Whenever I run into someone willing to fight, they're always a badass. Guys I could take, they back down easy... so 99% of the time, if I'm getting in a fight and the other guy isn't backing down - he can probably kick my ass - or he would have already backed down from the fight. 

Weird how that works. 

This room makes me wish there was a mechanism to like/upvote posts. Sometimes you want to acknowledge a post, but you don't have anything to add or any response. You just want to throw in a little "a-men!" 

Thu May 16 2019 08:11:54 MST from ParanoidDelusions

This room makes me wish there was a mechanism to like/upvote posts. Sometimes you want to acknowledge a post, but you don't have anything to add or any response. You just want to throw in a little "a-men!" 

 

 

Quit being so anti-Abrahamic and get with the Amens, then, man. ;)

I like libertarian ideals in theory. I have my doubts about how practical they would be in practice. 

Okay, let's test it. If you could choose to get your public utilities from three different towns nearby 

... Because you lived between all three cities, would that be better than being stuck with one? 

Possibly. Unless all 3 utilities were colluding and basically just different names for the same end product. Which tends to happen in situations like that, in my experience. 

LOL too true. But anyway, what I've just described is panarchy. There are multiple governments you can choose from. You may argue that the state still governs them and the nation governs the states, but that actually just leads me to the next fun anarchist point:

There is anarchy is between nations. They're sovereign. They don't own or answer to each other. If they want to get ahead, they can't piss everyone off. Kinda like people. If they're sneaky people don't trust them as much. If they're powerful they can get away with more. But just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean anything else would be better. A one-world government is obviously The Worst. More nations is better if they get along. And when they don't get along having more nations is better still because Switzerland doesn't have to fight if they don't feel like it.

I'd argue that society and civilization is the thin veneer of sanity that we paint over anarchy - which is always just one crisis away. But anarchy isn't FREEDOM. It isn't liberty. It is the rule of the strong. It is a Mad Max world where the Humongous or Aunty Entity or whoever else can - for a short time, through whatever means - cause order - will cause a little cluster of activity to surround himself or herself. Anarchy is the last 2000 years of human history - and it was GREAT to be the ruler, the head of state, the strongman, or someone close within his or her circle during these times. 

But for everyone else - for everyone weak - it sucked. Not a little bit. It sucked balls. It was a constant struggle to work your entire 35 years on this earth just trying to scrape out a little piece of miserable survival. 

Anarchism as an ideal is Utopian. Anarchy in practice is misery for the weak. Which sounds like an endorsement for socialism. 

And maybe - it is. As a united collective - we have strength against the strongman. In anarchy where we all fall into trying to take care of ourselves without anyone else looking out for us, only those with incredible determination, strength, luck, and cruelty seem to thrive. 

But that is just my opinion. I could be wrong. 

I went to a thing where Antifa were expected to show up, but they didn't and I was a little sad that I didn't get to break a commie.

We were in downtown Phoenix the night that the Phoenix PD shot a tear-gas canister into some BLM protester's nuts. Heh. That video is hilarious! 

I find the LP divided. You've got radically far Leftist Anarchists who who imagine a global collective where the non-aggression principle keeps everyone working together in a Utopian harmony and then a far Right Anarchist group that imagines a completely unregulated economy where everything is driven by market demand from drugs to voluntary lifetime servitude and that as long as the non-aggression principle is driving it, everything is in Utopian Harmony. I think I have a handful of both of these type of libertarians logging in here, so maybe this will generate some interesting conversation. I thought this room would be more active. 

I like the principles and ideals of Libertarianism - but, I like the principles and ideals of socialism and communism too. I think that Libertarian ideals are probably as impossible to implement in society as the other two, and that at scale Libertarianism seems to  me - would dissolve into Mad Max anarchism with strong man rule and weaker people looking to those strong-men for protection. So, I get called a Statist a lot - because I believe in reasonable regulation and in social contracts between the people and the government with mutual responsibilities and obligations. 

I voted for Gary Johnson every election from Dubya's second election on until Trump - and I voted for Trump not when Hillary called half the country a basket of deplorables - but when Bush Sr. said he would not vote for Trump. 

If the Clintons and the Bushes don't want a guy in office - I say let's see what happens if we do just that. At the very least, it ought to be entertaining. 

So I was thinking about taxes - and I realized that an employer is likely to pay an under-the-table worker MORE for their work than a legitimate worker. This is because the employer isn't worried about taxes, mandatory contributions into unemployment, and other State and Federal costs associated with a legitimate worker. These are effectively taxes that hurt your REAL wage as a LEGITIMATE worker. 
Then after skimming off the top, you pay federal and state income taxes on the wage you earn - too. Effectively double taxation. 

Politicians are greedy bastards and this isn't what the founding fathers envisioned at all. 

IF we're going to have a tax, it should be a single flat rate tax on employers. But if they did it that way, it would be far clearer how much they're REALLY deducting from us to sit in congress and argue about cow-farts. 

Fuckers. 

Thu May 23 2019 09:08:20 MST from ParanoidDelusions

So I was thinking about taxes - and I realized that an employer is likely to pay an under-the-table worker MORE for their work than a legitimate worker. This is because the employer isn't worried about taxes, mandatory contributions into unemployment, and other State and Federal costs associated with a legitimate worker. These are effectively taxes that hurt your REAL wage as a LEGITIMATE worker. 

This is precisely true. As it is, illegal workers usually get the same amount rather than more because the legal workers would tank the company. That's a kind of market pressure, too. Companies are sooo vulnerable, but our high-trust society makes it seem otherwise.

Yeah... but getting the *same* amount - the illegal workers actually take HOME more - although they have less protection if they are laid off or become ill. 

But - they're actually probably the LAST to be let go, too... for the very same reasons. 

>I'd argue that society and civilization is the thin veneer of sanity that we paint over anarchy - which is always just one crisis away.

Yes to everything before the dash. Almost all association is voluntary. You're not my ruler. I happen to be on your board, by your invitation, which means you can kick me out. But you can't take 35% of my paycheck or press me into military service. 99% of the people I interact with are not my ruler in any way whatsoever. The checkers at the supermarket, the people I'm driving with on the street (except the fuzz), the professors at school, even your "boss" whom you could tell off.

Here's the thing about what you think is the government: it's arbitrary what the government takes on as a role. In many countries the property lines are managed by the government. Here we have title companies. In the Eisenhower era people started thinking of road building as a purview of the government. But many roads back east are private. Armies aren't even necessarily government-owned and controlled the world over. Costa Rica doesn't have one but could raise one quickly if necessary just like the US did to beat the British in 1812. Courts are so annoying that many contracts now are handled exclusively under private mediation/arbitration.

So your life, which you live in almost complete freedom, could be made stateless with only a few shifts. You'd be looking out for private road managers who would blare a speed warning at you instead of police who will pull you over and treat you like shit to get back at their abusive fathers. You'd be paying a private company to police your neighborhood instead of the popos who will shoot your dog for convenience. Your're already paying for private health insurance instead of Medicare For All, which is what most developed countries take as a given--but guess what? The "responsibilities" of government are arbitrary.

You're already a minarchist, right PD? A small-government conservative? Well, what responsibilities of the government do you think can't be shifted over to the private sector? Because defending any given current agency of the government isn't necessary.

>As a united collective - we have strength against the strongman.

No, you don't. Gang up with your neighbors and tell the IRS to go fuck itself. See how that goes. The extortionists are the strongman, eating 26.9% of GDP, and they don't give a shit about you.

Sat May 25 2019 17:25:11 MST from Wangiss

 

>I'd argue that society and civilization is the thin veneer of sanity that we paint over anarchy - which is always just one crisis away.

Yes to everything before the dash. Almost all association is voluntary. You're not my ruler. I happen to be on your board, by your invitation, which means you can kick me out. But you can't take 35% of my paycheck or press me into military service. 99% of the people I interact with are not my ruler in any way whatsoever. The checkers at the supermarket, the people I'm driving with on the street (except the fuzz), the professors at school, even your "boss" whom you could tell off.

Here's the thing about what you think is the government: it's arbitrary what the government takes on as a role. In many countries the property lines are managed by the government. Here we have title companies. In the Eisenhower era people started thinking of road building as a purview of the government. But many roads back east are private. Armies aren't even necessarily government-owned and controlled the world over. Costa Rica doesn't have one but could raise one quickly if necessary just like the US did to beat the British in 1812. Courts are so annoying that many contracts now are handled exclusively under private mediation/arbitration.

So your life, which you live in almost complete freedom, could be made stateless with only a few shifts. You'd be looking out for private road managers who would blare a speed warning at you instead of police who will pull you over and treat you like shit to get back at their abusive fathers. You'd be paying a private company to police your neighborhood instead of the popos who will shoot your dog for convenience. Your're already paying for private health insurance instead of Medicare For All, which is what most developed countries take as a given--but guess what? The "responsibilities" of government are arbitrary.

 

You're already a minarchist, right PD? A small-government conservative? Well, what responsibilities of the government do you think can't be shifted over to the private sector? Because defending any given current agency of the government isn't necessary.

 

>As a united collective - we have strength against the strongman.

No, you don't. Gang up with your neighbors and tell the IRS to go fuck itself. See how that goes. The extortionists are the strongman, eating 26.9% of GDP, and they don't give a shit about you.

If all of society decided to collectively snub their noses at the Federal or State Government - it isn't a winnable scenario for the Government to try and fight that battle. It is why prohibition was repealed - it is why we were able to basically occupy Iraq in 3 days but 15 years later Afghanistan is still a cluster-fuck. It is the principle behind the 2nd amendment - that an occupied people who are armed and willing to fight to the very end in large enough numbers takes the incentive of conquest by force away. By the time you invest what is necessary to win, the resources you came for are destroyed anyhow. 

Hell - this was the fatal plot hole with the end of Game of Thrones. A depleted army of Dothraki and Unsullied occupied a destroyed city with no inhabitants surrounded by the countrymen of the town they had just slaughtered. That isn't winnable. Same thing ALWAYS applies. 

"You'd be looking out for private road managers who would blare a speed warning at you instead of police who will pull you over and treat you like shit to get back at their abusive fathers. "

But what happens when people learn they can ignore the speed warning and drivers begin to disregard the speed warnings that are blared at them? Then the road manager tells the offending drivers that they can't drive on that road. The offending drivers go, "That is good, but you have no method of enforcement," and drive on the road anyhow. Now you need someone with a stick... a... policeman...  so now the road manager is empowered to use FORCE of some sort to prevent people from speeding on that private road. That must include the ability to fine or ticket violators - to take away the right to use the road from repeat violators, and to physically prevent those violators from using the road. So now the road manager has become a traffic cop. And what if he has daddy issues because he grew up with an abusive father? 

Well damnit... the perfect libertarian model just took us back in a full circle to the same conclusion - except now - it is just the guy who owns a thing who gets to call the shots - the drivers themselves have no real influence or say in what the road owner does or how he sets or enforces his rules. It might be very arbitrary. Maybe the road owner had a father with curly red hair - and so he tends to pull over and cite people in clown wigs at far higher numbers than other drivers. What can the drivers do? It is a private owned road and there is no higher authority because we don't have a government. Take another road. How is that going to work? Someone else is going to build a road right next to the guy who doesn't like clowns? "This is a clown friendly private roadway!" Yeah, but that guy doesn't like Amish people because of a terrible pole-barn raising incident in his childhood... so now you need a "Pro Amish buggy driven by clown wearing red wig" road right next to the other two roads. 
Pretty soon, you're just all roadway, in every direction - to accommodate what the government could do with a single public owned road. 

This is the problem, in a nutshell - with Libertarian idealism. It isn't workable.