Individual rights v. governent intervention

sudden valley gunner said:

Lets define money first. It equals a medium of exchange for services as most economist will point out.Whether it be precious metals, which has historically been used as money tremendously more successful than any other medium, or other mediums the market chooses better than the state interference.The problems from compulsory government anything is outweighs the markets choice. Fiat money is one of the most insidious means of taking peoples property, and distorting the market. It should be done completely away with.The market adjusts many times daily with the exchange rates between Canada and US (not even accounting for even more volitile exchanges world wide) I don't see any problem with the state doing so too. Of course the state shouldn't be stealing in the first place.

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Agreed.

Let me add something of my understanding to the definition you used:

Money is personal property. As a medium of exchange it is a stand-in/substitute for actual property. If I work for a miller grinding flour, and get paid an actual sack of flour at the end of the week, that sack of flour becomes literally my personal property. If the miller paid me with money instead, it would be no less my personal property. Now, without money, I would have to go through the barter process to exchange that flour sack for something I needed, say meat. The stand-in/substitute known as money facilitates the exchange by making it much faster and much more convenient than bartering actual units of property. Which of course also means money is meant to serve the people in the economy, not the government.

I'm trying to remember the (five?) desirable characteristics of real money. Durable. Easily divisible. Hard to produce (brakes inflation). Broadly recognized. (#5?). Obviously, paper dollars printed out of thin air miss the mark. As do digits created with a few keystrokes in a computer.

I consider it one of my economic rights that my personal property (money) is stable, and not devalued through price inflation caused by government printing excessive volumes of pieces of paper currency nor the Federal Reserve creating vast amounts of digital money.

And now...do to popular request...(or at least a repeated request by one person)...it's time for...

:monkey Looking at what Citizen says! :monkey

(And what I say to Citizen.)

Disclaimer - this is not in any way a personal attack on Citizen. He has asked me, indeed begged and demanded repeatedly, that I respond to and focus on his posts. So why not? Usually I don't go over posts in this much detail, but it's good to give people what they ask for. Therefore I am giving generously of my valuable time to this urgent and needy request, nay this direct order, of his. I hope that my small and lowly contribution may help to benefit all the Citizens of the world! Or at least the one we have here.

Also, in the interests of Logic and Reason, please note that even if someone could find fault with something Citizen says (highly unlikely) it wouldn't necessarily prove or disprove anything about the overall subject matter. Plus there's a handy safeguard in place - we'll examine that later (not in this post yet) - to help protect the subject matter anyway! Remember the song - Uh - uh - Can't touch this! Cool...

Matters of Time

Yesterday, Citizen focused on Time in his posts to myself and one of my fellow unenlightened beings here:

You spent some time on that post. I notice you didn't spend that time responding to my questions

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The fact you have to think over my questions totally reveals you have not researched the issues, supporting the possible conclusion you were not even aware of them. So, I will overlook that you had thirty pages of thread to look up answers before now, but didn't. Take your time to look things over.

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Superficially, that sounds good. However, you did take time to respond to my posts.

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So, while you were busy working (later), you did find time to give non-sequitur responses at some point.

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Now, we know that Citizen is not a big fan of allowing fallacy. After all he started this entire thread with the firm decree:

Basically, my price is that anybody wants me to talk to them here, they must completely eschew the whole litany of goofy debate techniques designed to avoid the actual point. You know--ad hominem, strawman, etc., etc., etc. It will probably sound arrogant, but if they're not good enough to discuss something without resorting to those techniques, they don't deserve my attention.

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Now, notice that Citizen didn't mention that he himself had to abide by these terms. We can't say whether or not they apply to him. Only those fortunate enough to be in his presence are definitely bound to them. Plus this doesn't necessarily include all types of fallacy and reasoning errors. So we couldn't possibly blame Citizen either way.

(Ooh - can't touch this! Remember, this is one of two - we'll see the other one in another post.)

Of course, it would also be a fallacy to suppose that Citizen would be prone to fallacy just because he's not bound by those terms. We have to be careful not to do that.

Also notice that the stipulation applies only to anyone who "wants" him to talk to them - so there could be a loophole there too. Of course that would be dastardly. And who could imagine NOT wanting Citizen to talk to them anyway! Yes, that's humor.

But in the likely event that Citizen potentially could make a fallacy - what would it look like?

A Logical Approach

Well, first we could look at Citizen's assertion that because J_dazzle23 had "taken some time off this thread to give the idea some quality thought" he had not researched:

The fact you have to think over my questions totally reveals you have not researched the issues, supporting the possible conclusion you were not even aware of them.

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(And here I'm not trying to speak for J_dazzle23 or claim to understand him - just that his statement is essential to understanding Citizen's assertion, and proceeding logically from there.)

First, is it a "fact" that J_dazzle23 took time specifically to "think over my questions" - Citizen speaking - i.e. Citizen's questions?

What J_dazzle23 said was:

I'm sick of talking on circles here. Some honest questions. Opinionated, direct answers would be appreciated. I've taken some time off this thread to give the idea some quality thought.

Click to expand...

I don't see anything anywhere about the quality thought being to consider Citizen's questions. The "idea" could for example refer back to "the thread", the general topic, or his own questions which he then provided.

Now, if we had to arrange this as a real logical statement, it might look like this:

A. Having to think over someone's questions reveals that a person has not researched the issues.

B. J_dazzle23 had to think over Citizen's questions.

C. Therefore J_dazzle23 has not researched the issues.

(I'm not even going to touch the part about "supporting the possible conclusion you were not even aware of them" - I'll be nice.)

So let's look at Premise B.

Are there other possible reasons for J_dazzle23's "having to think"? Besides focusing on Citizen's questions?

That gives us one false premise. It can't be stated as a fact with certainty.

(And we have more likely explanations, especially his own questions, but we don't have to worry about that; it's already false.)

How about the other premise?

Is it true that having to think over someone's questions reveals that a person has not researched the issues?

Again, first, there are many other possibilities. You could for example be giving careful thought in order to make a fair reply. You might be watching TV while replying.

In fact, is it even possible to answer someone's questions without thinking them over? Then the premise would involve all questions and all responses.

How does thinking over questions lead us with any certainty to a lack of research?

Take your pick. Either way that's another false premise.

OK, now we have to ask - are two false premises enough?

Moving along

OK, enough about J_dazzle23. Let's get back to my part of the Time equation.

(New post so it won't get too long. And I have a "Life" so the next post will be later on.)

Don't worry Citizen; we are going to cover your questions from yesterday and much more. Wouldn't miss it for anything.

(Although that is not to be taken as an oath of answering all other future and past questions.)

I'm going over things in proper detail, with proper time to cover them with quality, and I'm enjoying it! Just getting started.

:exclaim::exclaim::exclaim: Alert! There may be time in between posts - try not to jump to too many conclusions about why - because I'll cover that too.

We should've done this a long time ago! Lovin' it. Thanks for your requests.

^ ^ ^ :lol: ^ ^ ^
Somebody owes me a keyboard after that

HP995 said:

I am a Constitutionist. The Constitution was a very good effort and is an effective solution. It does have some gaps that have been exploited.

I believe a return to the Constitution would be better and safer than a jump into anarchy.

We all recognize that states are dangerous when they are not strictly limited.

The graphic has some great points about harm done by certain states in certain times, but it is propaganda. Like all good propaganda it contains a lot of truth while conveying some distortions.

However, the proposed solution is not examined critically in detail. I'm tempted to make a graphic about anarchy with rainbows and unicorns!

Click to expand...

Lets take a look at that.

I'll break this up into more than one post.

Shay's Rebellion. About 1786, a number of residents of Massachusetts said, "Hell, no!" And, rose in armed rebellion against the state government. Why? The short story is that the government issued debt instruments (bonds, etc.) to finance the Revolutionary War. Patriotic residents bought those debt instruments, which is to say, they made loans to the state government. By the end of the war, between issuing tons of debt instruments, and the economic outlook in the state, those debt instruments had fallen dramatically in value. I don't recall that it was pennies on the dollar, but it was significant. Basically, those debt holders had lost a lot of the value they had put into the debt instruments. Along comes some sneaky guys. They buy up tons of those debt instruments at very reduced prices. Then, the weasels lobby the state government to pass a law saying the debt instruments would be paid off at face value, instead of market value. Of course, the state government raised taxes to do that. The upshot was the residents were gonna get burned twice on the same debt instruments. The first time when the value of their patriotic loans fell dramatically. And, then again when they would be taxed to pay off the weasels who successfully lobbied the state government.

What's that got to do with the constitution? While obscuring the actual reasons for the rebellion, the fact of the rebellion was used to scare influential people into agreeing that a stronger central government was needed. Basically, one of the rationalizations for the constitution was Shay's Rebellion, a rebellion where the rebels rebelled because they were overtly betrayed by their government. Notice the constitution wasn't rationalized because the state tried to screw the rebels. The constitution was rationalized because the rebels rebelled.

HP995 said:

I am a Constitutionist. The Constitution was a very good effort and is an effective solution. It does have some gaps that have been exploited.

I believe a return to the Constitution would be better and safer than a jump into anarchy.

We all recognize that states are dangerous when they are not strictly limited.

The graphic has some great points about harm done by certain states in certain times, but it is propaganda. Like all good propaganda it contains a lot of truth while conveying some distortions.

However, the proposed solution is not examined critically in detail. I'm tempted to make a graphic about anarchy with rainbows and unicorns!

Click to expand...

(Second in a series of posts)

So, I earlier highlighted Shay's Rebellion. Lets take a look at some more sneakiness.

The self-styled Federalists. The self-styled Federalists were the supporters of ratifying the constitution. Boy, if that name Federalist wasn't a lie, I don't know what was. At that time, the word federation and confederation meant the same thing. The thirteen separate countries were already allied under a treaty called The Articles of Confederation. It was already a federation. Literally--no exaggeration--it was already a genuinely federal system. The self-styled Federalists wanted to abolish that federation and unite the members under a single central government. The poor fellas who wanted to keep the actual federation were stuck being referred to as anti-Federalists.

Morphing Convention. The constitutional convention was not called that originally. Originally, the convention was proposed as a convention to tune up or improve the Articles of Confederation. You see, the compulsory governments, having created power-centers, felt they could act in the interests of themselves and their political supporters, and were thus squabbling amongst themselves. This was glossed over as disharmony, and a better set of articles was advocated. But, somehow, shortly after convening, the convention that was supposed to only tune up the Articles of Confederation morphed itself into a constitutional convention. A number of delegates left. One state's delegates on their exit expressly stated they were only authorized by their state legislature to consider improving the Articles of Confederation, not create a whole new scheme. Now, how do you suppose the entire legislature of that state ended up thinking there was only going to be a tune-up?

Hamilton's Letter. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton knew each other well. Hamilton was an aide to Washington during the revolutionary war. Among Washington's papers is a letter from Hamilton in the late winter-early spring of 1787 (the convention met that summer). In that letter, Hamilton explains there are going to be calls for a convention, but the convention would try to write a new scheme of government. Now, how do you suppose state legislatures thought there would only be tune-up, but old Alex thought something different was going to happen before it happened?

HP995 said:

I am a Constitutionist. The Constitution was a very good effort and is an effective solution. It does have some gaps that have been exploited.

I believe a return to the Constitution would be better and safer than a jump into anarchy.

We all recognize that states are dangerous when they are not strictly limited.

The graphic has some great points about harm done by certain states in certain times, but it is propaganda. Like all good propaganda it contains a lot of truth while conveying some distortions.

However, the proposed solution is not examined critically in detail. I'm tempted to make a graphic about anarchy with rainbows and unicorns!

Click to expand...

(third in a series)

I'll just dive in with some general facts.

Many of those who attended the constitutional convention ended up in the government they created.

It was the Federalists who made the Alien and Sedition Acts into law. It became illegal to criticize the federal government--an overt violation of the express guarantee's of freedom of speech and press in the Bill of Rights.

Huge Federalist Alexander Hamilton was a monarchist. He's also on record wanting a society ordered along England's distinct class structure.

John Adams, the president who signed the Alien and Sedition Acts into law wore a ceremonial sword and colorful sash at certain official functions as president. Also, some of his contemporaries criticized him for putting on airs as though a king.

I earlier mentioned John Marshall, early chief justice of SCOTUS, being involved in the case Marbury v Madison, but not recusing himself from the decision as a justice. Marshall was a strong federalist.

James Madison is popularly viewed as the father of the Bill of Rights. If he was, it was a shot-gun wedding. He wanted no part of a Bill of Rights initially. He's on record referring to it as an odious affair (his words). He only reluctantly agreed to sift and distill the state proposals for a Bill of Rights, only because it looked like the opposition to the constitution would derail ratification if it wasn't done. Gee. Imagine having to be backed into a corner before providing a bill of rights.

Those were some of the Federalists, the guys who pushed for the constitution.

Ben Franklin attended the convention. He was asked to give the closing address. He was too weak to actually speak the address; another had to read it aloud for him. He knew the constitution wouldn't work and said so in his closing address. But, here I want to focus on something else. As a retired and experienced diplomat he carefully chose his words, but it takes little effort to read between the lines to see he refers to self-interested, self-serving members of the convention making the constitution less than it could be. He makes it clear that the reason he advocates unity among the members after they walk out the door is that he thinks nothing better could have been obtained. Obtained by who? The self-serving, self-interested squabblers at the convention.

And, the conventioneers agreed to not expose the "deliberations" of the convention. The main reason we know what happened at the convention is because James Madison surreptitiously kept notes, finally revealed years later.

And, the convention didn't actually complete the scheme. Ever notice that Article III, dealing with the courts much shorter than the Articles dealing with the legislature and president? Very short indeed. Once they were in power, the federalists didn't miss the chance to flesh out the courts with the Judiciary Act. More than one scholar has pointed out that the Judiciary Act is actually a constitutional amendment, but was passed by congress and signed into law by the president rather that going through the amendment process in Article V.

So, taking these last three posts as a whole, how does HP995 think the constitution was a "very good effort?" No, it looks to me like power-grabbers and opportunists lied about the need for a constitution, lied about the purpose of the convention, and created a centralized government that could grow and grow, overshadowing and even nullifying the states that created it, delivering a product (the constitution) bereft of a Bill of Rights, and strongly opposed by a lot of people. The same Federalist crowd then went on to give us implied powers (Hamilton and the first national bank), a government that decides its own limits (SCOTUS in Marbury v Madison), and destroyed freedom of speech and press when they made it illegal to criticize them with the Alien and Sedition Acts. And, everything in the last three posts was just stuff I recalled off the top of my head; by no means meant to be exhaustive.

How does HP995 think the constitution was a very good effort?

I gotta say - I do like it that you posted some background info to consider! I will read in more detail later and reply.

Thanks Citizen. A good read as usual.

J_dazzle23 said:

I'm sick of talking on circles here. Some honest questions. Opinionated, direct answers would be appreciated. I've taken some time off this thread to give the idea some quality thought.

Click to expand...

OK, I'll give it a try.

1. How do you moderate currency, and standardize it? Also preventing counterfeiting?

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False premise. Why must there be coin of the rhealm? How about I give you two chickes, cuz you don't have any chickens, and you replace my kitchen sink garbage disposal, that I got from the kitchen sink garbage disposal guy who needed chickens too? What is sooo terrible with a barter system? What is it about folks bartering that leads you to believe that the downfall of our society, in its entirety, would result?

I know that government despises the barter system, no cash going into Caesar's coffers...no rendering unto Caesar that is. Don't believe me? Read the tax code. I do believe that the IRS has gone after folks who have not reported their "goods & services" received as income and then rendering their tribute unto Caesar.

2. How to provide public services to anyone besides the rich? Sewer, water, security, etc.

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Septic, or pay to use the sewer system?
Water? Well water, or pay for it just like we do now.
Security? Really? How much security do have at this very moment? Is there a cop standing watch outside your door?

3. How to deal with a free market run rampant? Such as complete monopolies(yes, companies could do it just like the gov.)

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See my response to #1. This is eerily close to the premise that liberals cling to.

4. How to solve conflict, especially for all those that cannot protect themselves (of which this is the majority, imo). Given that morals and values are NOT objective, there is a very real difference on what is acceptable to every person.

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That has been addressed six ways from Sunday.

If you could kindly answer then in numbered order, it would keep the clarity of my questions intact.

Thanks!

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Cling to the definition of anarchy that reinforces your view of anarchists, no biggie.

All ya gotta know, about The Founder's and there intentions is that the 2A starts out wanting to protect the state, not the people.What the 2A states now.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

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Then there could've been this version.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

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The interventionists care only for the state to be maintained, first and foremost. Interventionists will then restrain the state only to the extent that satisfies them. Any associated benefit(s) to their fellow citizens, via the restraints they agree with, is purely coincidental. There is always, with interventionists, 1% of your rights that are "reasonably" subject to infringement by the state, at their behest.

J_dazzle23 said:

I'm sick of talking on circles here. Some honest questions. Opinionated, direct answers would be appreciated. I've taken some time off this thread to give the idea some quality thought.

1. How do you moderate currency, and standardize it? Also preventing counterfeiting?

2. How to provide public services to anyone besides the rich? Sewer, water, security, etc.

3. How to deal with a free market run rampant? Such as complete monopolies(yes, companies could do it just like the gov.)

4. How to solve conflict, especially for all those that cannot protect themselves (of which this is the majority, imo). Given that morals and values are NOT objective, there is a very real difference on what is acceptible to every person.

If you could kindly answer then in numbered order, it would keep the clarity of my questions intact.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

You know full well that a thorough answer to even one of these questions could easily take the expanse of a book. Do you really think that's reasonable? It's not. Books have already been written, but as soon as a book is referenced here it only takes a couple of posts before someone proclaims that referencing a book can't suffice for an answer. Your questions are broad, unspecific, expansive, ambiguous... As we've already seen in this thread, we could easily give answers that would apply to particular circumstances, but it will only lead to the questioner blowing the answers off and pointing to another set of circumstances where the answer wouldn't apply. Essentially, you're asking a question so broad, there is no short answer which can satisfy, and so you're trying to trap the questioned in a position where they must either refuse to answer, answer in a manner that you will quickly deem insufficient, or they must answer by writing a book. Thus, you're questioning is unreasonable for this format - and internet forum. There are not only many resources, such as books, but there are even books online which you can read at no charge. It is absolutely unreasonable to ask a question so broad that it'd take book-length explanation to answer sufficiently, and then on top of that demand that no book which is already written be used to answer the question, and that we must write a new book specifically addressing you.

I could easily be just as unreasonable to supporters of the state and ask them the same questions and treat their answers with the same disregard.

1. How does the state moderate currency, and standardize it, while also preventing counterfeit?
2. How does the state provide infrastructural services, ensuring that everyone in the country, from the richest to the poorest, receive adequate services?
3. How does the state prevent abusive monopolies?
4. How does the state solve conflict?

At a certain point, you have to be extremely obtuse to continue asking these sort of questions over and over as if none of the discussions or references that have been made even begin to shed light onto the answers.

Might as well just be asking "how to human?" "how to market?" "how to live?"

And to that, my answer will be "go read a book"

You know full well that a thorough answer to even one of these questions could easily take the expanse of a book.

Click to expand...

This is important. Thumbs up. We are dealing with something complex here.

That doesn't mean there can't be reasonably short answers too, at least some of the time.

(Otherwise many questions would be off limits, and we'd be left with something facetious like "go read a book.") :lol:

But the complexity is real. I'm glad you mentioned it. Sometimes questions and answers here could be missing the point.

More when I have time to post....

Beyond a certain point, complexity leads to ambiguity which the individual need not to resolve. Hence, a claim that until this is handled at the individual level there can be no progress, is both an intentional red herring, and quite hypocritical (hypocritical because this prerequisite is and has never been placed upon current government).

For instance, when the US was imposed, nobody saw a need to solve every possible complex problem in advance. In fact, the founders explicitly relied on one of the tenets of (classical) liberal theory: that decentralized problem solving (be it a market place or the democratic process) would incentivize many minds to work on the same problems, that competing solutions would result, and that the best solutions would become clear spontaneously over time.

Any theory of anarchism likely to be espoused in this thread operates on the exact same principle.

So, general problems needn't be addressed, because they will be solved in exactly the same manner as they are under government.

The only questions that are reasonable at this point relate to problems created, not by life itself, but by the specific act of ending the monopoly of legitimate force which defines government.

"What do we do about money?" -- Irrelevant. Government can be posed the same question, and the answer is largely going to be the same.

"Government currently steals from folks to pay for my water!" -- And yet, under other local governments, folks pay for their own water. So, as these variances aren't intrinsic to an anarchic system, and this, too, is irrelevant.

"How can we ensure equitable enforcement of the law if different groups are able to enforce the law?" -- This is the sort of question which is actually apropos to characteristics intrinsic to anarchy but not compulsory governance. It has value, leads to interesting discussion, and is not an intentional red herring.

But "OMG abusive monopolies!" is either an intentional red herring, or is based on the fundamentally false premises that government has entirely solved abusive monopolies, and that government doesn't actively create abusive monopolies of its own.

OC for ME said:

OK, I'll give it a try.

False premise. Why must there be coin of the rhealm? How about I give you two chickes, cuz you don't have any chickens, and you replace my kitchen sink garbage disposal, that I got from the kitchen sink garbage disposal guy who needed chickens too? What is sooo terrible with a barter system? What is it about folks bartering that leads you to believe that the downfall of our society, in its entirety, would result?

I know that government despises the barter system, no cash going into Caesar's coffers...no rendering unto Caesar that is. Don't believe me? Read the tax code. I do believe that the IRS has gone after folks who have not reported their "goods & services" received as income and then rendering their tribute unto Caesar.

Septic, or pay to use the sewer system?
Water? Well water, or pay for it just like we do now.
Security? Really? How much security do have at this very moment? Is there a cop standing watch outside your door?

See my response to #1. This is eerily close to the premise that liberals cling to.

That has been addressed six ways from Sunday.

Cling to the definition of anarchy that reinforces your view of anarchists, no biggie.

Click to expand...

Thanks, out of a few posters here, finally someone that wants to actually talk about the issues instead of dancing around them.

1. The barter system is something that I've heard a great deal on, and in theory it could work at times- like for example large goofs and services. I have a hard time believing the barter system would be effective for a business owner of say, a pizza joint or a burger king. What if u want to stop at wendys? How does that business decide how to make a profit and what to base income on? What do they put on their p&l sheets? Whatever the counter employee decides is worth a couple Jr bacon cheeseburgers?

I feel like the barter system would be an interesting thought, but think about it- we place an awful lot of importance as humans in the convenience of a monetary standard of some sort.

2. What about those that cannot pay for sewer and water, trash...what are typically public services? I'm not suggesting socializing, but by the same token with large scale urbanization we have now, dealing with these things (which would prevent huge amounts of disease, at least as far as sewer goes) would be important to everyone. Not saying it couldn't be done, just curious on how it would work.

3. I'm not sure how that's the same as one- huge monopolies have existed before, and could get absurdly large. There should be a way to rectify this. Again, haven't seen how that would work in a totally free market.

4. The answer I've gotten is basically "make everyone agree" in so many words.

Thanks! I'm open to any thoughts you have on these points. You've already shed some light here where others are less willing.

And to compare these DIRECT and SPECIFIC questions to "how to live".......

And I'm the one being obtuse?

stealthyeliminator said:

You know full well that a thorough answer to even one of these questions could easily take the expanse of a book. Do you really think that's reasonable? It's not. Books have already been written, but as soon as a book is referenced here it only takes a couple of posts before someone proclaims that referencing a book can't suffice for an answer. Your questions are broad, unspecific, expansive, ambiguous... As we've already seen in this thread, we could easily give answers that would apply to particular circumstances, but it will only lead to the questioner blowing the answers off and pointing to another set of circumstances where the answer wouldn't apply. Essentially, you're asking a question so broad, there is no short answer which can satisfy, and so you're trying to trap the questioned in a position where they must either refuse to answer, answer in a manner that you will quickly deem insufficient, or they must answer by writing a book. Thus, you're questioning is unreasonable for this format - and internet forum. There are not only many resources, such as books, but there are even books online which you can read at no charge. It is absolutely unreasonable to ask a question so broad that it'd take book-length explanation to answer sufficiently, and then on top of that demand that no book which is already written be used to answer the question, and that we must write a new book specifically addressing you.

I could easily be just as unreasonable to supporters of the state and ask them the same questions and treat their answers with the same disregard.

1. How does the state moderate currency, and standardize it, while also preventing counterfeit?
2. How does the state provide infrastructural services, ensuring that everyone in the country, from the richest to the poorest, receive adequate services?
3. How does the state prevent abusive monopolies?
4. How does the state solve conflict?

At a certain point, you have to be extremely obtuse to continue asking these sort of questions over and over as if none of the discussions or references that have been made even begin to shed light onto the answers.

Might as well just be asking "how to human?" "how to market?" "how to live?"

And to that, my answer will be "go read a book"

Click to expand...

These questions I asked, if slightly altered to ask "how are these four topics addressed now" could be answered directly and without added fluff in a short few sentences each.

If it takes an entire book to explain a basic premise.....I'm not buying it. Case in point: in one post, for at least 3 of the 4 points, OC for me addressed these questions well and opened it up for dialogue and better understanding.

It seems to me a bit of a weird idea to bring up a societal structure and rather than discussing details (which is the entire purpose of Internet forums, discussion) you defer to advising reading a book.

I'm open to reading. If you all really think it takes a whole book to answer these questions....ok.

I wasn't speaking so much to complexity as I was to voluminosity.

If there were the potential for 1000 variations of circumstances under one of your questions, each requiring a different solution, the solutions to each could really be quite simple, but to address each one, despite their simplicity, would be voluminous. As broad as the questions being posed are, I think it's safe to say there are many more than 1000 potential variations of particular circumstances under each which could come to play.

I'm pretty sure that some general examples of conflict resolution solutions have been given in this thread, and if I recall correctly it took almost no time for someone to come in enumerate a set of circumstances that might fall outside the scope of the particular solution presented, demanding another solution for another set of circumstances. Such an exercise could certainly be nearly endless...

If we subjected the state advocates to the same treatment, we could likewise put on a nearly endless exercise.

marshaul said:

Beyond a certain point, complexity leads to ambiguity which the individual need not to resolve. Hence, a claim that until this is handled at the individual level there can be no progress, is both an intentional red herring, and quite hypocritical (hypocritical because this prerequisite is and has never been placed upon current government).

For instance, when the US was imposed, nobody saw a need to solve every possible complex problem in advance. In fact, the founders explicitly relied on one of the tenets of (classical) liberal theory: that decentralized problem solving (be it a market place or the democratic process) would incentivize many minds to work on the same problems, that competing solutions would result, and that the best solutions would become clear spontaneously over time.

Any theory of anarchism likely to be espoused in this thread operates on the exact same principle.

So, general problems needn't be addressed, because they will be solved in exactly the same manner as they are under government.

The only questions that are reasonable at this point relate to problems created, not by life itself, but by the specific act of ending the monopoly of legitimate force which defines government.

"What do we do about money?" -- Irrelevant. Government can be posed the same question, and the answer is largely going to be the same.

"Government currently steals from folks to pay for my water!" -- And yet, under other local governments, folks pay for their own water. So, as these variances aren't intrinsic to an anarchic system, and this, too, is irrelevant.

"How can we assure equitable enforcement of the law if different groups are able to enforce the law?" -- This is the sort of question which is actually apropos to characteristics intrinsic to anarchy but not compulsory governance. It has value, leads to interesting discussion, and is not an intentional red herring.

But "OMG abusive monopolies!" is either an intentional red herring, or is based on the fundamentally false premises that government has entirely solved abusive monopolies, and that government doesn't actively create abusive monopolies of its own.

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My questions were quite valid- and It's sidestepping to compare the government of now. Solutions are independent of current state.

Besides this- your post is quite possibly the most agreeable I've seen here. To suggest that we DONT work these things out all at once and chip away at it as needed in our new society is probably the most likely scenario, imo.

How would someone offer to barter with the giant electricty provider or the supplier of water?

Please show us how to build a jumbo jet or an ocean liner with a barter system.

The ARMY WANTS YOU........what do you have to offer? :lol:

J_dazzle23 said:

These questions I asked, if slightly altered to ask "how are these four topics addressed now" could be answered directly and without added fluff in a short few sentences each.

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********. If I posed those questions to you, and then treated your answers as the liberty advocates' answers have been treated, we'd be in the same circling dance as you are expressing frustration over now.

It really isn't that complicated, it's only voluminous. How does stuff get done? People do it. They problem solve. Take any public service, let's say city water - do you really think that in an anarchical society everyone with an aptitude for plumbing would magically disappear and we'd be left with cities full of people that couldn't figure out how to get water from one side of town to the other? I mean, come on! Really?! Do we really need to explain in detail how things like water towers work? I'm pretty sure gravity works the same whether there's a traditional government or not!

Grapeshot said:

How would someone offer to barter with the giant electricty provider or the supplier of water?

Please show us how to build a jumbo jet or an ocean liner with a barter system.

The ARMY WANTS YOU........what do you have to offer? :lol:

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The barter system is merely one possibility. So are currency systems. Currencies can float, be pegged, be tied to a standard, etc. There is infinite choice, and each has its advocates and detractors.

There are and have been successful currencies minted by, say, banks (instead of government). Bitcoin is minted by an algorithm, and as a currency is considered valuable enough that not only will DEA agents attempt to steal it, internal affairs types will attempt to prosecute those agents for doing so.

These are interesting questions, but they are every bit as valid within the context of compulsory governance as otherwise.