Political Theory

Re: Voluntaryist vs. Socialists Debate

SkepticalMetal — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 19:14:53 GMT

I felt like the socialists dodged too many questions, whereas the voluntaryists answered pretty much directly. I mean the guy kept on saying "I think we need to know how we define force" even though the voluntaryist kept defining it and defining it. The voluntaryists, by way of logic, won, in my opinion.

Re: Voluntaryist vs. Socialists Debate

grant.w.underwood — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 18:27:12 GMT

just finished them. it was pretty good.

Thought it was fairly even.

However, for unbiased bystanders i feel the socialists probably won. The Voluntaryists were young and probably havent been put in too many debate situations. Seems like they were stuttering over their words in places. Where the socialist were much older and comfortable with the debate.

Also the Voluntaryist didnt attack socialism enough in my opinion. All they really attacked was the initiation of force that socialism entails. I would of liked to see them mention socialist economic calculations. They also allowed socialist to say, 'all we want is for people to have a decent life, decent home, decent healthcare, decent education' or a 'relatively humane life'. Well what does that involve? What is a good enough home, healthcare, education, and what in the world is a humane life? The socialist admitted that they cant provide all that to everyone so who gets it? The debate structure did hinder their ability to bring up a lot of the problems though.

Then lastly and i think most importantly, the socialist position was literally they believe in any country that have financial success right now. 'oh we dont believe in the socialist countries that utterly failed, our socialism is different'. HA ya right. They believe whatever works best should be implemented. No one came close to asking 'how do know what works best?'

The voluntaryist also did a pretty confusing job on river rights.

Who were the Voluntaryists? Students? And who were the socialists? professors?

(Not saying i could of done a better job either)

Re: Voluntaryist vs. Socialists Debate

Minarchist — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 01:48:22 GMT

I've yet to see a dog volunteer to be eaten by another dog.

Re: Voluntaryist vs. Socialists Debate

SkepticalMetal — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 22:59:44 GMT

Ha. Never noticed that before. I suppose even YouTube thinks it's funny when some guy from the audience tells the Voluntaryists that their philosophy is of "dog-eat-dog" nature.

Re: Voluntaryist vs. Socialists Debate

Papirius — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 22:54:46 GMT

feature=mh_lolz lolz? :)

Re: Voluntaryist vs. Socialists Debate

myhumangetsme — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:57:04 GMT

Just for background, there was a previous thread in the community about these videos, as well as a Mises Daily by Mr. Finegold Catalan that mentions the videos and Mises on the San Diego scene, both from 2010.

Re: Voluntaryist vs. Socialists Debate

John James — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:20:59 GMT

Never heard of any of em, but I'm definitely interested to see it.

Voluntaryist vs. Socialists Debate

SkepticalMetal — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:01:52 GMT

I recently discovered a series of videos documenting a debate between Voluntaryists and Socialists that was held in San Diego. I thought was pretty interesting, and the two voluntaryists, if I remember correctly, are members of the Mises Institute.

But yeah, not sure if anyone knows about this. There are a lot of videos in the debate, so I put them all in a playlist that anybody here can watch. This series of videos could also help a lot of people new to the libertarian philosophies, as it really helped me get a valid understanding.

Link to the playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCE1E19EE4C52EC8F&feature=mh_lolz

Enjoy.