebians, religious vs. religiously atheistic, haves vs. have-nots. That's what enable England, a place of but 1/10 of the population of that of Europe as a whole (and even less in geographic area) to effectively rule supreme over not just all Europe, but practically the entirely planet.
JimS: If you truely believe that less than 5% is "educable," you shouldn't be a believer of libertarianism at all. What would enable the less than 5% to rule the remaining 95+% would be some kind of extreme caste system enforced through government sanctioned violence against the overwhelming majority.
If you truely believe that less than 5% is "educable," you shouldn't be a believer of libertarianism at all. What would enable the less than 5% to rule the remaining 95+% would be some kind of extreme caste system enforced through government sanctioned violence against the overwhelming majority.
Right now the less than 0.1% rule the remaining 99.9% through elections where the candidates and process are picked by the people already elected.
If we can get the educable people to stop consenting to this mad system and establish a truly competitive system of government, there is hope for the rest of the people.
JimS: When Voltair was exiled to London from a turbulent France, he observed that there was a most miraculous phenomenom happening in London: Christians, Jews and "Mahamedians" peacefully traded with each other in the exchanges during the work hours without any regard to each other's religion, yet when the bell sounded for the market close at the end of the day, each trader would retire to his own church, synogogue or temple without the least of care what altar everyone else worshipped .
When Voltaire was exiled to London, England was not a democracy.
I liked this little video of Julian L. Simon owning Peter Brimelow on immigration. I haven't heard of PB either, although I like to dip bananas in it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIpPptrJa9A
Stranger: Right now the less than 0.1% rule the remaining 99.9% through elections where the candidates and process are picked by the people already elected.
In that case, you do't have to worry about immigrants at all. If popular votes don't matter, what do you care even if 99% of that 99.9% are morons. You can't have it both ways. Either votes matter or they don't. If votes do matter, then we have to base our politics on more than appealing to less than 5% of the people; if votes don't matter, then votes from immigrants is not even an issue.
Stranger: If we can get the educable people to stop consenting to this mad system and establish a truly competitive system of government, there is hope for the rest of the people.
A truly competitive political system can not possibly be built upon a kafakanesque bureacratic feudal system that tie people to the land of their births. It would be as silly as trying to build a free competitive automobile market by banning all imports; that would be an oxymoron.
Stranger:When Voltaire was exiled to London, England was not a democracy.
Nor do we have a pure democracy in the US even today. What's your point? Voltaire's discovery was in stark contrast to Byzantine's assertion that a society can only hold together through monoculture. England was very prosperous because it had the capacity to accommodate talented men of all sorts of backgrounds . . . whereas Continental European states were being torn to shreds because the various sovereigns tried to enforce monoculture.
Perhaps there should be a screening test that keeps out European racists who want to immigrate to the US, such as Brimelow himself :-)
JimS: In that case, you do't have to worry about immigrants at all. If popular votes don't matter, what do you care even if 99% of that 99.9% are morons. You can't have it both ways. Either votes matter or they don't. If votes do matter, then we have to base our politics on more than appealing to less than 5% of the people; if votes don't matter, then votes from immigrants is not even an issue.
Votes do matter, a lot, at enabling political power. They don't in any way protect liberty. which is why we have to get the educable people to reject voting before too much power has been enabled.
JimS: A truly competitive political system can not possibly be built upon a kafakanesque bureacratic feudal system that tie people to the land of their births. It would be as silly as trying to build a free competitive automobile market by banning all imports; that would be an oxymoron.
That is a purely fantastical strawman argument.
Stranger: Votes do matter, a lot, at enabling political power. They don't in any way protect liberty. which is why we have to get the educable people to reject voting before too much power has been enabled.
The first sentence in your paragraph debunked your earlier assertion that 0.1% of the population has all the political power and the remaining 99.9% have none. The last sentence in your paragraph sounds eerily familiar if you read Lenin's writings and speeches: the "consciece" proletariat workers should have full control over the masses of "unconscience" peasants even though the workers only account for a tiny minority of the population; how to go about it? weighted votes and strip peasants of their votes . . . all through state sanctioned violence of course.
Stranger: That is a purely fantastical strawman argument.
It is not at all. When you really think about the practical ramifications of your policy proposal: people can not move away from the country of their of birth, and that political power should be concentrated in the hands of less than 5% of the population . . . after stripping away all the flowery languages of "educable," "political conscience/leading-edge" or "divine authority," what you end up with is dark age feudalism, with less than 5% feudal lords ruling over 95+% serfs and chattels. Neither the midieval knights nor the communist leaders considered themselves thugs who specialized in butchering fellow human beings, but that's exactly what they were in order to have a system where less than 5% have exclusive political power over the remaining 95+% and the serfs and chattels are not allowed to vote with their feet, at pain of death. The whole way of thinking is totally anathema to libertarianism, which is based on the fundamental assumption that individuals are capable of being rational thinkers, at least for his or her own benefit.
JimS:When you really think about the practical ramifications of your policy proposal: people can not move away from the country of their of birth, and that political power should be concentrated in the hands of less than 5% of the population .
Once again, this is pure invention on your part.
Stranger:Once again, this is pure invention on your part.
Really? Which part?
Did you or did you not suggest that political power should be concentrated into the hands of the less than 5% "educable"?
Are you or are you not against allowing voluntary population migration?
Is this the inquisition? I stand by my words. If you think your interpretation is valid, you have to provide your own argumentation.
Stranger: Is this the inquisition? I stand by my words. If you think your interpretation is valid, you have to provide your own argumentation.
Feudalistic Inquisition is what you will end up with if you insist on judging people based on their origin and "educability." Which part of your words are you standing by? The part where you advocate that political power should be concentrated into the hands of less than 5% of the population, or the part about government sanctioned violence should be used against voluntary population migration?
If you want to refer to my words, you ought to use direct quotations instead of your fabrications. Obfuscating the truth is not going to win you any arguments.
Stranger: If you want to refer to my words, you ought to use direct quotations instead of your fabrications. Obfuscating the truth is not going to win you any arguments.
You are the one obfuscating. You did not put your words into concise terms, so direct quote would be quoting multiple paragraphs from several different posts, making the debate quite unwieldy. If you don't like my summary of your thesis, please let me know how such summary is substantively different from your thesis:
1. You argued that:
(a) less than 5% of the population is "educable"
(b) the remaining 95+% are sheeples/followers, and therefore they should not have the vote or any say in politics
Am I missing anything in summarising your position on this topic?
2. On the second topic of immigraiton, you are against it and think government should have laws and enforce such laws against it. How is that position any different from my summary that you are against voluntary population migration?
In case it's still not clear to you, an advocacy that "a nation should follow the leadership of a wise leader without second-guessing him" is no different from advocating dictatorship under "Furherprincipe." The former is dressed up in flowery language (i.e. obfuscating), and the latter is a concise summary of facts and ramifications.
If my words are so obfuscated, why are you so confident in your interpretations of them? Do you want me to be guilty of the worst thought-crime?
Thought crime? Nah, that charge only exists in a feudalistic/totalitarian political system. On the other hand, I'm still all ears if you can tell me what substantive difference is there between your position and my summary of your position, after cutting through all the flowery obfuscation. I'm quite confident with regard to my ability to cut through obfuscations that usually come with totalitarian ideas . . . people knowledgeble in Austrian economics are often quite good at seeing through such nonsense and getting a good grasp of the practical ramifications of such policy proposals . . . after all, Hayek authored Road to Serfdom more than half a century ago. So tell me, what did I miss, in substantive terms, in my summary?
JimS:I'm quite confident with regard to my ability to cut through obfuscations that usually come with totalitarian ideas . . . people knowledgeble in Austrian economics are often quite good at seeing through such nonsense and getting a good grasp of the practical ramifications of such policy proposals . . . after all, Hayek authored Road to Serfdom more than half a century ago. So tell me, what did I miss, in substantive terms, in my summary?
You are one presumptuous son of a *** to compare yourself to Friedrich Hayek and then demand proof to the contrary.
Sorry, I don't respond to inquisitions.
Byzantine:Correct. It was ruled by a cadre of Anglo-Saxons--mostly men--who considered themselves racially superior and who would have happily had every Mohammedan in their borders swinging from a rope at the slightest sign of political activism.
You have the century wrong. Mohammedians would perhaps be swinging from a rope in the 12th century England; even then Richard the Lion Hearted was quite a deal maker with the muslims on his crusade . . . His biggest accomplishment was successful negotiation with Saladin for safe passage for Christian pilgrims. Richard even offered his own sister Joan of Sicily as bride to Saladin's brother Al-Adil before he left the Holy Land.
Feelings of racial superiority? That came much later in the late 19th century, and laid the ground works for the decline of Britain through unprofitable imperialism. Also, British sense of racial superiority had a very peculiarly narrow definition of "race"; they were talking about a race of Brits! as they waged war of conquest and extermination on Boers, who were the forefathers of the last institutional apartheid whites in South Africa.
Prejudice and arrogance was not in vogue when Britain was on the rise in the 16th, 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries (Voltaire was in London in the mid-18th century) . Much of Britain's initial capital came from Jewish communities that initially fled Spanish Inquisition then later fled Netherlands due to invasion by the despotic Louise XIV.
Stranger: You are one presumptuous son of a *** to compare yourself to Friedrich Hayek and then demand proof to the contrary.
So much for rational argument. Why the heck would Hayek write his books if not for trying to make more people think just like himself? If after reading Hayek, no reader can follow his thought process as intelletual framework and apply to current events, then he would have failed as an author.
Stranger:Sorry, I don't respond to inquisitions.
There is no inquisition here. Just curious mind wanting to know what you really meant by what you wrote; how is it any different from other garden variety of "high-spirited" totalitarian ideas wrapped in flowery languages. Apparently, there is precious little difference, and your positions are not defensible.
Byzantine: You are projecting your modern multiculturalism on a very different time and culture. Jewish and Muslim minorities got along in 18th century London because otherwise they'd have had their wealth confiscated after being beaten and left to die in the street.
You are projecting your modern multiculturalism on a very different time and culture. Jewish and Muslim minorities got along in 18th century London because otherwise they'd have had their wealth confiscated after being beaten and left to die in the street.
As if beating and looting Jews and Muslims did the Spanish crown great good? Practically all the gold that Spaniards looted from the New World ended up in Venice, Antwerp and London . . . why? After beating and looting Jews and Muslims, there was hardly any banker left in Spain. The Spanish crown had to borrow heavily from Italian bankers and went bankrupt numerous times, despite all the treasur fleets arriving every year. Where the Jews and Muslims fled, Antwerp and London, became new centers of wealth and prosperity, outside Spanish control and very hostile to Spain.
Human action is more than bloodthirsty coercion. Otherwise, totalitarianism would have flourished, and there would be no room for Austrian Economics.
Byzantine: In fact, I believe that's what used to happen to Catholics in jolly old multi-culty England back then.
In fact, I believe that's what used to happen to Catholics in jolly old multi-culty England back then.
England was Catholic, then the king decided to be his own head of the church. There was no real theological or cultural difference between Anglican Church and Catholic Church. The inter-faith bloodshed in England was a factional struggle between different factions of the court. England wasn't exactly a properous place while that was going.