General

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Clayton — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 18:01:26 GMT

So, 99.9999999% of the time, they can’t fix a toilet…but that .0000001% of the time, they manage to pull off an attack on US soil

The Pentagon must have sent out a memo to all its disinfo agents because I run across this argument constantly nowadays. "When discussing conspiracy theories regarding 9/11, point out that the government is just too incompetent to have pulled it off. After all, we lost track of $2.3 trillion dollars as Rumsfeld announced the day before 9/11, on 9/10/2001. Actually, nevermind that. Shouldn't have put that in the memo. Damn. Oh well."

Here are the reasons for initial suspicion that any major headline event is the handiwork of the government or at least has the involvement of the government unitl proven otherwise:

1) The government is a gang of thugs. Their raison d'etre is parasitic subsistence. They and their clans live at the expense of the subject population. While scholarly economics is prosecuted on the pretense that government has noble motives, the fact always remains that the government is not just another part of the polite social order, they are a brutal gang of thugs who will use any and all means at their disposal to accomplish their ends.

2) Nobody says McDonald's is incompetent at making hamburgers or that Wal-Mart is incompetent at selling household wares. That's because the telos (purpose/design) of an organization is typically what that organization is competent at. The government is highly competent at accomplishing its purpose: parasitic subsistence. Many private individuals have trouble collecting the odd, small debt from a handful of debtors. The US government collects - every year! - trillions of dollars from hundreds of millions of people! In waging war, it is unsurpassed. Its weapons have killed tens of thousands of Afghanis and millions of Iraqis. It monitors virtually every square inch of the entire globe, spying from satellites. We could go on and on.

3) As the would-be monopolist of violence in a given territory and as a peer with other such monopolists, the State either wipes out or puts its fingers into every pie of private (gang/mafia) violence within its territory and specializes in detecting intrusions by the intelligence agents of foreign governments. When something big blows up - like the Twin Towers - the natural first question is, "who in the government knew about this or did it?"

4) As with any fundamentally criminal enterprise, the government actively covers up, suppresses and fabricates alternate histories regarding its crimes with all the means at its disposal. The greater the crime, the more elaborate the cover-up that is planned before the first action is ever taken. Wars, in particular, are the greatest crimes and their true origins are generally wrapped in the biggest and most sophisticated nest of falsehoods and fabrications. To take a wide-eyed, infantile "natural science" approach, saying that "we just follow the evidence wherever it leads" is as absurd as a murder detective who just "follows the evidence wherever it leads" without ever stopping to ask whether the murderer might have been clever enough to misdirect the investigation by wiping the crime scene, planting false evidence, and so on. It's a willful naivete and what's most offensive about it is its pretense of being guided only by facts and reason.

5) In summary, the government is guilty until proven innocent. This isn't a legal principle, it's a principle that follows from the corpus of the history of State. It's nearly always guilty. On occasion, history will evince a minor massacre at the hands of a true madman not affiliated in any way with the State. But the rule is, far and away, that nearly all murder, mayhem and destruction is the handiwork of the State.

Clayton -

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Groucho — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 12:45:21 GMT

Ok, I just have to be a little sadistic here and pick apart the the quotes from the 'Skeptical Libertarians'... just to highlight how all their critical faculties are abandoned and argumentation is reduced to snarky rhetoric and logical fallacies:

This is after ten years of scientific analysis from every corner of the globe showing that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the US government did it. None. Zip. Nada. Nullius. Every theory floated that has the government as the perpetrator has been thoroughly and unequivocally debunked. Yet here is Lew Rockwell’s website, peddling that same conspiracy theory nonsense.

Total hyperbole. What 10 years of "scientific analysis" is he talking about? From every corner of the globe? (hurr durr "globes don't have corners"-ok, that's a cheap shot). That is nothing but an appeal to Anonymous authority.

And how does a scientific analysis "show there is no evidence" for something? you can't demonstrate something is false by failing to locate evidence for it. Come on guys, say it with me: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absense. This is also called an appeal to ignorance.

Characterizing the Lew Rockwell argument as "the government did it" is both a sweeping generalization and a strawman. This is a rhetorical ploy to avoid stating ANY specific claims his fancied opponent actually made while also maintaining the illusion they have all been successfully refuted, summarizing them as "conspiracy theory nonsense" (an appeal to ridicule, btw).

From late 2001 to maybe mid-2004, I could see it. But this is 2012.

This is a total non-sequitor. What does it being 2012 have to do with it? I mean, unless he's refering to the Messiah we now have in the white house being a reason to have faith in the goodness of government once again.

And how could he "see it" up until mid-2004 - don't these ironclad scientific analyses date back to 2002 (10 years)? This implies the convincer was published about 8 years ago. Why doesn't he disclose which part of the canon enabled him to see the light and reject such suspicions?

And if anything, the last twelve years have proven that the government is far too incompetent to even be able to tell it’s butt from a hole in the ground. (It’s ironic LRC would say things like this too, considering they also feel the government is beyond incompetent on just about every other issue. So, 99.9999999% of the time, they can’t fix a toilet…but that .0000001% of the time, they manage to pull off an attack on US soil against US citizens without anyone knowing and keeping the majority of the public in the dark?

This part is a real doozy - a biased generalization of a popular belief used to support an appeal to incredulity about a strawman! Whew! The government is plenty incompetent at providing services, but it's entire history (and don't forget revelations by Wikileaks) has shown the system has a penchant for pulling off dirty shenanigans that remain hidden for years if not decades. It hardly takes a rocket scientist to hijack a plane and crash it into something (we're not talking about something ridiculous like the 'Philadelphia Experiment') and, while I personally don't believe our government orchestrated 9/11, I can see a lot of areas to suspect them of reprehensible manipulation during and after the whole mess.

Okay, buddy. Might be time to put the bong down now.)

And at the end a snarky way to say his opponent is mentally defective. Um, that's an ad hominem, right? Combine that with the ex rectum analysis and you've got something that worthy of flushing down the toilet. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cult of 21st Century Skepticism.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Marko — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 10:35:24 GMT

The problem with "skeptics", in terms of groups defining themselves as such, is they are typically bound together only by atheism, doubt of "extraordinary" claims, and a sense of intellectual superiority.

Yes, this I think is the key. Just at a first glance the Biers are elitists where Lew isn't. It's ironic because if somebody could be forgiven for being a snob it would be Rockwell, where's the Biers just come out pretentious and utterly deluded.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Groucho — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 10:04:15 GMT

Jargon:
Anyone wanna try to explain this? Not only the blatant lies, but also the visceral hatred of truthers? Why are truthers so viciously ridiculed?

It is a Pavlovian response. (pseudo)skeptics™ automatically react this way to their hot-button topics. Anything portrayed as a "conspiracy theory" is ridiculed, regardless of veracity, by the group.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

h.k. — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 09:16:33 GMT

Probably because the easiest way to discredit libertarians is a false-flag attack as a truther that makes other libs look like weak-minded crazies by extension? Libertarians / anarchs are already on the margin of society, they need to cultivate credibility, not spend it on truther nonsense without any upside towards our goals, even if it implausibly turned out to be true.

I pretty much agree with all of this.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Anenome — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 08:58:09 GMT

Jargon:

Anyone wanna try to explain this? Not only the blatant lies, but also the visceral hatred of truthers? Why are truthers so viciously ridiculed?

Probably because the easiest way to discredit libertarians is a false-flag attack as a truther that makes other libs look like weak-minded crazies by extension? Libertarians / anarchs are already on the margin of society, they need to cultivate credibility, not spend it on truther nonsense without any upside towards our goals, even if it implausibly turned out to be true.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Jargon — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 08:40:37 GMT

This is after ten years of scientific analysis from every corner of the globe showing that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the US government did it. None. Zip. Nada. Nullius. Every theory floated that has the government as the perpetrator has been thoroughly and unequivocally debunked. Yet here is Lew Rockwell’s website, peddling that same conspiracy theory nonsense. From late 2001 to maybe mid-2004, I could see it. But this is 2012. And if anything, the last twelve years have proven that the government is far too incompetent to even be able to tell it’s butt from a hole in the ground. (It’s ironic LRC would say things like this too, considering they also feel the government is beyond incompetent on just about every other issue. So, 99.9999999% of the time, they can’t fix a toilet…but that .0000001% of the time, they manage to pull off an attack on US soil against US citizens without anyone knowing and keeping the majority of the public in the dark? Okay, buddy. Might be time to put the bong down now.)

Anyone wanna try to explain this? Not only the blatant lies, but also the visceral hatred of truthers? Why are truthers so viciously ridiculed?

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Groucho — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 06:16:04 GMT

Me too.

Skeptic™ groups are a different story though.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

SkepticalMetal — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 06:10:23 GMT

I'm skeptical.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Groucho — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 06:03:49 GMT

Well I don't think anyone in the world is more skeptical than me, and while I may disagree with some things I read on LRC I have never done so on libertarian/free marketer grounds. I have a fair amount of doubt regarding primal diets, JFK conspiracies, vaccination dangers, etc. - but I don't know that I'm correct in disbelieving them. I could be wrong and I'm always willing to look at evidence.

The problem with "skeptics", in terms of groups defining themselves as such, is they are typically bound together only by atheism, doubt of "extraordinary" claims, and a sense of intellectual superiority. Religion and conspiracy theories are their hot-buttons and this unfortunately leads them, in many instances, to side with statism as the "lesser of two evils".

And if you want to see something interesting, look at how "skeptics" smeared James Randi for daring to question the global warming dogma! Look at the "global warming" entry in the Skeptic's Dictionary. It's insane! They've fallen into all the trappings of religious beliefs, but they are unaware of it because there's no supernatural deity aspect to make it obvious.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

ahall12 — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 05:06:34 GMT

Argument from authority.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

myhumangetsme — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:12:08 GMT

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with a changing of the guard. But if you don't want to do your homework and earn it, no one (and especially with Libertarians) is going to just give it to you.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

Bert — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:29:10 GMT

A friend had sent me this, Lew Rockwell: Bad for the Liberty Movement, Period

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

vive la insurrection — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:45:14 GMT

It's probably because it is a political label they are dealing with. Labels deal more with tone, style, mood, and texture than anything really of substance. in essence all political labels will seek to consolidate some type of power play to crush eventually, it's their nature. None of them are any different than Fascisim or Marxism if one takes them too seriously - and this includes anarchism, "science" (how often do you see stupid scientific jargon where it doesn't need to be?), or 90% of the people in universities or "non political" politcal groups who say they aren't political - and yet have a hard on for burying your corpse under all these meaningless buzzwords and boogy men.

It's all tones, textures, and chincy sentimental psychologisms. Politics is a sham.

Re: Skeptical Libertarians and LRC

myhumangetsme — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:32:08 GMT

Since you're playing both sides of the fence Blueline976, it is only fair that your bent is put up for scrutiny here:

So let's point out the one very obvious thing here. When you were directly challenged on what conspiracies Tom Woods has been spreading, you completely sidestepped the question and resorted to sloppy recollections (as did the mod, in effect, even though his response came before the question). This sidestepping was a convenience for you, since a simple web search would've turned up that Woods said nothing at all about "regime libertarians"; Rockwell alone said it in reference to Woods' blog post.

Woods's blog post pointed out the silly, pleonastic nature of the phrase "skeptical libertarians", and that the users of this phrase, in trying to mean something that was exactly the opposite, were completely oblivious to this fact. No conspiracies were involved, and yet there's this feigned outrage at Woods and his yet unnamed conspiracy theories for it? Looks more to me like TSL threw a temper tantrum because Woods got them so easily.

I appreciate the passion for this idea, but the youth and inexperience that belies it is obvious, and Libertarians and Libertarian sympathizers are not the type of crowd you are just going to be pulling shallow, witty "a-ha" moments on. The Libertarian deck is stacked with the upper echelon of intellectuals in many fields, and if you haven't done your homework (and don't intend to) you're going to lose one way or another.