66 replies to this topic

[Connor MacLeod]

This thread has got me interested; so I looked around on the internet, and it turns out there's a big Tea Party event coming up and it's only several blocks from where I live. I have to work that day (note to Tea Party organizers: only hippies don't have to work), but I'm going to see if I can bug out a little early and attend a while in the evening. I'll take note of anything interesting, maybe even bring a camera if I can find my battery recharger, and try to report back what I find. This could also be a good opportunity to pick up some Christmas presents -- maybe a Tea Party t-shirt for my sister-in-law.

[Ghostrider]

Rational people only vote with their feet.

Where would you go?

[Alex Libman]

Rational people only vote with their feet.

Where would you go?

The first rule of Galt's Gulch is: you don't talk about Galt's Gulch.

The second rule of Galt's Gulch is: you don't make fun of people for wearing socks with sandals. Danneskjöld‎ is particularly sensitive about this.

The third rule: direct people to lesser projects like Seasteading or the Free State Project until they prove themselves worthy of Galt's Gulch.

[gregandbeaker]

Rational people only vote with their feet.

Where would you go?

The first rule of Galt's Gulch is: you don't talk about Galt's Gulch.

The second rule of Galt's Gulch is: you don't make fun of people for wearing socks with sandals. Danneskjöld‎ is particularly sensitive about this.

The third rule: direct people to lesser projects like Seasteading or the Free State Project until they prove themselves worthy of Galt's Gulch.

I think it would be great for the world if all of the people who hated "the direction of the country" on both sides of the fence would just leave and let those of us who'd like to work it out do so without all of the anger and vile one-dimensional rhetoric. I visited Galt's Gulch while Bush was starting wars on chinese credit cards, torturing people (just like Jesus did I assume), and stealing freedom like a drunken monkey. It was full of hippies. The music was good but everyone was the same and it got boring quickly. I won't go near the place now that its full of neo-christian Sara Palin acolytes. It must be miserable there these days. God and guns just don't mix well.

[Ghostrider]

Rational people only vote with their feet.

Where would you go?

The first rule of Galt's Gulch is: you don't talk about Galt's Gulch.

The second rule of Galt's Gulch is: you don't make fun of people for wearing socks with sandals. Danneskjöld‎ is particularly sensitive about this.

The third rule: direct people to lesser projects like Seasteading or the Free State Project until they prove themselves worthy of Galt's Gulch.

I think it would be great for the world if all of the people who hated "the direction of the country" on both sides of the fence would just leave and let those of us who'd like to work it out do so without all of the anger and vile one-dimensional rhetoric. I visited Galt's Gulch while Bush was starting wars on chinese credit cards, torturing people (just like Jesus did I assume), and stealing freedom like a drunken monkey. It was full of hippies. The music was good but everyone was the same and it got boring quickly. I won't go near the place now that its full of neo-christian Sara Palin acolytes. It must be miserable there these days. God and guns just don't mix well.

It would be great if we could make the states more like separate countries (minimize the power of federal government and let the states manage themselves). That would quickly sort things out.

[Alex Libman]

[...] I visited Galt's Gulch while Bush was starting wars on chinese credit cards, torturing people (just like Jesus did I assume), and stealing freedom like a drunken monkey. It was full of hippies. The music was good but everyone was the same and it got boring quickly. I won't go near the place now that its full of neo-christian Sara Palin acolytes. [...]

You're thinking of "left socialist" vs "right socialist" bickering. Galt's Gulch remains the same no matter what flavor of socialism is in season.

[bobdrake12]

A new website has appeared that should earn the support of tea-party critics: CrashTheTeaParty.org.

Click on the URL below:

http://www.crashtheteaparty.org/

[rwac]

http://www.crashtheteaparty.org/

Haha. Have you seen the forum on that website ?

It's overrun with noise of all varieties.

[Alex Libman]

Maybe I should crash crashtheteaparty.org? Their mail server is wide open and so easy to DoS I'm practically drooling...


EDIT: and their SQL server is pretty weak as well. It's already spitting out "user madhatter already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203]" - and I haven't even started flooding it with frivolous botnet search queries yet.


(Just kidding. Maybe.)

Edited by Alex Libman, 11 April 2010 - 02:24 PM.

[bobdrake12]

Haha. Have you seen the forum on that website ?

It's overrun with noise of all varieties.

Thanks for the response, rwac!

I found it interesting that one of their members uses "Saul Alinsky" as his handle.

Here's the URL:

http://www.crashthet...rty.org/phpBB3/

[bobdrake12]

Maybe I should crash crashtheteaparty.org? Their mail server is wide open and so easy to DoS I'm practically drooling...


EDIT: and their SQL server is pretty weak as well. It's already spitting out "user madhatter already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections [1203]" - and I haven't even started flooding it with frivolous botnet search queries yet.


(Just kidding. Maybe.)

Interesting thought, Alex.

Here's an excerpt from the article, "Agent Provocateur Mad Hatters want to crash your Tea Party":

http://www.canadafre...p/article/21802

The definition of CTTP couldn’t have been better scripted by Nancy Pelosi.

“WHAT WE WANT: To dismantle and demolish the Tea Party by any non-violent means necessary.

“HOW WE WILL SUCCEED: By infiltrating the Tea Party itself! In an effort to propagate their pre-existing propensity for paranoia and suspicion…We have already sat quietly in their meetings, and observed their rallies.”

In any event, I wonder how many of those signs posted earlier in thise thread were made by the CTTP crowd?

[Rational Madman]

Although one could say that public opinion is more closely aligned with the so-called "Tea Party Movement," it doesn't diminish the fact that this movement bears a resemblance to most populist movements in American history, which lacked cohesion and staying power. So, I think commentators are rightly concerned about the unpredictable, contradictory, and deeply appalling---albeit by a small subset---views that are espoused by many of its members. As the macroeconomic realities change, this amorphous blob will cease to have political significance.

Edited by Rol82, 12 April 2010 - 12:38 AM.

[bobdrake12]

Although one could say that public opinion is more closely aligned with the so-called "Tea Party Movement," it doesn't diminish the fact that this movement bears a resemblance to most populist movements in American history, which lacked cohesion and staying power. So, I think commentators are rightly concerned about the unpredictable, contradictory, and deeply appalling---albeit by a small subset---views that are espoused by many of its members. As the macroeconomic realities change, this amorphous blob will cease to have political significance.

A lot depends upon whether the economy recovers, stays the same or gets worse.

How about inflation and taxes?

We shall see.

Edited by bobdrake12, 13 April 2010 - 04:59 AM.

[RighteousReason]

oy...

Edited by RighteousReason, 13 April 2010 - 01:01 PM.

[Alex Libman]

A lot depends upon whether the economy recovers, stays the same or gets worse.

It's sad that people believe that the economy ever "recovers". In reality the economy is a struggle between two forces: the rational forces of the free market that pull it forward and the irrational / parasitic forces of crime and government that hold it back. The parasitic forces are usually smart enough not to milk their cow to death, so to speak, so some drizzle of economic growth will continue, as it is the natural tendency of a modern economy to produce goods and services ever-more efficiently.

Even if the economy grows at 2% that doesn't mean it's good because it might have been 4%, 6%, or even higher in absence of parasitic government force! Those losses are never recovered in zero time, and thus those losses accumulate and lead to lower quality of life and lower life expectancy for all, quite possibly making the difference between indefinite life extension and centennial death for our generation!

[Connor MacLeod]

I went to a local Tea Party rally with my wife this evening; we spent a couple hours there. I didn't see any racist signs, or hear any racist comments. My wife and I, by the way, are a biracial couple, so that would have likely sniffed out any undercover clansmen in attendance. As it turns out, however, everybody we interacted with was quite nice. Yes, I did see several over-the-top political signs, e.g. "Obama, Pelosi, Reid: The Axis of Evil", but that seems pretty sedate given the tone of the political discourse in United States over the past decade or more. Other than that, the music was good, the event seemed very well attended, and there were *lots* of American flags (I understand that might make some people feel uncomfortable.)

So, I guess I'm a Tea Partier now. Anyhow, I'm gonna go grab a beer and watch me some Fox News. Hell yeah!

[Connor MacLeod]

So, I think commentators are rightly concerned about the unpredictable, contradictory, and deeply appalling---albeit by a small subset---views that are espoused by many of its members.

Contradictory -- a lot of that going around.

[RighteousReason]

So, I think commentators are rightly concerned about the unpredictable, contradictory, and deeply appalling---albeit by a small subset---views that are espoused by many of its members.

Contradictory -- a lot of that going around.

i was going to say that... i just didn't want to stimulate that person to keep talking here...

[bobdrake12]

Making Alinsky proud!

Check out the article below:


Alinsky's avenging angels: Tea Party saboteurs (excerpts)

http://onenewsnow.co....aspx?id=972588

The radical acolytes of Chicago's late left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky also understand the importance of manufacturing demons. "Before men can act," Alinsky preached, "an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced their cause is 100 percent on the side of the angels, and that the opposition are 100 percent on the side of the devil." This explains the left's relentless campaign to sabotage the anti-tax, anti-bailout movement from Day One.

President Obama's community organizing allies whispered "racist," "fascist," and "fringe" in the earliest days of the stimulus demonstrations in January and February 2009, when hundreds of first-time protesters turned out on the streets in Washington State, Colorado, Arizona, and Kansas. The whispers turned to hysterical screams as hundreds became thousands and thousands became millions of peaceful marchers who gathered for the first nationwide Tax Day Tea Party. Some fringe, huh?

The latest effort to smear Tea Partiers involves self-appointed agents and provocateurs who are organizing a "Crash the Tea Party" campaign to discredit the April 15 Tax Day Tea Party by making up bogus racist signs and providing false portrayals of grassroots activists to the press (see related story). An online punk, Jason Levin, is spearheading the infiltration effort to "act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities" and "damage the public's opinion of them." Never mind that public opinion polls now show that the majority of Americans stand with the core principles of fiscal responsibility espoused by Tea Party activists.

Levin may be a lone-wolf operator, but he has many fellow travelers in the Democratic establishment and left-wing fever swamps. And their efforts wouldn't be possible without friendlies in the press who have openly insulted Tea Party activists with endless vulgar sexual taunts and Taliban comparisons.

Edited by bobdrake12, 16 April 2010 - 01:14 PM.

[bobdrake12]

A lot depends upon whether the economy recovers, stays the same or gets worse.

It's sad that people believe that the economy ever "recovers". In reality the economy is a struggle between two forces: the rational forces of the free market that pull it forward and the irrational / parasitic forces of crime and government that hold it back. The parasitic forces are usually smart enough not to milk their cow to death, so to speak, so some drizzle of economic growth will continue, as it is the natural tendency of a modern economy to produce goods and services ever-more efficiently.

Even if the economy grows at 2% that doesn't mean it's good because it might have been 4%, 6%, or even higher in absence of parasitic government force! Those losses are never recovered in zero time, and thus those losses accumulate and lead to lower quality of life and lower life expectancy for all, quite possibly making the difference between indefinite life extension and centennial death for our generation!

Well said, Alex!

We now have a new term: "Jobless recovery."

Meanwhile, the President says that the the Recovery Act saved about two million jobs. And I say, prove it!

http://www1.voanews....--84615042.html

President Obama says the $787 billion Recovery Act is working. "It is one of the main reasons the economy has gone from shrinking by six percent to growing by about six percent. And this morning we learned that manufacturing production posted a strong gain. So far, the Recovery Act is responsible for the jobs of about two million Americans who would otherwise be unemployed," he said.

Edited by bobdrake12, 16 April 2010 - 01:31 PM.

[Alex Libman]

Government jobs should not count as real jobs that are created by businesses and NGO's that people choose to pay for voluntarily. The government could steal more money and create all the jobs it wants, like to pay people to dig holes and then fill them up again, but that would only do further harm to the economy. If, on the other hand, the government was to get rid of the minimum wage and all other regulations, involuntary unemployment would quickly jump to zero.

[Lallante]

Awesome. I hope the Teabagging rabble believe their own press. Because they're in for a big surprise -- and even more impotent rage -- as America gets more and more progressive.

The American public opinion may also shift toward believing that 2 + 2 == 5, but their belief wouldn't change the fundamental laws of mathematics. It will simply leave America as an inferior place for intelligent people to live and work, with a new "greatest nation" being built somewhere else.

We have no time or patience for this pathetic movement.

You want to steal their money, violently control their lives, but you have no time or patience for them? What will you do if they just walk out of your reach?

The same thing any other socialist government must do when it can no longer keep its cattle from escaping to greener pastures - shrink and eventually collapse. Becoming an enclosed dungeon like North Korea only delays the inevitable. "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of competent people to tax." You will not be able to keep all people brainwashed into your "divine right of democracy" religion for much longer, and the people you steal from the most will be waking up first. Sooner or later, Atlas will shrug!

Try visiting Scandanavia. Seriously. Every supposed 'intelligent' person should be forced to travel to some supposedly "evil socialist countries" and see how a modern society really should work.

[Lallante]

A lot depends upon whether the economy recovers, stays the same or gets worse.

It's sad that people believe that the economy ever "recovers". In reality the economy is a struggle between two forces: the rational forces of the free market that pull it forward and the irrational / parasitic forces of crime and government that hold it back. The parasitic forces are usually smart enough not to milk their cow to death, so to speak, so some drizzle of economic growth will continue, as it is the natural tendency of a modern economy to produce goods and services ever-more efficiently.

Even if the economy grows at 2% that doesn't mean it's good because it might have been 4%, 6%, or even higher in absence of parasitic government force! Those losses are never recovered in zero time, and thus those losses accumulate and lead to lower quality of life and lower life expectancy for all, quite possibly making the difference between indefinite life extension and centennial death for our generation!

This old chestnut... hilarious.

Please PLEASE do tell us how you can reconcile a desire to rid the economy of both government and crime. All Law is is codified governance, all crime is is disobedience of that codified governance. Essentially what you are saying is the only things holding us back are the government and disobedience of the government.

Cognitive Dissonance indeed!

[RighteousReason]

A lot depends upon whether the economy recovers, stays the same or gets worse.

It's sad that people believe that the economy ever "recovers". In reality the economy is a struggle between two forces: the rational forces of the free market that pull it forward and the irrational / parasitic forces of crime and government that hold it back. The parasitic forces are usually smart enough not to milk their cow to death, so to speak, so some drizzle of economic growth will continue, as it is the natural tendency of a modern economy to produce goods and services ever-more efficiently.

Even if the economy grows at 2% that doesn't mean it's good because it might have been 4%, 6%, or even higher in absence of parasitic government force! Those losses are never recovered in zero time, and thus those losses accumulate and lead to lower quality of life and lower life expectancy for all, quite possibly making the difference between indefinite life extension and centennial death for our generation!

This old chestnut... hilarious.

Please PLEASE do tell us how you can reconcile a desire to rid the economy of both government and crime. All Law is is codified governance, all crime is is disobedience of that codified governance. Essentially what you are saying is the only things holding us back are the government and disobedience of the government.

Cognitive Dissonance indeed!

My same statement about valkyrie_ice applies to you:

... or government run ANYTHING (not counting the proper functions of police/military/courts) ...

which still should not be run by means of compulsion -- compulsion being, as Alex and I have agreed, the defining/distinguishing characteristic of what "government" actually even is. So yeah I am "anti-government", but not in the sense of "caring about people" or "justice" ... the things (or some close concepts) that valkyrie_ice seems to believe defines/distinguishes what "government" actually is, and is so vehemently condemning me for arguing against. what a completely misunderstanding this individual has ...

Edited by RighteousReason, 20 April 2010 - 04:57 PM.

[Lallante]

You just seem to repeat the same quote about Governments 'proper' (in your opinion) role, without explaining how it in any way answers my criticism.

Law IS codified governmence. If you are truly anti government then you are also anti law. You may be anti-government 'except for in relation to foreign policy, criminal justice, commercial courts etc' but basically this utterly undermines your arguement because it is an arbitrary selection of functions.

To reverse what you are saying - you dont believe government should attempt to redistribute wealth or provide any form of welfare or regulation, but that it should retain its other roles.

The point you are missing is that the roles overlap and cannot be separated in the way you are attempting. What should happen, for example, when a company's negligence causes me to sustain an injury, and I sue that company, and the company spends millions of dollars on lawyers delaying proceedings and making things costly for me - I dont have millions of dollars, so I cant afford to keep suing. Under the current model in europe, companies are prevented from doing this by a combination of legal aid (a form of welfare) and Judges being able to limit abuse of process (a form of regulation), both of which you are against - what would happen in your idl?

Edited by Lallante, 20 April 2010 - 04:56 PM.

[Alex Libman]

Please PLEASE do tell us how you can reconcile a desire to rid the economy of both government and crime. All Law is is codified governance, all crime is is disobedience of that codified governance.

Once again, "government" and "crime" are two words for essentially the same thing, and I oppose them both on equal terms. The proper word for "government" should be "big crime", or the proper word for "crime" should be "little government". When a lone petty thug with a knife holds you up and says "your money or your life" - he is your "government", for his claim to power is just as legitimate, whether he takes the time to codify and ritualize his "laws" or not!

As a criminal enterprise grows, it inevitably evolves from mindless despotism and develops a technocratic power hierarchy, a set of rules (first informal and eventually codified), and a system of sustainable subjugation. A successful "mafia family" will collect its "protection money" / "taxes" at predictable intervals, and only steal a fraction of the profits to keep their victims financially afloat and motivated to still continue producing wealth - "milking your cows to death" isn't profitable in the long run. As it grows further (ex. the "warlord" stage), the criminal enterprise finds it in its best interest to invest in the infrastructure under its control (ex. roads, fire protection), protect it from neighboring warlords (ex. army, navy) as well as internal unrest (ex. police), and promote good public relations (ex. religion, influence over media, "public schools", funding of "arts" and "sciences" that will obviously be biased in its favor), etc. When it grows into a "principality" and then a "nation", the criminal enterprise finds it in its best interest to codify its laws even further and enforce them consistently to gain ever-more public trust. This includes convincing their subjects that they are "free" by allowing them some petty amount of collective choice (not much different from the public opinion polls a successful dictatorship would find it in its best interest to take, like to pick out the most charismatic mid-level bureaucrats) through rituals like "voting", as well as allowing some restricted level of trade and travel to territories controlled by other criminals they are allied with. Since the economic laws that naturally lead to the Non-Aggression Principle among individuals also apply to some degree to the relations among "nations", the modern era of organized crime is marked by the need for cooperation between regional power interests (ex. the "United Nations") and their eventual consolidation into one global criminal organism ("world government") where all thugs must agree to cooperate with each-other peacefully in their exploitation of the human race!

In reality, all Law comes from Nature, and is based on the biological fact that human beings have individual minds and are capable of acting in their rational self-interest, as well as the economic facts that apply to interactions between "rational economic actors" (explained in detail elsewhere). Governments / criminals violate the Natural Law, and must therefore be opposed if further progress of the human civilization is desirable, and I proclaim that it is (i.e. the single axiom of my epistemology - "evolutionary pragmatism"). The power of criminals / governments doesn't come from constructive merit, it comes from destructive violence! Law is a matter of scientific inquiry, as well as leverage of scientifically-verifiable individual Rights (i.e. self-ownership, property rights, contractual rights, parents' rights, etc) - not of irrational violent force!

Essentially what you are saying is the only things holding us back are the government and disobedience of the government.

Other than the immutable laws of the universe, the only thing holding humanity back is human stupidity, including the wide-spread blind faith in the "divine right" of criminal enterprises that call themselves governments.

Edited by Alex Libman, 20 April 2010 - 06:22 PM.

[Lallante]

Just repeating over and over again that government is inherently evil doesn't make it any more correct. Your description could just as easily be corporate behaviour.

Your views are both inherently and internally contradictory.

It turns out you are actually arguing for a free-market economy bound only by "natural law" (which is a hilariously flawed concept by the way - try getting any two people to agree on what natural law dictates).

Finally you claim that individual rights are scientifically verifiable! PLEASE DO EXPLAIN! I'm looking forward to this!

[Alex Libman]

Just repeating over and over again that government is inherently evil doesn't make it any more correct.

It doesn't make it any more or any less correct, but it makes it ever-more difficult for rational readers to fail to see the logic of my explanation.

Your description could just as easily be corporate behaviour.

That is demonstrably false. You need to understand that a corporation is a "legal handle" for one or more person(s) acting for a specific purpose, and it leverages their negative Rights, including the Right to liberty and property. I am a corporation. The Immortality Institute is a corporation. A marriage / family is a corporation. A small business is a corporation, and if it is successful at pleasing its customers while balancing the books it will grow into a big one like WalMart. At which point does it become "evil"? Only when it gets in bed with the government and leverages its "divine right" to initiate force!

Your views are both inherently and internally contradictory.

No one is yet to name a single contradiction...

It turns out you are actually arguing for a free-market economy bound only by "natural law" (which is a hilariously flawed concept by the way - try getting any two people to agree on what natural law dictates).

If they are sufficiently intelligent / educated people (and not brainwashed by government-controlled academic institutions that are obviously biased) then they will have to agree on at least the fundamentals of Natural Law - the individual negative Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property. The third aspect of self-ownership is less popular than the first two because a lot of lazy people feel they have more to gain from theft than legitimate work, but they cannot argue with the facts of the historical economic performance of societies that have strong property rights over those that don't. There is still some room for disagreement on the exact extent of parents' rights (ex. the Parents Tax), intellectual property, etc but that disagreement comes from lack of economic data, not impossibility of objective truth.

If, on the other hand, people having a disagreement on the matters of Natural Law cannot be reasoned with, like a bunch of communists who insist they have the "right" to "liberate" your property from you, then it becomes moral to defend yourself, as violently as is necessary. The violent approach has the same long-term result, a triumph of rational people over the irrational. This is why the only form of anarchy that can exist in the long-term is Anarcho-Capitalism: people who recognize each-other's Rights, including the Right to Property, will also form communities, but they will achieve a higher level of division of labor, establish more trade, achieve a more advanced economy than their socialist neighbors, provide for a more motivated defense (i.e. home field advantage), attract ever-more brains and capital, and expand as the neighboring non-capitalist anarchist communities shrink. The only reason why this hasn't happened historically is that human beings weren't as rational back then, and were easily fooled into collectivist religions, the last of which is the "divine right" of the state.

Finally you claim that individual rights are scientifically verifiable! PLEASE DO EXPLAIN! I'm looking forward to this!

Rights are an individual attribution of an economic concept known as Natural Law. There are multiple philosophical theories to justify and define Natural Law, but the one I use is "evolutionary pragmatism" - the economic ruleset that yields a society with the greatest materialistic competitive advantage is the most desirable.

From another thread...

It's a fact that you exist (cognito ergo sum), that you desire your existence (or why do you bother eating?), and that you are subject to certain Natural Laws, from the laws of mathematics and physics to the equally immutable laws of fundamental economics (mathematics and logic applied to animal action).

The easiest right to prove is the Right to Life - it is functionally impossible for a society where arbitrary murder is not frowned upon to evolve beyond the hunter-gatherer stage of human development, because more sophisticated tribal structures and especially agriculture require a degree of cooperation that is impossible if your neighbor or coworker can simply bash you over the head for fun and profit. You were born into a civilization that has recognized that right to some degree for many generations, and only thanks to this level of civilization is it possible for Earth to support billions of human beings as opposed to hardly a million in caveman times. Without the widely recognized Right to Life your odds of ever being born are tremendously small, and your life would have been nasty, brutish, and short.

The idea is similar for other Natural Rights (liberty, property, parents' rights, a child's / prisoner's right to emancipation, and a few others), but they require a bit more econometric analysis for their proof, which ultimately is based on the principle of competitive advantage: a society that violates Natural Rights the least would have an empirically-observable materialistic advantage over other societies that violate them more. It's almost as clear-cut as penicillin, except of course you can't observe human societies through a microscope, and the lenses of history are blurred by pro-government bias that funds and controls most knowledge-related institutions.

A society that tolerates theft is very unlikely to build a successful and stable economy.

A society that believes in a false construct called "animal rights" (which violates actual Natural Rights of humans) wouldn't advance as well scientifically, due to the necessity of using animals for lab experiments.

A society that believes in various false constructs called "positive rights" (ex. right to free food, health-care, unicorns, etc) will discourage economic productivity, experience flight of brains and capital, higher taxes, and it will eventually simply run out of competent people to tax.

A society that hits people with a stick to force them to work harder might seem like a good idea initially, but in reality it always backfires, especially in a modern age where "working smart" is becoming ever-more valuable than simply "working hard".

A society that violates parents' rights experiences a collapse of fertility rates, or ends up with an army of mass-produced zombie citizens that aren't very creative and motivated for individual achievement.

Etc, etc, etc.

You are free to disagree with me over which society is best - Anarcho-Capitalism doesn't require everyone to agree with it or even to know what it is, only for everyone to have the freedom to reject any government they don't agree with. You can have your government, but you can't make it immune to economic laws by using force on other economic actors, and it is only a matter of time before economic reality pressures your government to institute more and more capitalist reforms until even defense institutions and courts cease being a monopoly.

[Lallante]

Just repeating over and over again that government is inherently evil doesn't make it any more correct.

It doesn't make it any more or any less correct, but it makes it ever-more difficult for rational readers to fail to see the logic of my explanation.

Repetition has absolutely no impact on logical force. If anything, the fact that you keep repeating bare assertions ("government is dictatorship" etc... very Orwellian Newspeak!) without justifying them detracts from any logical force your arguments might have - people will just assume that if you wont justify your (fairly ridiculous) claims, this is because you CAN'T justify them.

Your description could just as easily be corporate behaviour.

That is demonstrably false. You need to understand that a corporation is a "legal handle" for one or more person(s) acting for a specific purpose, and it leverages their negative Rights, including the Right to liberty and property. I am a corporation. The Immortality Institute is a corporation. A marriage / family is a corporation. A small business is a corporation, and if it is successful at pleasing its customers while balancing the books it will grow into a big one like WalMart. At which point does it become "evil"? Only when it gets in bed with the government and leverages its "divine right" to initiate force!

You are now arbitrarily co-opting definitions to suit yourself. You might as well say "Apples are oranges because when I say oranges I mean apples". A corporation is a specific kind of legal entity with its own legal personality. I assure you that you are not a corporation (though for all I know you have set one up), and nor is a marriage or family.

I should know, I am a corporate lawyer!

Walmart is not evil, in that you cant ascribe moral values to a corporation any more than you can ascribe them to a building or a cup. It may have (in my opinion, does have) some immoral directors and management though - workers rights are routinely minimised and the way staff are treated would be illegal in Europe.

You've also just made yet another odd and unexplained assertion re: evil, government force etc - no argument just assertions.

Your views are both inherently and internally contradictory.

No one is yet to name a single contradiction...

I've pointed out several at length.

It turns out you are actually arguing for a free-market economy bound only by "natural law" (which is a hilariously flawed concept by the way - try getting any two people to agree on what natural law dictates).

If they are sufficiently intelligent / educated people (and not brainwashed by government-controlled academic institutions that are obviously biased) then they will have to agree on at least the fundamentals of Natural Law - the individual negative Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property. The third aspect of self-ownership is less popular than the first two because a lot of lazy people feel they have more to gain from theft than legitimate work, but they cannot argue with the facts of the historical economic performance of societies that have strong property rights over those that don't. There is still some room for disagreement on the exact extent of parents' rights (ex. the Parents Tax), intellectual property, etc but that disagreement comes from lack of economic data, not impossibility of objective truth.

I studied Jurisprudence at Oxford university before becoming a corporate lawyer, so I think I probably am sufficiently educated on this particular topic. The very existence of Natural Law is extremely hotly debated, and the content of it if it does exist even more so.

Claiming that natural law principals are obvious and self-evident is an arrogance usually reserved for ideologues and cult leaders. You realise that even most proponents of natural law would not agree that property was among one's rights...

I love that you now bring in academic bias and brainwashing - I've wasted 4 responses replying to you and only now do you out yourself as deranged...

If, on the other hand, people having a disagreement on the matters of Natural Law cannot be reasoned with, like a bunch of communists who insist they have the "right" to "liberate" your property from you, then it becomes moral to defend yourself, as violently as is necessary. The violent approach has the same long-term result, a triumph of rational people over the irrational. This is why the only form of anarchy that can exist in the long-term is Anarcho-Capitalism: people who recognize each-other's Rights, including the Right to Property, will also form communities, but they will achieve a higher level of division of labor, establish more trade, achieve a more advanced economy than their socialist neighbors, provide for a more motivated defense (i.e. home field advantage), attract ever-more brains and capital, and expand as the neighboring non-capitalist anarchist communities shrink. The only reason why this hasn't happened historically is that human beings weren't as rational back then, and were easily fooled into collectivist religions, the last of which is the "divine right" of the state.

You are getting increasingly less and less coherent here, and even when coherent this is completely off topic - there are other threads for self-defence and the use of violence. I will note though that you say that violently defending your personal property rights is a "triumph of rational people over the irrational". This sounds dangerously close to the language of WWII propaganda and is anything but rational.

Finally you claim that individual rights are scientifically verifiable! PLEASE DO EXPLAIN! I'm looking forward to this!

Rights are an individual attribution of an economic concept known as Natural Law. There are multiple philosophical theories to justify and define Natural Law, but the one I use is "evolutionary pragmatism" - the economic ruleset that yields a society with the greatest materialistic competitive advantage is the most desirable.

From another thread...

It's a fact that you exist (cognito ergo sum), that you desire your existence (or why do you bother eating?), and that you are subject to certain Natural Laws, from the laws of mathematics and physics to the equally immutable laws of fundamental economics (mathematics and logic applied to animal action).

The easiest right to prove is the Right to Life - it is functionally impossible for a society where arbitrary murder is not frowned upon to evolve beyond the hunter-gatherer stage of human development, because more sophisticated tribal structures and especially agriculture require a degree of cooperation that is impossible if your neighbor or coworker can simply bash you over the head for fun and profit. You were born into a civilization that has recognized that right to some degree for many generations, and only thanks to this level of civilization is it possible for Earth to support billions of human beings as opposed to hardly a million in caveman times. Without the widely recognized Right to Life your odds of ever being born are tremendously small, and your life would have been nasty, brutish, and short.

The idea is similar for other Natural Rights (liberty, property, parents' rights, a child's / prisoner's right to emancipation, and a few others), but they require a bit more econometric analysis for their proof, which ultimately is based on the principle of competitive advantage: a society that violates Natural Rights the least would have an empirically-observable materialistic advantage over other societies that violate them more. It's almost as clear-cut as penicillin, except of course you can't observe human societies through a microscope, and the lenses of history are blurred by pro-government bias that funds and controls most knowledge-related institutions.

A society that tolerates theft is very unlikely to build a successful and stable economy.

A society that believes in a false construct called "animal rights" (which violates actual Natural Rights of humans) wouldn't advance as well scientifically, due to the necessity of using animals for lab experiments.

A society that believes in various false constructs called "positive rights" (ex. right to free food, health-care, unicorns, etc) will discourage economic productivity, experience flight of brains and capital, higher taxes, and it will eventually simply run out of competent people to tax.

A society that hits people with a stick to force them to work harder might seem like a good idea initially, but in reality it always backfires, especially in a modern age where "working smart" is becoming ever-more valuable than simply "working hard".

A society that violates parents' rights experiences a collapse of fertility rates, or ends up with an army of mass-produced zombie citizens that aren't very creative and motivated for individual achievement.

Etc, etc, etc.

You are free to disagree with me over which society is best - Anarcho-Capitalism doesn't require everyone to agree with it or even to know what it is, only for everyone to have the freedom to reject any government they don't agree with. You can have your government, but you can't make it immune to economic laws by using force on other economic actors, and it is only a matter of time before economic reality pressures your government to institute more and more capitalist reforms until even defense institutions and courts cease being a monopoly.

Don't confuse the philosophical concept of "natural laws" (essentially, the concept of objectively determinable morality) with the scientific concept of "physical laws" - mathematics, physics and so on.

Nothing else you wrote is of enough interest of me to write in response to - particularly as you have yet to address a single arguement I've raised and instead just type more and more half-baked right wing ideology.

I'll leave you with yet another criticism of your system - the problem of the 'race to the bottom'. In a society without government market intervention, competing corporations will 'race' each other to cut corners on safety, workers rights, pay etc in an effort to further the bottom line. It is undoubtable that without safeguards such as a minimum wage, many corporations would pay subsistence wages (which are exactly analogous to slavery) - they would probably even collude to do so. Individual workers would not have anywhere near enough market force to demand higher wages, and if the choice is between subsistence and starvation, all would choose the former. There is no reason for a corporation, which by its nature is motivated entirely by profit, to provide anything less than the bare minimum possible working conditions and pay to its employees. This might not apply at the higher skill levels, where attracting the best workers would be an issue, but for lower down the tree (where the vast majority of people work), manpower is essentially a plentiful commodity and would be treated as such.

[JLL]

Just repeating over and over again that government is inherently evil doesn't make it any more correct. Your description could just as easily be corporate behaviour.

Your views are both inherently and internally contradictory.

It turns out you are actually arguing for a free-market economy bound only by "natural law" (which is a hilariously flawed concept by the way - try getting any two people to agree on what natural law dictates).

Finally you claim that individual rights are scientifically verifiable! PLEASE DO EXPLAIN! I'm looking forward to this!

Here are some articles on private law:

http://mises.org/daily/1874
http://mises.org/daily/2265
http://www.mises.org...s/3_1/3_1_2.pdf

But basically the idea is that there is no reason why we need a supreme arbitrator to establish law. I can subscribe to the laws of judicial company A and you can subscribe to those of B. As long as our disputes are among the customers of the same company, there is no problem.

When a customer of company A has a dispute with a customer of company B, there is a potential problem. People know this, and companies know this, so company A and company B will have a list of which third-party arbitrators they will use when their customers run into trouble with customers of other companies.

That is, company A and company B would agree to use company C if their verdicts are in disagreement.

If company A and company B cannot get into an agreement to use C or D or E or any arbitrator, consumers will see this as a potential problem and stop buying their services.

And if this seems like a ridiculous idea, consider that we don't have a supreme arbitrator between countries either.