I thought about titling this “Hey Hihn, how’s this for deep libertarian thought?”, but I’m not that spiteful. This article is based upon an idea I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while. It usually comes back to the forefront whenever we’re talking about transfolk or open marriages. As with all of my articles, I make no representation that I’m not unknowingly ripping off some philosopher or, even worse, walking into some trap.
There seem to be two types of libertarians… really more of a spectrum with clustering near the edges. On one end is what I’ll call the Deferentialists. The Deferentialists work from the premise that when an individual makes a decision, it is the right decision for them. Deferentialists’ motto is “live and let live.” They’re deferential to the individual’s decision making.
On the other end is what I’ll call the Restraintists. The Restraintists work from the premise that when an individual makes a decision, it is their decision to make, whether or not it is the right decision. Restraintists’ motto is “who am I to tell you what to do?” They restrain their own sense of morality to avoid overstepping their authority.
The oddest image that came up for “authority”
I’ve written in the past about my authority-based view of rights. To sum it up, your mom had the authority to wash your mouth out with soap when you cussed as a kid, but a politician doesn’t have the authority to punish you for your speech. This places me firmly in the Restraintist camp, and I think that all libertarians who care about being effective should join me.
The Ineffectiveness of Deferentialism
When viewed from a simplistic and static point of view, Deferentialism and Restraintism achieve the same thing. Should the government implement a law implementing some social goal? Deferentialism says no because the social goal may be right for some people, but it may also be wrong for some people. Restraintism says no because even if the social goal is good, the government overstep of its authority is evil, and the ends don’t justify the means.
However, Deferentialism is ineffective in two ways. First, people, even Deferentialists, tend to have a line drawn in the sand where they shift from relativistic deference to the individual to a more absolutist stance. For example, Cosmotarians tend to be Deferentialists up to the point where their particular identity politics ox is gored. Second, Deferentialism gives no answer to Cultural Marxism. Deferentialists are either forced to kowtow to the virulent left, or they end up drifting authoritarian.
This image seemed oddly appropriate.
In contrast, Restraintism handles both of these issues differently. Restraintists have absolutist stances for everything, so there is no line drawing to be done. Any failure to properly act libertarian on a certain issue is a failure of moral restraint, not a philosophical deficiency. Similarly, Restraintism isn’t hampered when facing off against Cultural Marxism. While Restraintists would never strip away the rights of Marxists, they’re free to criticize, ostracize, and attempt to curtail the creeping growth of Cultural Marxism.
I have an opinion and a Right to tell it, but not impose it
/Am I doing this right?
According to my beliefs sir, you are.
TO start with the bad joke that needs top be made
ripping off some philosopher or, even worse, walking into some trap. – traps are gay
Very. As is anyone who tries to rationalize them into an assertation of being anything but gay.
Yes, but accepting a blowjob from a trap wearing cargo shorts is NOT gay.
That’s still a dude on another dude, therefore gay.
If all observable sex characteristics are female, the fellatrix is female. It’s simple logical positivism.
And gloryholes are Shroedinger’s sexuality until you look through them.
Just because deliberate fraud is being used does not mitigate the gay act. The trap is still gay.
If you want to pose the question of whether someone ensnared by a trap might be straight after the fact, that is a different question.
Listen, if you’re going to be uptight about penes waggling around in close proximity, you’re never going to be invited to the good orgies.
The Deferentialists work from the premise that when an individual makes a decision, it is the right decision for them. – are there such people? I mean it is sort of a truism that as the Chinese say errare humanum est. I believe that people make decision all the time and many of them bad. But I cannot make a better one for them. But I find it silly to say that all people make the good decision for themselves. Most people fuck up sooner or later.
It provides an argument opening for “What if we know this is a bad decision?” “Can we justify an override?”
No and fuck you.
What we know or we think is irrelevant. I don’t judge dedcisions of others unless they are close to me and I want to help. But I do not assume decisions are right. People are, after all, morons
Chinese speak Latin in Romania?
what the fuck is Latin?
C’est la vie!
I always prefered c’est la guerre myself
C’est la vie
When said to a Spanish speaker, these words are heard as “Se la vie”, which can result in a fight if the guy was there with his female partner that had just had the wind blow up her skirt….
Its sort of an efficient market theory of people.
There is a certain sort of debased libertarianism, generally on the cosmo side, that seems to think that in an ideal society, people would not only be free to do whatever they willed (including be things that they aren’t), as long as they weren’t hurting others, but that they should not suffer any negative consequences for those choices. That would probably be on the extreme side of deferentialism, though.
Well, that’s the whole Libertarian/Libertine nexus.
I am a “Fuck off Slaver” libertarian. No adult should be able to deny any other adult the ability to make a decision concerning their own life or property that does not have an immediate curtailing of the rights of another adult. (I’m looking at you second hand smoke BS’ers, gun grabbers and “you can’t grow vegetables in your front yard types.)
As one of our leading “female” Glibs states in “her” “about the author” – stick to the Constitution as it is written.
What he said.
^ This.
Word.
Why are you putting my gender and gender pronoun in quotes?
Hmm?
He suspects you’re actually a bot. Or an angel he dreamed up.
Everybody knows that libertarian women are more rare than total solar eclipses at Dollywood. Besides a prog told a certified libertarian friendly female friend of mine “she couldn’t be a real woman” if she supported school choice and you support much more libertarian positions than that.
That and my joke went flat.
“For example, Cosmotarians tend to be Deferentialists up to the point where their particular identity politics ox is gored.”
I liked the article, trash. I would take the yokel position and say that ‘cosmotarians’ are not even libertarian, as they seem less interested in restraining state authority if the state is furthering their culture war. Cosmotarians, I believe, are more similar to a Clintonian neo-liberalism. They oppose most government regulation of the market, support free trade, and open immigration, but are fine with government expanding to further their preferred culture war. That is way you would be hard pressed to ever find them criticizing government laws against mis-gendering someone or groups like the ACLU trying to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions and transgender surgery.
And that is why, I think you are right to say that: “Deferentialism gives no answer to Cultural Marxism”. But, I think it has more to do with the fact that they support most of their efforts in expanding state authority to further their preferred culture war.
I don’t know about that. I think generalizing about cosmos and assuming all of them support state interference in cultural issues is a strawman.
Yes, they might do the social signaling thing as nauseum, but social signaling does not always equate to advocacy for state action.
Also, I wonder how much we breathe oxygen into the culture war battles, simply by paying them any more attention than they deserve.
It depends on who you define as a cosmo. I think that position is what defines a cosmo. Someone who does not hold such positions is not a cosmo by definition.
“Also, I wonder how much we breathe oxygen into the culture war battles, simply by paying them any more attention than they deserve.”
Yes.
A handy quick rule of thumb – if you find yourself agreeing with anything the Niskanen Center does, you’re a cosmo.
But, I think it has more to do with the fact that they support most of their efforts in expanding state authority to further their preferred culture war.
Perhaps, and one should always be careful to judge by actions rather than words, but I think this goes a bit far. Everybody has blind spots, areas in which their personal values and feelings rise above intellectual notions like freedom. This goes every which way, and one of the rallying cries for many people in situations like these is hypocrisy. Why can’t I have my pony when you get to have yours? Sometimes that argument has teeth even if it is a logical fallacy (other times, it’s an absurd apples-to-oranges comparison, like e.g. Tony’s old favorite “if you get to have courts of law, why can’t we have [some communist shit]?”)
I think attempts should be made to have a dialogue without judgment when it is possible to do so. Right now, many of the “cosmotarians” are more interested in purging the movement of undesirables than engaging in dialogue, and they should be called out. But I think we should be careful to remember that we have precious few ideological allies, and not turn around and start expelling anyone who disagrees on some things when they agree on the rest.
Yeah, maybe I wrote this whole thing wrong. I meant to remark that what I consider to be cosmotarian is defined as thus. Rather than taking the generally overly expansive term at face value.
Eh, I’m no good at writing or making any sense and shit.
You’re right, though, that everyone has their blind spots.
I meant to remark that what I consider to be cosmotarian is defined as thus. Rather than taking the generally overly expansive term at face value.
Fair enough. I’m not one to shy away from being aggressive in interactions with ideological opponents, as anyone familiar with my commenting history at H&R could attest. I’ve lobbed a few “if you believe X, you’re not a libertarian” bombs myself.
Alexis de Tocqueville ,
“I think that the type of oppression by which democratic peoples are threatened will resemble nothing of what preceded it in the world … I want to imagine under what new features despotism could present itself to the world; I see an innumerable crowd of similar and equal men who spin around restlessly, in order to gain small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls.
It would resemble paternal power if, like it, it had as a goal to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary it seeks only to fix them irrevocably in childhood … After having thus taken each individual one by one into its powerful hands, and having molded him as it pleases, the sovereign power extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules, which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowd …
it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting; it does not destroy, it prevents birth; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
de Tocqueville really nailed it. I’m constantly amazed by his predictive powers.
Not at all bad, for a Frenchman.
Raises two fingers.
That is a great find, Yusef. Which of his books is that from?
Democracy in America, TBH I read it over at Wretchards site and thought it fitting,
I’ve got to read that book. It’s been on my list for awhile.
A must read for every single American in my view.
I need to get a new copy; somehow I lost the one I had during college.
ADT was outstanding in his astute writings about America.
STEVE SMITH, restrainist
ZARDOZ, Deferentialist
Discuss.
And by discuss, mean …
I would go just the opposite. I’d say STEVE SMITH, deferentialist and Zardoz, restrainist. I mean Zardoz is very, very judgmental.
You missed the obvious context for STEVE SMITH as restrainist.
I didn’t
Steve Smith is not King Kong
KING. KONG. AIN’T. GOT. NUTHIN’. ON STEVE SMITH!
Deferentialism gives no answer to Cultural Marxism – oh so you’re one o’ them alt right conspiracy theorists?
Also if you throw all commies out of helicopters at T0 you need not worry about cultural Marxism at T1
As a Restraintist, I say those commies are welcome to form a commune (on land they collectively buy) and live according to their ideas. It’s when they decide to impose those stupid ideas on me that they earn the helicopter ride.
Something about newsletters and cutting jibs.
“American Commune” on Prime is a great example of how socialism, even voluntary and we’ll intended, fails miserably. Loafers and drifters show up and want their cut regardless of contributing nothing; founding members get pissed off, want their benefits to reflect their labor and investment. Eventually commune is sub-divided into private property. It’s a beautiful story.
I still hold to the theory that Sloth is a significant motivating factor in chooseing socialism, even more than envy.
I still larf when I recall the story of how Bernie was asked to leave a commune in the sixties because when it was time to do some manual labor all he wanted to do was sit around and talk Marxist theory.
“Look Bern, we know you’re able to help more than you do. So if it’s ‘from each according to his ability’ and you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, our need is for you to skedaddle.”
Damn
That’s how Bernie Sanders got himself kicked out of a kibbutz.
High five anyway….great minds recall the same hypocrites
The Israelis have had more success it seems.
The kibbutz communes worked in the early days of Israel. People were arriving with literally nothing and were willing to work hard together to turn the desert into a new country. They were run by tough people who didn’t tolerate sloth – hence Bernie’s experience – and were fighting militias in the early wars.
Most of them were disbanded as people became prosperous.
Also, Kibbutzes (is that how you spell that?) didn’t exclude religion. Religion is a *powerful* anti-rationalist force that is *very* useful for solving collective action problems. Free riding is hyper rational, but not good for the commune.
Religious splinter cults are basically communes in American, but their survival rate are much, much better than Marxist communes because they have the religion to for members to contribute to the commune instead of to themselves.
One of my favorites, robert lefevre, gives a good talk on communes. They rarely work out but there have been groups of highly religious people who have made it work. It’s very interesting if you have 25 minutes to kill some time.
https://mises.org/library/communal-socialist
So reading this whole thread, it seems like a commune can work under threat: threat of invasion (kibbutz), threat of ostracism (kick you out if you don’t contribute), threat of starvation, or threat of hell (religion).
“really more of a spectrum”
You got that right.
Like gender
Trashy, where do you think that you’re clustered spectral ends fit with other, more well known bogus Libertarian binarys? Thick/thin, Brutalist/humanitarian, cosmo/yokel?
*your
I’m in favor of thin. Thicc looks to close to fat most times.
My man, we can be buddies.
/grossed out by thicc
The term ‘thicc’ was invented by chubby-chasers who are in denial.
And by Southies.
*salutes*
No one actually knows what the word ‘thicc’ means unless they watch TV.
I’m making my assessment based upon the postings to Glibertarians and the comments by Glibs on the subject.
^ The correct answer.
I’m in favor of thin. Thicc looks to close to fat most times.
I don’t like fat. But I also don’t like girls that have the bodies of 12 yo boys.
So you agree with me that proportionality is key.
The misproportioned people being shopped around as “thicc” fall outside the attractive range more often than not.
All things in moderation.
I like this.
Easy on the eyes, but almost certainly an awful person.
If she could drive Hugh into the arms of a skanky hooker, I think it’s a dead certainty.
Still, though, a pretty strong 52.
I do like Elizabeth Hurley.
As you noted, all deferentialists draw a line in the sand somewhere. Their greatest sin is being liars — they come under the guise of absolute freedom and tolerance, then suddenly backhand you with their newly-revealed standards. A referentialist is up-front about what he will and won’t tolerate on a personal level, but offers as much space as possible for the other person to live within.
OT: How do you get to be as insane as this person is? What goes on in your brain?
https://twitter.com/ComfortablySmug/status/963423095993356290
I don’t know, she strikes me as the type of white person who sucks the joy out of everywhere she goes. It probably is best if she checks first
I’m adding that to my “rules of life”.
If you think that you suck the joy out of a room, you’re right.
I don’t know.
But to answer her question “Never. Don’t buy the tickets. You’re clearly a racist and shouldn’t be watching a movie not about smug, virtue signalling twats with too much money and not enough sense.”
so if she went to the movies she would starts sucking black guys dicks? whats wrong with that beside being a bit old?
And I was thinking she was trying to hide the fact that she wanted to know when there would be no black people in the theater so she could continue to avoid them in real life without revealing her preferences.
Silly me.
Scroll down to the photo of her election night tweet.
From the comments(?) (WTF are they called on Twitter?)
Tailor & Barber
@TailorAndBarber
3h3 hours ago
Replying to @ComfortablySmug
Looks like it’s time for Regal to start selling tubs of buttered Tide pods.
Clicking on that led me to this, which is also priceless.
Lackdawalla? Sounds like she lackdalotofthings.
I thought Nancy MacLean proved once and for all that libertarianism is just a side-effect of autism?
I thought it was a side-effect of being a Nazi that likes segregation or something. Like that evil shifty-eyed economist, James Buchanan
I read an article a couple of years ago. People that work with the high-functioning autistic patients use a test to determine the degree of autism the patient has. So the process is 1) determine the patient is autistic, then 2) measure the degree of autism. If I recall, the scoring runs from 1 to 35 with 35 being the extreme end on the test for autism.
Someone decided to give this test to a bunch of normal people. Normal people average around 18. They found that people that worked in STEM fields frequently scored in the significant range for autism — women in STEM tested in the low 20s and men in STEM tested in the mid 20s. So the theory was that people that worked in STEM tended towards introversion and/or some difficulty dealing with people because they tended to be inwardly focused as result of their natural skills in STEM fields. The authors stressed that the test isn’t for diagnosis and high scores don’t mean autism, just that autistic people score high on the test. So outwardly, STEM people look autistic but aren’t. My wife pointed out, what difference does it make.
By the way, I scored 34 on the test. Of course, I also score extremely introverted on Meyer-Briggs.
I am only moderatly introverted on Meyer-Briggs (although M-B changes over time, so. you know, who knows. Also, it is only about 2 steps above astrology and 1 step above hocum).
As I said at times on the old site, I am INTP. INTJs are the fist against the wall.
first, but I like that too.
INTJs are the first against the wall.
Hey now…. not cool.
I agree, INTJs are totally not cool at all.
Someone’s being a bit judgy, methinks.
I am also INTP
I’m in the restraint camp. Suthen summed it up really well in the morning links yesterday that self-ownership for all really is the heart of the philosophy. I had always tried to explain the NAP, self-ownership, and a rejection of the concept of negative rights as the basis of my personal philosophy. But, if all have self-ownership, he’s right, everything else is logically an extension of that. Taxes are immoral because no one has a right to one’s labor. Prohibitions are immoral because no one has a right to one’s person. If I truly own myself then none of my rights can be taken from me.
well I believe your choice to be a hobo was the right choice for you.
Love your avatar, man! One of my favorite movie quotes ever. I use it, figuratively, all the time.
Fuck Off Slaver!
/Hi
I argued that on the old site a bunch, but someone or sometwo tried to argue that the NAP didn’t follow from self-ownership. I don’t remember who, but I don’t think they made it over here.
why is trshmnstr not commenting on his own articles? how are we supposed to tell him how wrong he is?
Recycle.
*checks watch and calendar*
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say he’s working.
That’s absurd.
I comment more from work because there are fewer sites I can visit.
I’m going have way too much commenting time now.
In answer to Rufus “dont any one you work?”…NOT ANYMORE!
My work today consists of listening to the Oracle tech be baffled by the problem we’ve spent a week failing to fix.
It’s not really ‘work’.
I edited all the photos I did for a magazine shoot. It only felt like work because both my large monitor and my graphics tablet stopped being recognized by my dodgy laptop.
Might be time for a Mexican coffee.
I just saw the CNBC article and put 2 and 2 together.
Sorry, man.
I have 2 friends who got the axe yesterday morning.
Thanks. I think I’m gonna take a couple of weeks to clear my head. I want to move back to Montana
Power went out at work, and my phone died. I don’t actually work at work, that’s what orphans are for.
OT: ManBearPig Strikes Again
https://www.yahoo.com/news/people-going-hog-wild-over-051327953.html
He is not wearing the usual “Come at me bro if you don’t believe in Climate Change” shirt, so it is not Algore…
“We regret to inform you Pigzilla actually has pretty woke opinions and volunteers to help in nursing homes. https://twitter.com/10tv/status/963216158966013952 …”
Pig sex fact: Male pigs have 10 minute orgasms and ejaculate over a cup of semen.
Pork belly is never going to taste the same.
It’s nature’s way of convincing them to continue to copulate with Sows.
So, do they bring the cup with them every time?
Asking for a friend.
Nice.
Two sows, one cup.
I bagged one like that once. 40 yard shot with a S&W model 57, .41 magnum out in the middle of the Catahoula swamp. He dropped like a stone. At first I was afraid to approach him. He had seen me before I saw him and he was clearly wanting to kick my ass. He made the mistake of standing still for a moment. I thought he was playing dead after the shot so that I would get closer.
When I finally did get to him I discovered he was the world’s unluckiest pig. The bullet entered his eye without even touching the lids and his entire head was hollow.
My buddy saw that and was awestruck.
“Holy shit man, you are one hellofashot!”
“Uhhhh….I was trying to hit him in the shoulder”
IV8888’s review/hunt of the “swine smasher” round had several pigs going rigid and voiding themselves, even when the shot placement was off. Hydrostatic shock must be a thing.
For example, Cosmotarians tend to be Deferentialists up to the point where their particular identity politics ox is gored.
Good article. Being a Cosmotarian is like believing that a little bit of cancer is okay.
Cancer and government creep don’t work like that.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/u-s-strikes-said-to-kill-scores-of-russian-fighters-in-syria
US airstrikes in Syria kill 200 Russians. This is clearly part of Drumpf and Putin’s plot. 32 dimensional chess right here.
Seriously, this is what the Russia fever dreams are all about- ensuring, at the very least, American combat forces in Syria to overthrow Assad. President Trump screwed-up during the campaign by opposing this. Now, he’s following along, because he is a weak man
But it’s not WAR war, so it doesn’t count
Sad, but predictable.
Trump is wearing on me. He’s had a year to get us out of shit like this. He campaigned on. it being aggressive in the ME. There is no reason for U.S. forces to be in syria. We need to get out of there.
Nice job, trashy! All philosophical and shit.
It seems that if you aren’t a Restraintist, you’re just a slow-motion proggie. And that’s icky.
As noted above, I’m pretty much a “fuck off slaver” type – but my own libertarian ethos is based mostly on the fact that I just don’t give a big rat’s ass what other people do as long as they leave me alone. I expect the same in reverse.
True story.
Trump is having a big trade meeting with Senators at the White House live on Fox news right now. He just ripped Canada as being very Unfair
“He better not have used a gendered pronoun.”
– Justin Trudeau
OT: The federal government was apparently providing funding to local public libraries, but President Trump’s budget proposed cutting that funding and librarians can’t even right now
https://twitter.com/ALALibrary/status/963124739765096448
When I found out about this, my first thought was “cut the shit out of that- why should the federal government be financially supporting local libraries?”. I still hold that position
They weren’t at first, they gifts from the oil Tycoons of 100+ years ago, Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.
Correct. Also, most public libraries are self-supporting independent governments. It’s cheap for local governments to fund public libraries. No need for the federal government
Contrary to proper derpetology safety practices, I waded into the comments… Someone asked why it’s the government’s job to fund local libraries, and this was a reply:
This whole “you benefit, therefore the government can do it” is disturbing. Who decides what is a benefit? And where does it end? Can I stand on the corner and play my accordion, then forcibly collect money from the entire town with the decree that “they benefit” from what I’m doing?
Also, we have the Internet now. It’s not like local libraries and museums are the only place to get information. You can find tons of classical music, operas, plays, literature, science, and history on the Internet, much of it for free.
The local library is also almost ever open. I mean half a day on four weekdays.
My usual response is, “There’s no such thing as ‘society’. And if there is…then North Korea and Venezuela is a Society
Because society as a whole benefits from everybody having access to the information and services in libraries and museums.
“My subjective opinion is justification for holding everyone else at gunpoint to fund something that should fund itself through use fees.”
Meh, it doesn’t have to be use feeds. It can be funded by a trust or charity, like how it was originally done.
fees*
I seem to remember a story about local people starting a public book share and govt shutting it down
We have one around the Corner from my place, I dropped off the Tao, it seems to work out, there were 50 or so books already there
Here’s a news story for you.
I grew up in a tiny college town that had a free book kiosk outside the local bookstore. Anyone could leave or take a book. Any money anyone donated in the lock box went to the local animal shelter.
In the summer, people would leave extra garden produce or vegetable and herb plants, too. It was super nice. And it’s still there and thriving.
I am a charter member of LittleFreeLibrary.org.
Maybe you weren’t aware but the internet was cancelled when Ajit & his buds canned net “neutrality”.
Last night my access was so slow that nothing would load in less than 24k speeds.
I thought my provider had throttled my connection because I’d used more than average.
Turned out there was an outage across the region and I was back to normal by morning.
If these benefits are so universal and manifest, then you’ll have no trouble coming up with the money from voluntary contributions.
I benefit if every democrat is put to death. Why isn’t the government doing this ???!!!???
“These cuts would impact libraries across the country putting programs that support innovation, lifelong learning, research, and access to information at risk.”
Innovation: how many libraries are actually innovating as opposed to making someone else’s innovation available?
Lifelong learning: tax younger people to retired folks can get free classes at the local library
Research: what? If all your research is at a library, you’re doing it wrong (unless it’s akin to the Library of Congress).
Access to information: uh huh. Every library I walk into has acres of computers. I assume they’re hooked up to a super-secret, library internet unavailable to anyone else.
Not quite. In a city I used to reside, the central library had microfilm archives of records that have still not been digitized to this day, so if you were doing historical research on something they were the only source publically available.
Yeah, fair enough, I was being a little hyperbolic.
And of course, unless the archives were cared for by benevolent government and their nominees, rapacious capitalist-funded charities would haul all that archaic celluloid and acetate sheet out to use as kindling for book-burning orgies.
That’s a question of who should maintain the library and how it should be financed.
Every library I walk into has acres of computers.
Our local library has some nice meeting rooms, too. Oh, and last time I was there, every computer that I could see was being used for games. So, apparently you are being taxed so that the booster club doesn’t have to meet at someone’s house and so that kids can play some video games.
The modern purpose of libraries is to provide a free place to hold Meetups.
Also a place for homeless people to access porn.
Absolutely true. My local library has four floors. Books are confined to only one of those floors, and only a third of that one. The other three floors are “community meeting rooms.”
Shhhh it’s the Nazi internet
Unrelated library story.
She returned those thousands of materials? Dear dog, what a Monster!
My home town library is a great example of wasted public funds. They built an addition on to accommodate a huge computer lab using federal grant money, ten years after internet in the home was ubiquitous, “for the children.” Now the original, elegant Greek revival style home that served as the original library has a big, ugly, modern building attached to it that is empty excepting when a homeless person wants to Jack off to some porn.
That’s what libraries are for.
Bums need a place to jerk off.
Porn, Kleenex and a roof over you head are a basic human right!
Not to be sarcastic, but “this”. Really, libraries are just hangout spots for the homeless nowadays.
I will confess that I love libraries. Even when I was in graduate school I use to walk over to my local library on Sunday afternoon and take out the obscure books that known ever borrowed and that the librarian wasn’t even aware that they owned. I have nothing against libraries, but they are becoming obsolete and if you want a local library in your town you should pay for it. There is literally zero reasons why the entire country should foot the bill for your local library.
I first found HP Lovecraft in a library.
It was a book lodged in a crowded and sagging shelf in a forgotten corner of the fourth floor. It was bound in ragged, almost threadbare black cloth whose label had fallen off and the title was absent from the exterior.
It was so appropo a volume for its contents.
The library was a big part of my childhood. We weren’t terribly well off so the library was a great (free) way to keep us kids entertained. Book, VHS tapes, occasional reel projector movie nights….. And the internet came along and made it all obsolete.
I have no problem with a community deciding to keep a library open. Or closing. It is a strictly local issue that state and federal governments belong nowhere near.
I still go — it’s a really nice one out in the burbs. I use it as an office to work from when I don’t want to be home and I don’t want to be at work.
My city just spent $26 million on a new, 22,000 square foot library, so now bums can jerk off with a nice view.
Whoops. The view.
The homeless are kept out of ours – but it is now a daycare – Dump the kids there for the day….Mostly younger Mexican kids in the Children’s section, and a mix in the Young Adult section, on the 100 computers there.
you know what would fund a library? a fee on checking out a book. not a hefty fee. maybe $1, maybe less. put a cost to those services that society can’t do without.
But which camp is more THICC?
Since we’re on the topic of philosophy. While I’m familiar with Nietzsche and his role in Western philosophy, I’ve mostly only read large snippets, second-interpretations (albeit outstanding ones) and the like about him. Now I find myself mulling if I should read one of his works.
Which would be a good start to the extent you can do that with such an eccentric mind?
I’ve narrowed it to Beyond good and evil and The Genealogy of Morals.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra seems a little too out there for me but apparently BGE is a sequel to it and it worries me I may need to read this one first?
I’d start with either “The Gay Science” or “The Birth of Tragedy”. These books, IMO, provide necessary context for “Beyond Good and Evil” and “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. I think part of the problem is that people jump to those later books and utterly misinterpret Nietzsche’s thought because they lack the foundational, technical understanding of his philosophy you get from the former books.
My 0.02.
“Did you know that Nietzsche died of syphilis?”
Heh.
A perfect example is that of master-slave morality that’s developed in Beyond Good and Evil. A superficial reading of it will lead to facile conclusions about there being no distinction between good and evil; G-d is dead, everything is permitted nonsense. A more sophisticated (and, IMNSHO, correct) interpretation is kind of a proto-Objectivism in which meekness, piety, deference and equality of outcome are not, as peddled by social engineers (religious figures were the most prominent social engineers of Nietzsche’s time), positive traits. They are, in fact, destructive to both society and the human spirit and were created as part of a false morality by those who were least capable (modeled after the archetype of the Greek slave). Master morality is about living with confidence, gusto, passion with assertive self-determination (modeled after the complementary archetype of the master).
Of course, a childish reading of such an idea will make some people (read: left liberal types) recoil in horror about “cruelty, selfishness, inequality, IT’S NOT FAIR!!!” Paradoxically, prog-types will simultaneously lionize Nietzsche for this (in their mind) evisceration of Christianity and traditional values. Neither interpretation is proper and both are extremely superficial.
That’s the thing (in response to both your comments), I understand his background and know about how his positions were misunderstood. I feel I understand his backdrop enough to jump into those. If I’m not fooling myself, and given what I just wrote, would you say I can go ahead and read BGE? And Genealogy’s subject kinda intrigues me. Unless I’m missing something. Thanks!
I’d go Beyond Good and Evil then.
Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s “Atlas Shrugged”; putting his philosophy into practice in a fictional setting.
I know that Trotsky died from being too picky.
I heard someone axed him a question
*narrows gaze*
Which one is the one that explains that the central tenet of Buddhism is “Every man for himself”?
Probably “On the Genealogy of Morality”. I haven’t read that one, but I do know that he considered Buddhism to be decadent, nihilistic and world-denying. However, he did think it preferable to Christianity because, in his estimation, Buddhism did not promote slave morality. That’s all I know about his opinion on the matter.
Pssst.
*movie reference*
Dammit. I had to look it up and I love that movie too.
“K-K-K-Ken is coming to k-k-k-kill me!”
So, we shouldn’t call you stupid?
That was an awesome troupe. I wish they had made more after “Fierce Creatures.”
“Aristotle was NOT Belgian!”
Interesting. No idea what camp this puts me in, but I kind of see two layers; one layer is objective morality (violating other people’s rights, eg: theft, murder, rape etc.) defining your hard line right and wrong. I see another layer in which the lines are a bit more blurred. Choosing to live a particular way that doesn’t directly violate anyone’s rights but is probably not the “proper” way to live if you’re aiming for a happy and prosperous life (eg: getting addicted to smack). Of course one could make an argument that getting addicted to smack (or coaxing your spouse into an open marriage or getting a sex change or regularly patronizing prostitutes etc.), even in the absence of any direct personal consequences, has potential, peripheral negative consequences to your friends and loved ones. That probably doesn’t rise to the level of violating their rights, however; and the NAP doesn’t protect someone from hurt feelings. SoCons often include the aforementioned behaviors under the banner of “immoral” to try and resolve the conundrum. I suppose it’s in that second layer that your distinction lies, but it’s a pretty subtle difference. I can see deferentialism as being a workable libertarian philosophy as long as it doesn’t degenerate into some proggy “I can’t hurt people’s feelings” butthurt. I guess it comes down to a question of objective value; deferentialists (according to your definition) define reality as not really having any intrinsic moral order, any decision is as good as any other. I can see why that would be problematic since it’s basically nihilism warmed over.
But with the philosophy as it applies to an approach to government generally, and ours as it was founded specifically, the government is here to protect me from you or foreign invaders, not myself. Any sort of lifestyle choice that stops short of direct harm to others is a vice, and mine are legion, but it shouldn’t matter to anyone else nor be a crime… Else we start down that road Lysander Spooner saw us eventually traveling, and we have. I believe the correct response is Fuck Off Slavers.
“the government is here to protect me from you or foreign invaders, not myself”
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. When it comes to governmental interference, and application of philosophy to governing systems, it’s pretty cut and dry. I was just expounding (in my own way) on the implications of trsh’s ideas to personal philosophy and how an individual makes decisions of how to live a good life. It’s clearly far outside the scope (or should be anyway) of the government to even consider that idea.
Newsletter? Sign me up!
I had started a newsletter, but it was in crayon, which, um, unfortunately I ate all the crayons. Now I just make apocalyptic sandwich boards and yell at passers by in the town square.
I was looking at the official portrait of Barack Obama earlier, and I realized that it’s the first image I’ve ever seen of him in which he appears to actually be listening for once.
I have no idea what this has to do with the topic at hand, but I wanted to share.
It is a Weird Ass picture however, like a bad Photoshop
He reminded me of the rich guy from Seeds of Doom and looked like he was about to be swallowed up by the Crinoid.
Best new portrait:
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/27751559_10100779678475043_1687324347583372901_n.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&oh=28d5271b92253fb86831a8b02a3db26a&oe=5B1C8C73
Powerline posted up some funny photoshops of the portrait – I got a few giggles out of it”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/02/the-weak-in-portraits-obama-edition.php
From the looks of it, the fire could only have improved the painting.
The Homer one is a nice touch
If I could photoshop I’d make his hands into the facehuggers from ALIEN. That’s what those hands remind me of.
My 9 year old (half Filipino) niece upon being told she has to pick a subject for an essay about Black History Month:
“I’m going to write about Gummi Bears.”
Counselor: “Are you sure that’s appropriate?”
Niece: “They’re colored too.”
Awesome
She’s gonna go far!
I should mention that the counselor is African-American. My sister is waiting for the inevitable phone call.
My opinion is that “Cultural Marxism” is a particularly insular and ultimately silly phrase that makes the speaker sound deranged. It’s a rather lame attempt at special pleading that says “Hey, you guys hate Marxism, right? I’ll add ‘Marxism’ to another word and that way I can conflate a bunch of things and you’ll know they are all bad.”
“Cultural Marxism” has the same informational content as “Radioactive Peanut Butter” or “Anthrax Sofa.”
I think “Radioactive Peanut Butter” and “Anthrax Sofa” do a pretty good job of communicating relevant information.
I have trouble working out how to make a Sofa out of Anthrax. Asbestos, yes, but Anthrax will require some more work. Maybe some binding agent to hold the spores together and make it the padding within the asbestos upholstery.
I think it means “sofa from Castle Anthrax”, in which case, I sits.
They’re perfectly cromulent phrases.
What I getting at is that it’s just a lazy way to say “Things I Don’t Like” without naming them or arguing against them. It’s no different than antifa yelping “Nazis!” at a haircut or a black guy screeching “White Supremacy!” about being cut off in traffic.
I get it. I’m just being snarky.
Go sit on the Anthrax Sofa anyway.
this is the best example of why its a bad-term.
just as the antifa types dilute ‘nazi’ to meaningless – and end up creating a false cultural narrative that America is engaged in some existential crisis between ‘good people’ and “nazis”…
…the Cultural marxism term ends up being used like “The Gay Agenda!” – as tho gay-marriage rights isn’t just an issue by itself worthy of attention, it must be cast in terms of some grander ‘conspiracy’ narrative.
…And results in people just going “Look, its teh Cultural marxisms!” instead of saying, “no, my calling you “Xer” should not be required by law, for the following obvious reasons.
The former pretty much describes a tangible thing I’d want to avoid, unless modified by a word on the end, like “detector”.
The latter, yeah, there’s a little ambiguity there that would clarify whether it’s naughty or nice.
I always thought it was a way of preparing the mental soil for acceptance of marxist derangement via attempted cultural change.
I really liked Anthrax Sofa’s first EP.
Coff’in Lounge?
I’m more of a Radioactive Peanut Butter fan, at least the pre “Crunchy” Album days
A few of their jam sessions were all right.
But later on the started to sound too, Creamy?
It wouldn’t have been so bad, but by then their companion acts got a bit stale.
It’s always the same way, a bit of success, and the focus changes to how much bread they can make, man.
And in the end, the couldn’t cut it.
But they Milked it for a long time
To be honest, they were getting spread a little thin after a while.
That’s a bit of a smear, isn’t it?
I like the work they did with Bread and Bob Mold
Too upper crust for me.
The Die-venport!
I get that. I think it’s ok as long as it’s strictly defined in relation to identity politics. The way I see it, and I’d be happy to be argued against, is that “Cultural Marxism” marks the shift of strategy from purely economic application, to cultural application; ie, reframing the permanent revolution from bourgeois vs. proletariat to identity group x vs. identity group y. In the modern era of rapidly improving technology and expanding wealth, the economic arguments weren’t working electorally (at least not well enough to the liking of progs). So they shifted their focus to dividing people up based on skin color, gender, sexual preference etc. rather than class.
Either that or I just smoked a deadly mixture of monkshood with dried cat feces.
“Cultural Marxism” is actually a real thing, since the basis of identity politics is from Marx’s earlier sociological work that focused less on class as the culprit of all that is wrong with society and more on the family unit as all that is wrong with society. It’s no less a conspiratorial notion than ‘social conservative’
Not to mention that the Frankfurt School and critical theory were real and form the basis for modern identity politics
Cultural Marxism refers to the Marxist model of class conflict and applies it to cultural divisions. So instead of workers vs. owners, it’s black vs. white, or LGBTQETC vs. cishetero, or whatever other binary camps you want to substitute. It refers specifically to a form of critical theory popularized by the so-called Frankfurt School of social theory that applies critical theory to aspects of culture associated with the capitalist west. That’s not a comment on its analytical value or its misuse by people who don’t understand what it actually means (not that it would be the first word or phrase like that) it’s just to say that it is a thing and does in fact mean something. In a sense, it might be thought of as sharing a lot in common with Maoist ideas about class being passed through generations, such that a person who’s grandfather was wealthy is as guilty of exploiting the peasant class even if he’s a peasant himself, because of the various advantages his ancestors enjoyed conveying themselves subtly through the years.
“Private ownership of production exploits workers.” – Marxism
“White privilege oppresses people of color.” – Cultural Marxism
First of all, “radioactive peanut butter” does convey useful information.
How would you label the philosophy that art, entertainment, education, childrearing and the like should/must be viewed through the lens of class struggle oppressed/oppressor relationships, and policy decisions should flow from this analysis? “Cultural Marxism” seems appropriate to me.
I think my central objection is more stylistic than anything. “Marxism” is just so laughably retro that it comes off as an oldfogeyism.
All the hepcats are saying “social justice” now, daddy-O? Groovy.
Actually, I think “Social Justice” has the same sort of “stealing a base” problem as Cultural Marxism. I mean, everyone likes Justice, right? Who could be opposed to Justice? And then we’ll modify into meaninglessness.
…maybe?
I mean, the whole point of Justice is determining when violence is righteous. That’s why Justice has a sword, in addition to scales.
The modifiers just point out who the acceptable target is.
Please read the last three sentences with poisonous sarcasm.
I assume the term refers to socialism which has been around since at least the 1830’s. No matter what they call themselves the rhetoric, strategies and goals remain the same.
Alternative label ?
It’s just that–as Gilmore points out below–there’s nothing Marxist about transgender bathroom access. Enjambing “Cultural” and “Marxist” together doesn’t clear it up.
“Identity politics” seems fairly accurate and doesn’t make you sound like a Bircher stuck in a permanent 1967 when you say it.
Identity politics is just the new class warfare. It is without a doubt a Marxist strategy to divide society along identity lines. Shitlord is the new bourgeoisie and the tranny is the new proletariat. It is the same old shit that never goes away. Class warfare, social justice, identity politics and cultural marxism were always dodgy terms, deliberately so.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
I agree.
I read adorno and horkheimer and marcuse and all that shit. and yes, some aspects of the identity-politics / PC stuff relies on ideas originating among them
but its really giving many of the SJW types far too much credit to pretend that they’d even understand many of those arguments. In fact, they probably get a kick out of having their stupid “i am a genderqueer, ergo i can compel your use of pronouns” arguments credited to their Marxist heroes. “Wow, marx must have been really trans-friendly!” Actual marxists would probably have them shot.
Its just a bad term in which lots of various stupid shit gets thrown. better to specify the stupid shit, and clearly articulate why its stupid.
“Identity politics” is a better term. It’s neutral, accurate and flows.
It also has the benefit of being written about by Arthur Schlesinger, which gives it the imprimatur of originating within the “Liberals critiquing liberals” sphere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disuniting_of_America
Don’t hurt people. Don’t take their stuff.
But I can and will make moral judgments about the way anyone and everyone lives their lives.
Good crisp description. I like to think I’m both tolerant and judgemental.
Hm. If I’m understanding these terms correctly, I think I tend to be Deferentialist wrt judging or criticizing others’ choices, since I assume I don’t have all the information they have and that they are making what they see as the right choice for themselves, even if I don’t agree or understand; but ultimately fall back to Restraintist since it’s really none of my fucking business anyways.
I think it would be Deferentialist to say that a white man who identifies as a dolphin and insists that people treating him as such is making “the right choice for it”. It would be Restraintist to say, “that guy is fucked in the head, but I don’t really give a shit until he tells me that I need to provide him a water tank as a work cubicle”.
It’s none of my business until the office starts smelling like fish and I’m getting splashed at my desk.
OR GET SEA SMITH’D BY HIM!
As a restraintist I am convinced that I am not qualified to make decisions for others. I also know that you aren’t either, most especially if you are a marxist. I draw that line for myself and I draw it for others too, with a sword if need be. Mind your own damned business.
I do occasionally give unsolicited advise. If you ignore, oh well.
Everyone knows that I’m the only true Libertarian.
BULLY!
dilly dilly
(snicker)
AGGRESSION
No true libertarian would ever say that.
Assuming my understanding is correct I would be restraintist, Deferentialist seems like your are just not a so con or prog micro manager. It sounds like it covers everything right of Stalin’s and left of absolute monarch. It amounts to giving people the benefit of the doubt except on issues that are “too important” or you feel you understand fully. I would argue Deferentialist aren’t philosophical libertarians just issue libertarians.
couple of initial thoughts
i don’t know if these are distinctions between ‘types of people’; they’re distinctions between types of arguments.
the same person could make a deferential argument in one case, and a restraintist one in another. People aren’t themselves existentially categorized by “ists” and “isms”: arguments use those “ists” and “isms” are the basis for normative claims.
that said, it seems like these are just some new clothes for old ideas, like the utilitarian/consequentialist vs. deontological divide
also… this seems to reduce political arguments to ‘ethical’ or moral ones. they’re not the same and i think if there’s a thing consistent with all self-proclaimed libertarians its the confusion of these sorts of categories. (or the reduction of all things to one-dimensional ethical maxims). what i personally think is moral is not necessarily something i think should be the basis for ideal social coexistence.
i think you do hit on some important dividing line in the way libertarian ideas are sold / discussed in public tho.
I’ve always thought the Robby-esque arguments which say, “well, free speech is good because good people (the left) benefit from it too!” or “you shouldn’t restrict the speech of hatemongers because it might come back to hurt good people (the left)” … basically always defining the benefit of certain ideas from the perspective that they’re *useful* to the right people.
but what if they didn’t? What if it was perfectly easy to restrict bad speech while protecting ‘good speech’, and there were no blowback?
according to the arguments he makes, if there were no adverse consequences for Right-Thinking types, they’d be perfectly justified in silencing Bad-Thinkers.
The better argument is the JS Mill one, which is (basically) “we need bad ideas to remind us what “Good” means”. It is only through the perpetual exposure to new versions of ‘wrong’ that we even have a definition for ‘rightness’ in the first place.
“If you can’t be an example, be a warning.”
I think we can pretty safely say that Glibertarians is the home of the “Fuck off, slaver” camp of libertarians.
Just stay off the Lawn and no one gets hurt
OT: Just in time to shit on ‘the Black Panther is the first black superhero movie’, Honest Trailer for the Blade Trilogy.
Wesley Pipes refused to pay his due to the gubmint. He’s unpersoned.
Does he say ‘axe’ instead of ‘ask’ and does Stephen A. Smith make an appearance?
http://cdn.stripersonline.com/c/cf/cf398936_IMG_03701.jpeg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ec/8a/76/ec8a7639692d1e737f0204e72b1d8ff3.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0f/f0/35/0ff0357e42e6ff4f56a0bb5e8b3ac94a.jpg
http://i.pinimg.com/236x/12/3b/10/123b101521b2a5d3d877da94ea6f7a51.jpg
Philosophy and tits, it’s shaping up to be a fine day indeed!
lol. You should write a book. With pictures.
Red heads, ahhhhhh
Thanks! She Purty
I think we should take up a collection and buy Q a first class hooker for a weekend. Or two.
Like I said before, can I just have the money?
Before? So a self-evidently obvious idea.
No, you cant have the money. That would not accomplish our end.
Playa has suggested it. I play my cards close to the vest. But if you want to give me money, I’m ok with it.
Count me in the Restraintist camp. I agree with Vida Hobo above about taxation. It is theft. But I have a question for the Commentariat: What do we do about a minimum level of public goods? We need some kind of national defense against fat megalomaniacs 5,000 or so miles away who threaten to drop missiles on Seattle (now, if we could get all the progs to stand in one spot…). Likewise with police, courts and incarceration for those who willfully use force or fraud against others. Is some level of taxation necessary? Or would there be some viable alternative method to raise the needful?
That would depend mainly on whether you lean ancap or minarchist.
Ancap: Suck it up and deal.
Minarchist (at least this one): Single Land Tax
Fuck your evil land tax.
Still less evil than any tax with a deadweight loss.
And until someone comes up with a natural law property right scheme that I can accept, I refuse to acknowledge any level of evil.
It has a deadweight loss, you just talk yourself in circles pretending it doesn’t exist.
No it doesnt. The supply curve is vertical (well, mostly).
Do you even S/D curve?
You don’t, clearly.
You conflate supply with “Absolute volume in existance”. Supply is the amount the owners are willing to sell at the given price, not the absolute total amount in existance.
And besides, for high enough prices, the total land in existance does go up, because it can be created. See: the Netherlands.
https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-land-value-tax-not-create-deadweight-losses
False.
Land can be produced, it has a high cost of production. Also, see the comment about the supply in market terms not being the absolute total quantity but the amount available to transact at a given price point.
I said “well mostly”, but I was wrong. Even in that case, no new land is created, it is just converted from underwater land to above water land.
And in a single land tax, the owner would be taxed based on the value of the underwater land (near zero) not the land after they improved it.
And the supply curve for land is vertical. If you can find an economist who suggest otherwise, please do.
Unimproved land has no cost of production.
Improvements are something different.
I have Adam Smith on my side. It may be an appeal to authority, but its a damn good one.
For there to be no deadweight loss, aka for the tax incident to fall on the landowner, there must be a perfect market in land use at the edge of urban areas. That is, it must be an open order city with negligible land use regulation Also, for no deadweight loss, consumer/renters need to have identical elasticity of rent vs consumer good in their utility function.
So, do you know of any urban area with no land use regulation full of people that have identical elasticizes between rent and other goods? I don’t know of any
Smith was good, but he didn’t have much insight into land use regulations in modern urban areas.
“Still less evil than any tax with a deadweight loss.”
No. Different land use means some land pays tax (tenants pay) while some doesnt.
Land tax means you never own the land, you are paying tribute for it. You are a renter. It is medieval. It means ceding some measure of ownership to government which gives them a pretense for telling you what you can use land for.
Consumer sales tax with a hard limit on the percentage.
As I said above, give me a natural law property rights scheme that I can accept.
Otherwise, yes, you never own the land.
It isn’t so much you don’t own it, though, as you don’t get to rent seek off it, literally. The economic rents aren’t yours (of course, they aren’t the governments either, but you know, thats life).
See the Adam Smith quote above. The landlords always pay the full cost of the land tax.
The landlords always pay the full cost of the land tax.
And they pull it straight off the magic money tree, too.
The landlords always pay the full cost of the land tax.
If he’s saying that the landlord will always charge the full amount the market will bear, so that an increase in the land tax won’t be passed on to the tenant, I think that’s true if your perspective is strictly limited to the one contract.
However, there is no market for anything when the cost to the seller of that thing exceeds what anyone is willing to pay. The land tax sets a hard floor on the market for land – it will take some land off the market, reducing the supply without reducing demand, so prices will go up. If the land tax is high enough, it will distort the market, same as any tax, and the cost of that market distortion will land at least in part on the tenant.
I was ancap for years, but I could never come to a way to solve the free rider problem that made sense to me, so I’m really in the “night watchman” category. Well, you’ve got to pay for night watchman somehow, so you come up with the least shitty way of obtaining money you can. For a long time in US history a lot of that money came from tariffs, allegedly. The day someone comes up with a method for funding public expenses in such a way that it’s fair, voluntary, sufficient, and eliminates the free rider issue, we’ve got the hard part solved.
I know a lot of people like the idea of tariffs, but a tariff is a restraint on free trade and is prima facie protectionist.
Funding the Night Watchman State is a very complicated problem. If you make it truly voluntary, you get back to the free rider problem. And a flat user fee even contains the problem of “what about those who refuse to pay?” The logical solution is to exile them, but then we have the anti-exile police force…
I’m not sure there is a solution beyond keeping the state the size of a HOA and charging citizenship fees.
My main concern with the microstates is what happens when you get the group gobbling up other microstates that doesn’t successfully trigger the grand coalition of the many microstates because the problem is “over there” for so many annexation iterations until the problem becomes unstoppable.
It may be that human nature simply can’t produce or sustain a society of maximal freedom. The Asshole Problem always begets collectivization for simple defense, and that is step toward inevitable non-libertarian societies.
Yeah, the tariff thing is just sort of moving the shittiness into a corner that people see less than, say, sales tax or income tax, but you’re right that it’s just as much an infringement.
I think of the problem in terms of what you’d do if you have six people on a cul-de-sac paying to pave the road and having #7 at the bottom of the bag, so to speak, not putting up. Or 3/4 of a neighborhood paying for police with 1/4 not paying and interspersed among the others. Is it like newspaper delivery, but with police not responding if you’re not on the list? And what if it’s fire? I have an interest in my neighbor’s house not burning down because I don’t want it to spread to my place, so what happens when he doesn’t pay the firefighter fee? And all of those problems are the same whether someone can’t pay or just chooses not to pay, because if you let someone run a tab and they can never catch up you have the same problem.
You could always take the Ayn Rand route on taxes “All these current methods are evil. Do I have a better idea? Why um, uh, no, uh look I’m a philosopher and this is really more the realm of politics than philosophy.”
I used to be in the Anarcho-Capitalist camp and could make the arguments that there are no public goods that could not be provided by a free market. I’m more of a Property Rights Constitionalist these days. I would say that user fees can handle paying for the court system, immigration, and border enforcement.
For “national defense” you would need to have an argument on what that entails and how it should be provided as part of how you pay for it. I would argue that we shouldn’t have a standing army, but a powerful navy and marine corps that would provide the first line of defense. Such a force should be financed through tariffs. Everything else should be volunteer militia at the state level.
Cut EVERYTHING by 95% as a starting point, and then we can have a real discussion.
2 words for ya, Human Nature
People are afraid of change
And uncertainty. You can coax them into accepting change with guarantees of outcome, but change with no guarantees, you’re getting absolute pushback.
Cut spending by 95% and they can have whatever tax policy they want.
These are responses I got from friends for making a similar suggestion:
He lost me after the first sentence, UCS said it well above^
Um, has this guy never heard staunch Lefties spewing hateful rants about “wypipo”?
It’s not that he hasn’t heard it, it’s that he doesn’t disagree.
“I once agreed that getting rid of any government org with a three letter acronym was a brilliant idea, there are definitely a lot of them whose absence would lead to some really awful outcomes.”
1. What bad outcomes? Be specific.
2. What has any of those agencies ever done for you personally? Be specific.
Asking those two questions will usually her you a non response from most people.
Real world. Both parties suck but only one caters to and tries to attract racists, thinks health care is a privilege, and thinks school shootings are just a way of life.. In the world we live in right now it is a two party system and in my opinion the side which doesn’t cater to racists, thinks I should be able to afford health care, and thinks school shootings are bad wins over the other.
And, after the government has remade the population in the image of the New Soviet Man, then it can wither away and we will all be equal.
the side which doesn’t cater to racists,
Honestly, the Dems do more catering to racists than the Repubs, unless you have a racist definition of racism which excludes bigotry toward certain groups.
thinks I should be able to afford health care,
Who doesn’t think you should be able to afford health care? I suspect what you meant to write was “thinks someone else should pay for my health care”, which is very different.
and thinks school shootings are bad
I’m not aware of anyone who thinks school shootings are good.
As I score it, its a tie on two of these points, and the Repubs come out ahead on one.
How about we just start shrinking government and when it gets so small that there are problems, we can address it then. I think we have a long way to go before there can be meaningful policy disputes between the ancaps and the minarchists.
I lean a lot towards some sort of usage tax, like a sales tax, to fund the minimum level of public goods. Rationally, it seems like consumption of consumer goods will scale to the size of a family. But, if one is free riding (and I hate that term) then they’re working pretty damned hard for their free lunch growing their own food and making their own consumables. It does offer a choice, though. For things like the dreaded ROADZ, then gas taxes. Again, scaled to actual use and abuse of infrastructure. You’re still paying taxes, but it’s anonymous and at the point of sale. It’s not like having your fat uncle take a portion of your pay before you get it. And, you don’t have to beg some asshole in a cubicle 2000 miles away for just how much of what you earned you get to keep based upon a mandatory disclosure of how much you made and from whom. Lesser of evils still being evils and all.
Karl Marx’s mother in law saved money her whole life. Upon her daughter’s marriage to Karl she gifted them with the money so that her daughter would have a good life. On the honeymoon they checked into a hotel and sweet little Karl left the box with the money in it open on the nightstand in the room. He told the porter that he could take whatever he needed from the box and to tell the other staff to do the same. When they returned from dinner the box was empty.
I am not opposed to charity but that was beyond stupid and disrespectful.
I am not opposed to taxation. I am opposed to open ended taxation. We need a constitutional or some hard limit on taxation. Uncle Sam + other taxing entities combined get some limited amount, say…15%. That’s it. If you cant afford to do x,y or z with that 15% then it doesnt get done. No exceptions.
The Constitution used to prohibit income taxes entirely, as you well know. There is really no defense against government re-writing the rules if the people want it, and they clearly did, and do. We just need a better electorate.
I’m in support of a consumption tax, in that it a tax where you make the decision when and where to pay it and is not a tax on a passive activity. If you tax land ownership you are taxing a passive activity, an owner always owns something (as long as they own it). Just the same, a seller is always selling something (as long as they are open/working). The income received from work is from selling one’s time and effort, and thus passive.
With a consumption tax it is an active tax. Someone chose at 4:35pm yesterday to buy a TV. He chose to buy it at Wal Mart, he actively looked at prices, weighed his decisions and acted.
A land tax is taxing away the economic rents that the owner didnt earn anyway. If he wants to improve the land, he deserves the rents on the improvements.
But the other, he is no better than Elon Musk. Rent seekers are rent seekers.
Tying in with another subthread, Musk is apparently an INTJ.
Taxing someone for owning something is no different than taxing someone for not owning something, both are passive things.
A land tax is taxing away the economic rents that the owner didnt earn anyway.
“We just made this number up and decided to tax you on it. Don’t worry, you didn’t deserve to keep this number we pulled out of our asses anyway.”
Well the government didn’t earn them either, did it?
Nope, but I dont know how to transfer it to “society” or “humankind at large” or whatever. At least the government issued a deed and conquered it for me.
OT: Hey, it’s this story again. The one we’ve heard 500 times before http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/35967817/officers-kill-man-with-no-active-warrants-at-wrong-house?utm_content=buffer43649&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
It’s got everything!
1. Wrong door police raid
2. Innocent homeowner killed
3. Cops say the victim pointed a gun at them (we’ll ignore for a second his right to home self defense. You can put the Dunphy “don’t bring a gun to the door” thing here)
4. You won’t believe this, but he wasn’t armed
5. Police say they identified themselves, loudly
6. Neighbors say they didn’t hear the police identify themselves at all
Bonus! 7: Looks like the cops may have shot through the closed door.
Good shoot, officers get to go home safely to their families, something something… aw, fuck it.
Tulpa’s gonna break his dick off jacking to this one.
Did he use WPA2 encryption with a strong password on his Wifi router? Because if he didn’t, he deserved everything he got.
He was fantastic at arguing from a position of moral imbecility.
If you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear!
That’s depressing. Again. This shit is incredible.
And, had the homeowner defended himself from what he would have had every reason to believe was a home invasion robbery, he would have been charged with murder like Cory Maye.
Shit like this is why I have such a hard time with cop suckers in general. Often, they are extremely skeptical of government overreach in all other areas except LEO abuse. Why? I know, I know, everyone’s a hypocrite, but I’d think people who are so anti-government in their lives would understand that the foot soldiers of the state have more opportunity to fuck your life up than almost anyone else.
“Someone didn’t take the time to analyze the address”
Yes, because reading numbers requires such deep thought.
That was actually from the victim’s attorney. The police wouldn’t dare hint at individual culpability.
I would stop short of saying the government is doing it because it’s evil. Often the social goal is neither good nor evil, and altruism is always relative.
I would instead say, the government’s ability to implement something to obtain the social goal will be ineffective due to it’s inherent inefficiency, which will inevitably create more harm in achieving the goal, if at all, than the goal is worth. That and the justification used to determine if the social goal is good will almost always be evil when applied logically to another, therefore should not be used to justify the government’s action in the first place. Then I can agree with “Restraintism.”
Feel free to throw your rotten cabbage at me, ladies.
Ok, I’ve actually heard of this fetish before.
It’s always produce with these guys.
Can’t you lettuce live in peace?
NO Lettuce! NO Peace!
Et tu, MS?
*narrows gaze*
There’s only two kinds of people. Those who sort people into two kinds of people, and those who don’t.
I’m in the second camp.
Seriously, I don’t know if those two camps encompass the whole picture….or is even a useful lens in which to view libertarians.
I could give a damn about what other people do unless they’re forcing me to do something. Stay the hell off my lawn, and we’re fine. Everyone may have different standards.
Way I see it, libertarianism is a process, not a philosophy. It’s a goal of increasing liberties. The means and the shape follow from the process.
Based on the above descriptions, I can only come to the conclusion that Nick Gillespie is, in fact, the Nick Gillespie of libertarians.
That’s a solid summary
Well done sir, well done.
https://twitter.com/OliviaMesser/status/963502066600677376
I thought this was real at first.
*phone rings*
Ryan: Hello
Trump: Speaker Ryan, this is your president
Ryan: Yes, Mr. President. How are you?
Trump: I’ll tell you, Tom- may I call you Tom?
Ryan: It’s ‘Paul’, Mr. President
Trump: Put, Tom Ryan on then. I thought I was talking to the Speaker
*silence*
Ryan: *sigh* Yes, Mr. President
Trump: Tom?
Ryan: Yes
Trump: Where are we at with that bill about laser shit?
Ryan: What lasers?
Trump: Tom, I’m going to be very frank with you. I want that laser shit to pass. I don’t care what you have to do. We need those lasers
Ryan: Mr. President, with all due respect, I don’t know what we are talking about?
Trump: That’s understandable, Tom. I have a great brain. It’s very hard for people to keep up. Don’t feel too bad about that.
Ryan: What are these lasers?
Trump: You know- those things that go *pew* *pew* and make neon lights when you shoot them
Ryan: What?
Trump: Aw Christ, Tom. Don’t make me replace you
Ryan: I don’t…you can’t…
*loud fart*
Trump: Oh boy- that one sounded juicy
Ryan: Mr. President…
Trump: Not now, Tom. I got to go check my underwear. It wouldn’t be classy to stink-up the Oval office. Just remember what I said
Told to go home from work, I guess my coworkers don’t want my germs. I decided to catch up on some docs. Watching one about Bowe Bergdahl that is of particular interest because I followed that situation from the very beginning. Very few people have a nuanced view of the situation. Regardless of how you feel about Bergdahl I think we can all agree; Brian kilmeade, Meghan Kelly, Sean Hannity etc over at Fox are fucking assholes.
Everyone in the mainstream media is an asshole. Every. Single. One.
No arguments here. What has me particularly pissed here is their immediate accusations of treason and collaboration. I’m not saying Bergdahl is wholly innocent but their hyperbolic politicizing of the issue along partisan lines was no different than demands for immediate assumption of guilt against accused rapists by the SJW crowd. Fucking despicable.
Totally off topic, I think I just got a concussion from my brain trying to escape this ad:
https://twitter.com/attn/status/961772287165804544
“Solar is the best, and any objections to paving over a huge chunk of the southwest to power the entire country we’ll just handwave away as pointless. The only reason solar hasn’t taken off is because of the evil oil companies.”
Christ I need a drink.
Stupid is as stupid twitters
I wasn’t likely to move to T-Mobile before, but I’m definitely not going to now.
but they’re going to be 100% renewable by 2021.. which i assume means they’ll pay a premium for coal-powered turbines to meet their electricity requirements just so they can say they bought renewable credits.
[….]paving over a huge chunk of the southwest
Fuck you.
I’m no electrical engineer or nuthin’, but eh, doesn’t electricity have a teeny bit of a problem with diminishing the farther the end point is from the point of generation?
You mean line loss? Yes.
Transmission lines are at like 4800 volts, which travels nicely, but still suffers loss over distance
7200/12,470 is typical for secondary transmission lines.
The southwest isn’t interconnected with the rest of the country by AC lines, only the west. So….
Guess the author
In retrospect, the civil war in the Balkans was the most important event of that period. It prefigured what has come since: the return of ethnic separatism, the rise of authoritarian populism, the retreat of liberal democracy, the elevation of a warrior ethos that reduces politics to friend/enemy, zero-sum conflicts.
“the rise of authoritarian populism, the retreat of liberal democracy”
Someone who likes to paint with a broad brush in a highly inaccurate way?
FriedmanBrooksSadBeardNYT is my guess.
Brooksie it is!
The Restraintists work from the premise that when an individual makes a decision, it is their decision to make, whether or not it is the right decision. Restraintists’ motto is “who am I to tell you what to do?” They restrain their own sense of morality to avoid overstepping their authority.
Hmm. Not sure about this, which seems to be based on the assumption that libertarianism is about restricting individual action (“As a libertarian, I don’t tell other people what to do.”) To me, libertarianism is about restricting government action.
Sorry if this is a repeat of something above, and I won’t be around to respond to any replies. Booked the rest of the day. Yes, Rufus, I’m working.
4,811.
Conference call over early, checking in.
Thanks, SP.
I should’ve been more clear. By “tell you what to do” I meant “force you to do what I want through government intervention.”
Seems like this is a Moral Relativism vs Natural Law argument but for libertarians which O assume are connected by the NAP.
I
Basically, yes. I’m arguing that cosmos are moral relativists.
I would not consider myself a Cosmo but I do not believe in a metaphysical or even a natural/evolutionary source of morality/rights. Certainly, there has been some commonality in how disparate societies have figured out how to function with some sort of group cohesion as you would expect them to but my skepticism is aroused when people start throwing around the “nature” word when it comes to a set of ethics. I sure as hell don’t have it all figured out, but I only go on my logical analysis based on my reading of theology and philosophy. That’s not to say that I don’t think my way is the best way or that I don’t deem others to be ignorant or bullies.
Similarly I do not believe that there is any external source or natural law that provides life with meaning (outside of reproducing of cource). But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that individuals can’t define purpose(s) and meaning for their own lives. I believe they are the only ones who truly can.