Libertarian Minarchism

[Citizen]

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Tomahawk wrote:

Jefferson is one of my favorite founders, and I understand his passion when he wrote this. Unfortunately, if you have to resort to frequent bloodshed, it kind of defeats the purpose of creating a civil society, doesn't it?

Mind his comment to the effect, "[God forbid we should go twenty years without an insurrection. Government must bereminded the peoplepreserve the spirit of resistance.]"

Insurrection. As opposed to revolution.

Keeping tyrannical tendencies in check would result in a more civilized society than letting them run rampant. And would allow civilized society to flourish and prosper under the freedom so maintained.

Its really just a matter of the civilized guys keeping the tyrannical barbarians in check. Its not very civil to repress andconfiscateusing the threat of government force to gain compliance and aquiescence.

 

[marshaul]

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Tomahawk wrote:

Unfortunately, if you have to resort to frequent bloodshed, it kind of defeats the purpose of creating a civil society, doesn't it?

Indeed.

Of course, this supports the anarchists' position. They would maintain that government is morally indefensible if bloodshed is required to keep it in check.

Unfortunately, the alternatives are looking bleak.

 

[Citizen]

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marshaul wrote:

Tomahawk wrote:

Unfortunately, if you have to resort to frequent bloodshed, it kind of defeats the purpose of creating a civil society, doesn't it?

SNIP Of course, this supports the anarchists' position. They would maintain that government is morally indefensible if bloodshed is required to keep it in check.

They'd be idiots, too.

Its a little like saying its morally wrong to have children sincea certain percentage will grow up to be criminals.

 

[marshaul]

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Well, I get what you're saying, but inevitability is a far cry from "a certain percentage".

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with Jefferson (and not these hypothetical anarchists). I merely would prefer some promising alternative to bloodshed. How can a bloodless revolution be achieved in our society, with our current form of government?

 

[Citizen]

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marshaul wrote:

Well, I get what you're saying, but inevitability is a far cry from "a certain percentage".

Compare apples to apples, bub, or I'm taking my fruit basket to some other conversation.

Its inevitable that criminals will be born.

The "certain percentage" is the distinction that they fail to make--that only a certain percentage of those people in government are bad, only a certain percentage of policies are bad, only a certain percentage of government actions are bad.

 

[Task Force 16]

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Tomahawk wrote:

Yes, but the fact is, we are all rationally ignorant about stuff. How many of you know every law that applies to you? If not, why not? Because it's not worth the time spent learning it if you figure the knowledge won't benefit you, so you choose to have a more narrow focus, even though laws which deal with privacy or property rights or even parking regulations do have an impact on your life. Your main concern is likely gun laws.

I understand the phrase in that context. I'm rationally ignorant about brain surgery because I didn't want to be a surgen, therefore, I didn't go to school to study for it. But since I was going to vote for someone that, theoritically was going to represent me, and the rest of us, in public office, I dicided to find out about the people running. I wish that the rest of this country had done the same.

 

[marshaul]

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Citizen wrote:

marshaul wrote:

Well, I get what you're saying, but inevitability is a far cry from "a certain percentage".

Compare apples to apples, bub, or I'm taking my fruit basket to some other conversation. 

Its inevitable that criminals will be born. 

The "certain percentage" is the distinction that they fail to make--that only a certain percentage of those people in government are bad, only a certain percentage of policies are bad, only a certain percentage of government actions are bad.

I think you're the one who began comparing apples to oranges. A bad apple on the street is capable of far less harm than a bad apple in government.

It only takes a small percentage "going bad" to corrupt an entire government. People can be allowed freedom, because if a few "go bad" they can be removed from the basket. If people are permitted to govern (and by this I mean "possess a government with more power than the bare minimum necessary to facilitate dispute resolution and protection of rights", such as the government we have today), when a few of the governors "go bad" they spoil the entire batch. And as I mentioned, their ability to realize harm is magnified by the power of authority.

If we're going to use inexact analogies, I could say that what you're arguing is akin to claiming that 2nd amendment rights should be extended to nuclear weapons, since after all it isn't fair to punish everyone just because a few might "go bad".

 

[Doug Huffman]

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Tomahawk wrote:

Jefferson is one of my favorite founders, and I understand his passion when he wrote this. Unfortunately, if you have to resort to frequent bloodshed, it kind of defeats the purpose of creating a civil society, doesn't it?

If you are using 'civil society' in the sense of Gesellschaft then I prefer and imagine that we prefer Gemeinschaft - community - of Ferdinand Toennies. But he took many pages many years ago to compare and contrast concepts that we bandy so knowledgeably.

 

[Gunslinger]

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Tomahawk wrote:

Gunslinger wrote:

Tomahawk wrote:

Task Force 16 wrote:

"Ignorance about an issue is said to be "rational" when the cost of educating oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh any potential benefit one could reasonably expect to gain from that decision, and so it would be irrational to waste time doing so. This has consequences for the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people, such as general elections, where the probability of any one vote changing the outcome is very small."

My edited version

"Ignorance about an issue is said to be "rational" whenone istoo damned lazy to educate oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision and gets in the way of watching MTV and American Idol, and so it would be more than such a mental midget could handle in doing so. This has consequences for the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people incapable of locigal thought, such as general elections, where the probability of such groups voting in favor of their own demise is very high.

"Rational ignorance" is merely acamoflaged termfor induced stupidity cultivated in a field of mental and/or physical slothfullness.

You guys are getting all emotional over this phrase for no reason. "Rational ignoarance" is not an attempt to justify being ignorant; it's an attempt to explain why humans are ignorant. Complaining and ranting about it is beside the point. There are reasons why people do stupid things or fail to do smart things; instead of complaining about it you need to first understand why it happens and then find ways to counter it.

A bit of 'emotion' is called for when a new apologia for the just above the Darwinian cutoff types exists. After all, they put the messiah in the Whitehouse and now can be proud of same knowing "rational ignorance" was all the justification needed.

What did I just write? It's not "apologia", it's a way of explaining why people do stupid things. Explanation does not equal excuse.

Explanations = apologies in many situations. Call it excuse, if you prefer. If it is available as an operant "excuse" it will be used as such or ascribed prima facia.

 

[WhiteFeather]

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Gunslinger wrote:

Tomahawk wrote:

Gunslinger wrote:

Tomahawk wrote:

Task Force 16 wrote:

"Ignorance about an issue is said to be "rational" when the cost of educating oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh any potential benefit one could reasonably expect to gain from that decision, and so it would be irrational to waste time doing so. This has consequences for the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people, such as general elections, where the probability of any one vote changing the outcome is very small."

My edited version

"Ignorance about an issue is said to be "rational" whenone istoo damned lazy to educate oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision and gets in the way of watching MTV and American Idol, and so it would be more than such a mental midget could handle in doing so. This has consequences for the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people incapable of locigal thought, such as general elections, where the probability of such groups voting in favor of their own demise is very high.

"Rational ignorance" is merely acamoflaged termfor induced stupidity cultivated in a field of mental and/or physical slothfullness.

You guys are getting all emotional over this phrase for no reason. "Rational ignoarance" is not an attempt to justify being ignorant; it's an attempt to explain why humans are ignorant. Complaining and ranting about it is beside the point. There are reasons why people do stupid things or fail to do smart things; instead of complaining about it you need to first understand why it happens and then find ways to counter it.

A bit of 'emotion' is called for when a new apologia for the just above the Darwinian cutoff types exists. After all, they put the messiah in the Whitehouse and now can be proud of same knowing "rational ignorance" was all the justification needed.

What did I just write? It's not "apologia", it's a way of explaining why people do stupid things. Explanation does not equal excuse.

Explanations = apologies in many situations. Call it excuse, if you prefer. If it is available as an operant "excuse" it will be used as such or ascribed prima facia.

Really kinda picking nat shit out ofblack pepperthere...

 

[Citizen]

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marshaul wrote:

Citizen wrote:

marshaul wrote:

Well, I get what you're saying, but inevitability is a far cry from "a certain percentage".

Compare apples to apples, bub, or I'm taking my fruit basket to some other conversation.

Its inevitable that criminals will be born.

The "certain percentage" is the distinction that they fail to make--that only a certain percentage of those people in government are bad, only a certain percentage of policies are bad, only a certain percentage of government actions are bad.

I think you're the one who began comparing apples to oranges. A bad apple on the street is capable of far less harm than a bad apple in government.

It only takes a small percentage "going bad" to corrupt an entire government. People can be allowed freedom, because if a few "go bad" they can be removed from the basket. If people are permitted to govern (and by this I mean "possess a government with more power than the bare minimum necessary to facilitate dispute resolution and protection of rights", such as the government we have today), when a few of the governors "go bad" they spoil the entire batch. And as I mentioned, their ability to realize harm is magnified by the power of authority.

If we're going to use inexact analogies, I could say that what you're arguing is akin to claiming that 2nd amendment rights should be extended to nuclear weapons, since after all it isn't fair to punish everyone just because a few might "go bad".

LOL

OK, you got me there. I'll shut up while I still got some fruit left.

 

[marshaul]

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Hey, your fruit stall is always appreciated in my threads.

 

[NaT805]

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In Celtic Irish society of the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, courts and the law were largely anarchist, operating in a purely stateless manner. This society persisted in this manner for roughly a thousand years until its conquest by England in the seventeenth century. In contrast to many similarly functioning tribal societies, preconquest Ireland was not in any sense "primitive": it was a highly complex society that was, for centuries, the most advanced, most scholarly, and most civilized in all of Western Europe. A leading authority on ancient Irish law wrote, "There was no legislature, no bailiffs, no police, no public enforcement of justice... There was no trace of State-administered justice."[2]
All "freemen" who owned land, all professionals, and all craftsmen, were entitled to become members of a tuath. Each tuath's members formed an annual assembly which decided all common policies, declared war or peace on other tuatha, and elected or deposed their "kings." In contrast to primitive tribes, no one was stuck or bound to a given tuath, either because of kinship or of geographical location. Individual members were free to, and often did, secede from a tuath and join a competing tuath. Professor Peden states, "the tuath is thus a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes and the sum total of the landed properties of its members constituted its territorial dimension.[3] The "king" had no political power; he could not decree or administer justice or declare war. Basically he was a priest and militia leader, and presided over the tuath assemblies.
Celtic Ireland survived many invasions, but was finally vanquished by Oliver Cromwell's reconquest in 1649-50.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities

I read about tuaths in the past but couldn't find a source, but what I read was they had around 50-80 tuaths at a time. Think of it as having 50-80 competing governments at one time...competition is good right? and a monopoly is bad? So why give the government a monoply on anything?

All we need is Austrian economics and the internet (freedom to exchange information) and the market will work things out.

"Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism."
—Murray Rothbard

 

[Tomahawk]

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NaT805 wrote:

In Celtic Irish society of the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, courts and the law were largely anarchist, operating in a purely stateless manner. This society persisted in this manner for roughly a thousand years until its conquest by England in the seventeenth century. In contrast to many similarly functioning tribal societies, preconquest Ireland was not in any sense "primitive": it was a highly complex society that was, for centuries, the most advanced, most scholarly, and most civilized in all of Western Europe. A leading authority on ancient Irish law wrote, "There was no legislature, no bailiffs, no police, no public enforcement of justice... There was no trace of State-administered justice."[2]
All "freemen" who owned land, all professionals, and all craftsmen, were entitled to become members of a tuath. Each tuath's members formed an annual assembly which decided all common policies, declared war or peace on other tuatha, and elected or deposed their "kings." In contrast to primitive tribes, no one was stuck or bound to a given tuath, either because of kinship or of geographical location. Individual members were free to, and often did, secede from a tuath and join a competing tuath. Professor Peden states, "the tuath is thus a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes and the sum total of the landed properties of its members constituted its territorial dimension.[3] The "king" had no political power; he could not decree or administer justice or declare war. Basically he was a priest and militia leader, and presided over the tuath assemblies.
Celtic Ireland survived many invasions, but was finally vanquished by Oliver Cromwell's reconquest in 1649-50.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities

I read about tuaths in the past but couldn't find a source, but what I read was they had around 50-80 tuaths at a time. Think of it as having 50-80 competing governments at one time...competition is good right? and a monopoly is bad? So why give the government a monoply on anything?

All we need is Austrian economics and the internet (freedom to exchange information) and the market will work things out.

"Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism."
—Murray Rothbard

Good post. I have new reason to look at my roots, now. Always nice to learn about something new.

 

[Doug Huffman]

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Be careful of the politically correct racists' defining raising our heritage as itself 'racism'. Once you admit their definition of racism then the war has begun.

 

[Slayer of Paper]

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Quite an interesting read, there.

It appears that they satisfied their human tendency to form a structured system, without really having a government. At least, no government with any power over any particular individual.

It also appears that it was quite successful, lasting an extremely long time (compared to most societies in history), and was finally only destroyed by an outside force. Left to its own devices, it may have lasted indefinitely.

I knew there was a reason to be proud of my ancestry.

 

[marshaul]

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I wish I had though of this earlier, because in being reminded of this historical fact it occurs to me that it disproves pretty unambiguously AWDstylez assertion that government (using his very broad definition of the term) is a "natural" invariable.

Government is a commonplace artificiality, but if the artifice is never employed (so to speak), government will not exist of its own accord.

 

[Gunslinger]

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marshaul wrote:

I wish I had though of this earlier, because in being reminded of this historical fact it occurs to me that it disproves pretty unambiguously AWDstylez assertion that government (using his very broad definition of the term) is a "natural" invariable.

Government is a commonplace artificiality, but if the artifice is never employed (so to speak), government will not exist of its own accord.

There will always be a leader--alpha dog, op cit, in any group or herd. That there is a leader--biggest, strongest, fastest, best guns, implies there is governance to some degree--certainly not codified, but "leadership" to some degree. Hence: governing (ment). As this type of government is subject to almost immediate change--overthrow by the new alpha dog, it has a great deal to say for it--given its adherence to 'natural law.' I wish we could change our government that quickly.

 

[NaT805]

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After 10,000 years of government failure we're still debating whether it should exist? :celebrate

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- Albert Einstein

 

[Task Force 16]

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NaT805 wrote:

After 10,000 years of government failure we're still debating whether it should exist? :celebrate

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- Albert Einstein

And to think that there are some folks that believe that homosapiens are the superior species........because we're smarter than the rest?

Yeah...right