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Anarcho-Capitalism Pros-Cons | Split from "16 concerned scientists... "

Started by NatsuTerran, January 31, 2012, 08:52:51 PM

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NatsuTerran

Quote from: ThinkAnarchy on January 31, 2012, 07:01:18 PM
The subsidies I'm referring to are going to green energy companies in particular. Most of them don't have a profitable business model and can't produce solar panels (or another product) cheap enough to make a profit on their own, so the government gives them money to keep them afloat. If a company can't turn a profit they shouldn't be in business.

Minor subsidies to promote safer disposal of chemicals, exhaust, etc don't bother me nearly as much as those that are keeping failing companies from going bankrupt simply because they are creating a product the government prefers.

LOL. I will never understand libertarians. What a joke. EPA is a public good. It is indispensable to society as a whole, which means it would not make a good profit as a business because it cannot be used in the private sector. It's just $30 bucks a year dude, you really think you'd be better off with that money in your pocket and living on a hell on earth? You can't measure everything in terms of economics. Just because you personally are too short-sighted to see that many people want this govt coercion to keep our environment safer, doesn't mean we should appeal to you. What's good for the group is good for all individuals. What's good for individuals is very often bad for the group.

(Edited to attribute quote. -- Recusant)

ThinkAnarchy

Quote from: NatsuTerran on January 31, 2012, 08:52:51 PM

LOL. I will never understand libertarians.
As always, this will now degenerate into an anarchist vs. statist debate. Very well. How much of anarcho-capitalist and/or libertarian literature have you read? I'm curious if you have tried to understand our positions, since most people don't even attempt it.

Quote
It is indispensable to society as a whole, which means it would not make a good profit as a business because it cannot be used in the private sector.
Wrong. Certification businesses work just fine. There is already a market for this with companies that certify things as energy efficient, organic, etc. They test a product and than put a sticker on the ones that meet their requirements.

Quote
It's just $30 bucks a year dude, you really think you'd be better off with that money in your pocket and living on a hell on earth?
First of all, you jump to a baseless assumption. Secondly, find one person who only pays $30 a year in taxes. If they wanted to simply keep $30 of my money for the EPA it would be much better than today's standards.

Quote
You can't measure everything in terms of economics.
You can't measure the weight of a coke can through economics, but whats your point? The things being discussed in this topic can and should be measured from an economic standpoint.

Quote
Just because you personally are too short-sighted to see that many people want this govt coercion to keep our environment safer, doesn't mean we should appeal to you.
Thanks for the insult. I love how you use the term "coercion." Yes, because the majority thinks the government should steal money from the productive parts of the economy in order to relocate it, we should all simply accept it. Why should we even listen to the minority. The government and majority once sanctioned slavery; it's a damn good thing we didn't listen to the 'short-sighted" minority on that subject.

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What's good for the group is good for all individuals. What's good for individuals is very often bad for the group.

That is one of the more ignorant things I have ever read. Read Ayn Rand's "Virtue of Selfishness" if your interested. This statement got me angry though, so I can't really respond anymore at this time.




"He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed." -Ben Franklin

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -credited to Franklin, but not sure.

Traveler

A few of you may recall from some previous conversations that I'm in a bit of a career transition. This conversation, and some of the head-in-the-sand reactions to global climate change, have triggered an interest in pursueing environmental concerns as a living. I'm filling out an application to volunteer at the Nature Conservancy, and hope that eventually I can bring my creative and leadership talents to bear on improving these problems. So, thanks guys, both for and against ... you've helped a gal get motivated to make a difference. Viva la planet!  ;D
If we ever travel thousands of light years to a planet inhabited by intelligent life, let's just make patterns in their crops and leave.

NatsuTerran

I'll just say that my dad is a staunch libertarian, and i have really went out and reached to learn about the position, reading Ayn Rand etc. The position makes absolutely zero sense to me and is the epitome of ignorance all around. I'd rather marry a Christian than an anarcho-capitalist, the former is infinitely less faith-based in my opinion. Sorry if I made you angry, but it makes me angry as well. And I stand by my last sentiment 100%. It's not the most ignorant thing ever, it's the most true thing ever. I've spoken with you people and you always seem to think groups are a product of individuals, and not the other way around. Whatever, let's just not even get into it, I've been down this road way too many times and it's damn annoying. I've actually had nightmares where I mount and beat the life out of my dad all because of his ridiculous beliefs. Yes, I hate low government type people that much.


- It's $30 bucks a year for the EPA for the average American.
- Well-being cannot be measured in economic terms. More money does not = better quality life. The problem with anarchy is it forsakes all other values such as justice, equality, compassion, security, etc. for pure freedom. It's extremely dogmatic, instead of using problem-solving skills to take things on a case by case basis and use balance, it holds to a one size fits all solution. Which doesn't even work at that. It's utterly impossible outside a dream world.
-Also, you mistake group-think with collectivism. Slavery, the holocaust, etc. are not products of collectivism, they are products of subjective thinking. Collectivism at its core destroys subjective thinking; individualism breeds it. Bite me, I'm an elitist liberal who thinks Japan is the greatest place in the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Aqfp5iMnw

Whitney

Quote from: ThinkAnarchy on January 31, 2012, 09:25:08 PM
Wrong. Certification businesses work just fine. There is already a market for this with companies that certify things as energy efficient, organic, etc. They test a product and than put a sticker on the ones that meet their requirements.

I disagree....many of the various green certifications out there are a complete joke.  They don't have to answer to the people because they aren't gov regulated and get themselves viewed as a go to source for certification through marketing. 

And as far as organic goes...that is done by government "USDA Organic" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification

There are a few independent testing companies out there that are credible and reliable such as UL.  But it's generally not the case of being able to trust something just because a company marketed themselves well and became the go to source.

NatsuTerran

This is true. Let's not forget that with such limited government the corporations are in all honesty going to establish backroom deals to keep prices high all around, wages low all around, and get those certifications through any sorts of bribes they can. I've got school work to do so I can't participate in this anymore.

My entire beliefs on politics are pretty much summed up in these blogs and articles if anyone is interested:

http://www.zompist.com/libertos.html
http://terribletruth-beautifullie.blogspot.com/2010/06/libertarianism-thats-some-dumb-shit.html
http://newscum.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/stupid-things-libertarians-say-part-i/
http://www.governmentisgood.com/

Firebird

Quote from: ThinkAnarchy on January 31, 2012, 09:25:08 PM
Quote from: NatsuTerran on January 31, 2012, 08:52:51 PM

LOL. I will never understand libertarians.
As always, this will now degenerate into an anarchist vs. statist debate. Very well. How much of anarcho-capitalist and/or libertarian literature have you read? I'm curious if you have tried to understand our positions, since most people don't even attempt it.

Quote
It is indispensable to society as a whole, which means it would not make a good profit as a business because it cannot be used in the private sector.
Wrong. Certification businesses work just fine. There is already a market for this with companies that certify things as energy efficient, organic, etc. They test a product and than put a sticker on the ones that meet their requirements.

Quote
It's just $30 bucks a year dude, you really think you'd be better off with that money in your pocket and living on a hell on earth?
First of all, you jump to a baseless assumption. Secondly, find one person who only pays $30 a year in taxes. If they wanted to simply keep $30 of my money for the EPA it would be much better than today's standards.

Quote
You can't measure everything in terms of economics.
You can't measure the weight of a coke can through economics, but whats your point? The things being discussed in this topic can and should be measured from an economic standpoint.

Quote
Just because you personally are too short-sighted to see that many people want this govt coercion to keep our environment safer, doesn't mean we should appeal to you.
Thanks for the insult. I love how you use the term "coercion." Yes, because the majority thinks the government should steal money from the productive parts of the economy in order to relocate it, we should all simply accept it. Why should we even listen to the minority. The government and majority once sanctioned slavery; it's a damn good thing we didn't listen to the 'short-sighted" minority on that subject.

Quote
What's good for the group is good for all individuals. What's good for individuals is very often bad for the group.

That is one of the more ignorant things I have ever read. Read Ayn Rand's "Virtue of Selfishness" if your interested. This statement got me angry though, so I can't really respond anymore at this time.


You can quote all the theories you want. When, in practice, has a system based on anarchy or the type of libertarianism you espouse ever worked? Somalia's the closest example I can think of to a non-existent government, and I sure as hell don't know anyone itching to move there. Some people bring up New Zealand, but they also have universal health care, which is also "anti-freedom" to libertarian eyes.
By the way, since you bring up slavery, do you think it was right for the US Congress to pass the 13th amendment abolishing it? Don't laugh; libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul has argued that Lincoln should have just "paid off" the slave owners instead of outlawing it. And his son Rand, the senator from Kentucky, is opposed to the Civil Rights Act which outlawed discrimination based on race back in the 1950's, because it trumps the freedom of business owners to discriminate. So I ask you: what if a restaurant decided that no atheists can be allowed inside because they're considered immoral people, or a town decides they can't allow atheists to move in because they're corrupt? Would you defend that too?
"Great, replace one book about an abusive, needy asshole with another." - Will (moderator) on replacing hotel Bibles with "Fifty Shades of Grey"

ThinkAnarchy

Quote from: Whitney on February 01, 2012, 01:01:33 AM


I disagree....many of the various green certifications out there are a complete joke.
I'm not going to argue with you, I'm sure many of them are. That is one of the reason's I check Yelp prior to eating at a new restaurant. Every market has shitty companies, but those businesses tend to go bankrupt once people realize.

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They don't have to answer to the people because they aren't gov regulated and get themselves viewed as a go to source for certification through marketing.  
They still have to answer to the people, assuming the people care to educate themselves. Certification businesses have to market themselves to the the businesses buying their services and the customers relying on them. If the customers begin thinking X certification company is playing favorites, being paid off, etc their credibility will plumet and other companies will stop using them for certification.
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And as far as organic goes...that is done by government "USDA Organic" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification
I'm simply saying it can be done privately.

Quote
There are a few independent testing companies out there that are credible and reliable such as UL.  But it's generally not the case of being able to trust something just because a company marketed themselves well and became the go to source.

I would argue
And that is why companies like UL will likely succeed while the shady ones disappear.
"He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed." -Ben Franklin

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -credited to Franklin, but not sure.

NatsuTerran

Quote from: ThinkAnarchy on February 02, 2012, 06:28:26 AM
Quote from: Whitney on February 01, 2012, 01:01:33 AM


I disagree....many of the various green certifications out there are a complete joke.
I'm not going to argue with you, I'm sure many of them are. That is one of the reason's I check Yelp prior to eating at a new restaurant. Every market has shitty companies, but those businesses tend to go bankrupt once people realize.

Annnnd this is exactly why I'm not libertarian. It relies on the assumption that consumers are intelligent. I strongly, STRONGLY believe that consumers don't make accurate choices at all based on the ethics or "merit" of the company. In many cases, the more unethical companies win out. Consumers just flat out guess in 99% of all their purchases, or have unprecedented "loyalties." The world is far too interconnected with too many intricacies going on to render this sort of "homo economicus" as a valuable index. There are millions upon millions of variables that determine what you will buy and when. Honestly think about the reason you buy products sometimes. I can't give any logical reasons whatsoever for most of the things I buy. I don't research and see who is partnered with who, what kind of certifications they have, where they are outsourcing, etc etc. My consumption decisions are spur of the moment and based on feel, not calculated logic. Another problem is that the business has to screw up before the market can decide to do something about it. People are generally too self-interested to care, and even if they did, bad things would be happening to good people before it got corrected. As an example of this, look at preventative health in USA vs. the rest of the world. It's absolutely terrible here. Doctors make more through crisis control moreso than preventative health, so which do you think gets pushed for more in the market?

This quote from one of the above blogs sums up the whole market recycling myth.

"If anyone knows that you're selling a defective product. But in 1910, "Milk" was often chalk and water. You really, really, REALLY don't want to know about sausage. Or about the amount of fecal matter in beef. Or the people who occasionally fell into the rendering pits for lard and got sold along with it. (OSHA? Government agency.)
But now, thanks to government laws passed by government officials who work for the government, there are watchdog groups. Like the FDA, the EPA, OSHA, CDC...I could go on."

Now you may think consumers are smarter now, with the internets and all (lol). But no, this is exactly what we would return to. It's a combination of apathy and time. One exercise I would be interested for anyone to do on their own, regardless of their beliefs is this:
Make a few poster boards and write down all of the things on it that you get aided with such as the above govt programs. Now assume these are all gone. You now have to inspect your own food or grow it yourself, put a ton of research into all the different markets to determine the best to do business with, etc. etc. If you don't fill up an entire 2-3 poster boards filled with a list of rudimentary tasks that you are now left to deal with as an individual, you did it wrong. The point is that there are just sooo many things out there, that no one could possibly be living the "sweet and simple" lifestyle idealized by Rand while working a 40 hour work week and doing so many trivial things that should be done by a public good. And even if you can manage, what kind of a life is that? We're talking absolutely zero free time. Alternately, you could just read this, which simulates a small portion of all the work you would have to find solutions to as an individual: http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=1

Another problem I have with markets is that low cost is the main point, at the expense of quality. Car manufacturers purposefully sell vehicles that will break down around when you get done paying them off. We easily have the technology to make perfect cars, but no one is going to sell that because it would put them out of business. Imagine a car that is reinforced and gets passed down from generation to generation, lol. Either it will be too cheap and it would ruin return customers, or it would (more likely) be so expensive no one would ever think about buying it. The video game industry is another example. Look at the past 4-5 Call of Duty games, to just look at the FPS market. They are all basically the exact same game, copy-pasted into a new format with a few slight tweaks and additions. The same is true of most sport games like the UFC series and FIFA. Competition is clearly not pushing us into the future, it's only trying to push the status quo of its own bottom line to make sells. CoD companies release a new game every year, and they all suck and are filled with glitches and balance issues, which is why I left that series a long time ago. But where is this free market invisible hand that is supposed to punish them for stagnating us? Last I checked, most FPS consumers still swear by CoD's formula, even though they are trying to charge more and more for the same thing. If a benevolent game dev were to sit down and spend 3-4 years making a badass game to compete with it instead of rushing out more crap year after year, do you know what would happen? No, consumers won't get smart and jump on the new train. This very thing did happen with BF3. And it did rock the boat a little bit, but most consumers are just total retards who don't change their ways or do research on what is out there. People go with the popular choices, or they go with gut feeling.

Now that's not to say I hate the private sector; it does a great job and is the backbone of a society. The problem is that there are some issues that individuals cannot handle. Some things are not problems for individuals but are problems for groups. I'm drawing from that past blog again, but here are some examples. Any individual can choose  not to wear seat belts and it is no big deal on the micro level. But when you universalize that and look at statistics, this ramps up the hospital costs on the macro scale, which means people who are smart like me who wear their seat belt or bike helmet have to pay more to subsidize those who made dumb choices. Bad choices rarely ever impact just the individual who made them. Same thing with cars and smog/pollution. Everyone has the freedom to drive their car. But if everyone decides to exercise this freedom at the exact same time, we all die. In Japan, cars would be pushed into the ocean. Anywhere else, exhaust would choke the life out of everyone. See how that works? Some freedoms that the individual can exercise only become devastating problems when many individuals do them. I'm an objective thinker because I recognize things like this. I don't simply look at my own experience and think for myself, it's important to think of everyone's situation as a group. A group is not just a collection of individuals, an entirely new entity with unique traits is formed when people are together . The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Humans are specialist pack animals and cannot be expected to think for themselves in all aspects of life. We need to listen to experts in their own fields instead of being stubborn and thinking we know it all.

No offense to you anarchy, and I understand if you still disagree. It's just something to think about.

ThinkAnarchy

Quote from: Firebird on February 01, 2012, 04:00:45 AM

You can quote all the theories you want. When, in practice, has a system based on anarchy or the type of libertarianism you espouse ever worked? Somalia's the closest example I can think of to a non-existent government, and I sure as hell don't know anyone itching to move there. 
I'm not very knowledgable about Somalia, but I did find this article at the Mises Institute addressing a similar question regarding Somalia.
http://mises.org/daily/5418
Quote
Some people bring up New Zealand, but they also have universal health care, which is also "anti-freedom" to libertarian eyes.
I have never heard New Zealand referred to as anarchist, however Freetown Christiania in Denmark is a decent example. Some squatters took over an unused Danish military base and set up a mostly autonomous community. The community is not without problems as they have had some violence due to the drug economy, however, I suspect that is in part due to the Danish governments attempt to fight the drug trade. At one point police were patrolling their streets. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14496193

It isn't the kind of anarchy I would choose to live in seeing as the community is closer to anarcho-communism, but that doesn't negate their accomplishments. The community is based around volunteerism which is one of the most important aspects. Communism is not inherently evil. It is a perfectly acceptable system when it is not coercive. Communism is evil when done on a large coercive scale.

Quote
By the way, since you bring up slavery, do you think it was right for the US Congress to pass the 13th amendment abolishing it?
The simple answer is yes it was right for the congress to pass the 13th amendment. It extended a basic right to a particular group of people.

QuoteDon't laugh; libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul has argued that Lincoln should have just "paid off" the slave owners instead of outlawing it.
He should have. Britain did something similar after outlawing slavery. They paid the slave owners for the slaves they were losing. It's also worth noting Lincoln was a terrible human being. He was a racist himself and didn't truly care if the slaves were free. The civil war was about the South succeeding, not slavery. He said multiple times he didn't care if a single black man were freed, the south would not succeed. In another speech he gave, he essentially said he knows black people are the inferior race.

So yes, he should have offered compensation to the southern slave owners, hopefully avoiding a bloody and needless war. Even if the south would have gained it's independence, slavery likely would have been ended soon after.
Quote
And his son Rand, the senator from Kentucky, is opposed to the Civil Rights Act which outlawed discrimination based on race back in the 1950's, because it trumps the freedom of business owners to discriminate. So I ask you: what if a restaurant decided that no atheists can be allowed inside because they're considered immoral people, or a town decides they can't allow atheists to move in because they're corrupt? Would you defend that too?

Yes I would. First of all, if the Civil Rights Act were to be abolished today, it's unlikely any businesses would refuse service to black people. It would be bad for business. Second, you can't look at someone and see they are an atheist like you can with skin pigmentation. Thirdly, I would not want to eat at a restaurant that was that intolerant, so it wouldn't be a loss for me.

I don't understand this arbitrary line drawn in private property. If we are talking about your home, you can deny entry to anyone for any reason. If you own a business however, you can't. I can't make a distinction between private property like that. The town doesn't work though since it isn't private property, but lets simply say it's an anarchist commune that denied atheists the right to move there. I still would have no problem with that. They likely just saved me a whole lot of hardship. I doubt I would want to leave around those people if there views to atheists were that negative.
"He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed." -Ben Franklin

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -credited to Franklin, but not sure.

Recusant

Quote from: ThinkAnarchy on February 03, 2012, 07:07:19 PM
Quote from: Firebird on February 01, 2012, 04:00:45 AM
And his son Rand, the senator from Kentucky, is opposed to the Civil Rights Act which outlawed discrimination based on race back in the 1950's, because it trumps the freedom of business owners to discriminate. So I ask you: what if a restaurant decided that no atheists can be allowed inside because they're considered immoral people, or a town decides they can't allow atheists to move in because they're corrupt? Would you defend that too?

Yes I would. First of all, if the Civil Rights Act were to be abolished today, it's unlikely any businesses would refuse service to black people. It would be bad for business. Second, you can't look at someone and see they are an atheist like you can with skin pigmentation. Thirdly, I would not want to eat at a restaurant that was that intolerant, so it wouldn't be a loss for me.

I don't understand this arbitrary line drawn in private property. If we are talking about your home, you can deny entry to anyone for any reason. If you own a business however, you can't. I can't make a distinction between private property like that. The town doesn't work though since it isn't private property, but lets simply say it's an anarchist commune that denied atheists the right to move there. I still would have no problem with that. They likely just saved me a whole lot of hardship. I doubt I would want to leave around those people if there views to atheists were that negative.

I consider the positions of Rand Paul and his father in regard to the Civil Rights Act to be asinine.

The public pays for roads and other infrastructure which a business needs in order to survive; the business benefits from the contributions of all of the public, not just one particular sector. The public is not just white people, nor is it any other notionally preferred sector of the population. If a business is profiting from the public, then it should not be permitted to discriminate against a portion of the public on the basis of race. If the business is not profiting from the public, it can be (and is, in the case of private clubs) argued that the business is free to define which people are allowed to have access, and to exclude those it will. It really comes down to that, in my opinion.

I will elaborate in regard to the "arbitrary line": There is a basic difference between a private home and a business. You are not offering a service or goods to the public in your home (if you are, then it is also a place of business and no longer entirely a private home). A private home is just that, while a place of business which is making a profit from inviting the public onto its premises (legally described as a public accommodation) is by definition not in the same category as a private house. The public includes all of the population, and denying somebody entry on the basis of the color of their skin means that the business is arrogating to itself the power to define who is and who is not a legitimate member of the public. If there is a right to be racist (I would not argue against such a right, by the way), there is also a right to be treated as a legitimate member of the public, no matter what color your skin is. In my opinion, the latter trumps the former. The Pauls apparently think otherwise.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Firebird

Quote from: ThinkAnarchy on February 03, 2012, 07:07:19 PM
I'm not very knowledgable about Somalia, but I did find this article at the Mises Institute addressing a similar question regarding Somalia.
http://mises.org/daily/5418
I don't see what this article proves. A life expectancy of 50 years, and lower access to safe water than even 1991, are exactly the kinds of things an organized government are for. Yes, they've managed to set up a bit of economy and cell phone services despite the lack of a central government. What does that prove? It's not like most of the other 190 countries are having a hard time doing that. People are not moving to Somalia for their supposedly booming economy. Also this line makes no sense:

"What is particularly amusing is the complaint that businesses currently must pay private security firms to guard their goods. Well, a government police and court system won't work for tips — they too will need to be financed, but through involuntary taxation."

Personally, I'd prefer the police and a court system that's accountable to the people to unregulated private security firms fighting each other. And I'll gladly pay taxes for that. And so would most people. I don't see much of a movement in the US to dismantle our police and courts and move to private security firms instead. That would be considered insane, and rightfully so, as I'll point out again later.


Quote
I have never heard New Zealand referred to as anarchist, however Freetown Christiania in Denmark is a decent example. Some squatters took over an unused Danish military base and set up a mostly autonomous community. The community is not without problems as they have had some violence due to the drug economy, however, I suspect that is in part due to the Danish governments attempt to fight the drug trade. At one point police were patrolling their streets. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14496193

It isn't the kind of anarchy I would choose to live in seeing as the community is closer to anarcho-communism, but that doesn't negate their accomplishments. The community is based around volunteerism which is one of the most important aspects. Communism is not inherently evil. It is a perfectly acceptable system when it is not coercive. Communism is evil when done on a large coercive scale.

Yes, Communism sounds great on paper. But it has never worked in practice on a large scale, because it's impossible to form that kind of "community"  on such a large scale; someone needs to be in charge, and without any opportunity to move up, it removes initiative. Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent to your argument.


Quote
Britain did something similar after outlawing slavery. They paid the slave owners for the slaves they were losing. It's also worth noting Lincoln was a terrible human being. He was a racist himself and didn't truly care if the slaves were free. The civil war was about the South succeeding, not slavery. He said multiple times he didn't care if a single black man were freed, the south would not succeed. In another speech he gave, he essentially said he knows black people are the inferior race.

So yes, he should have offered compensation to the southern slave owners, hopefully avoiding a bloody and needless war. Even if the south would have gained it's independence, slavery likely would have been ended soon after.

Actually, Lincoln did consider just such a plan, and the Southern states rejected it. And I am aware of what Lincoln said before he was President. Whether he believed those lines or not is hard to say considering he was a politician trying to win an election, but what matters is his ultimate actions, which were to push through the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment.


Quote

Yes I would. First of all, if the Civil Rights Act were to be abolished today, it's unlikely any businesses would refuse service to black people. It would be bad for business.

Maybe that's true now, but it was not 60 years ago. Back then, it was considered bad business in some places to allow black people in, or allow them to live in white communities.

Quote
Second, you can't look at someone and see they are an atheist like you can with skin pigmentation.
You're missing the point of my question, which is for you to try and relate to what the black community was enduring back then.
Quote
Thirdly, I would not want to eat at a restaurant that was that intolerant, so it wouldn't be a loss for me.
We're not talking about you! We're talking about a minority being discriminated against simply because of their skin color, and how that was considered acceptable back then. Whether it matters to you personally is irrelevant; it matters to our country and society as a whole. You're displaying a lack of empathy that is all too common to libertarians. My point about denying atheists service was that someone may someday decide that we're evil, or left-handed people are cursed, or some other subjective feature is suddenly "bad". The US was founded on the idea that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have not been perfect in that regard, sadly, but we have moved ever closer to that goal, and it's the kind of society that I choose to live in.

Quote
I don't understand this arbitrary line drawn in private property. If we are talking about your home, you can deny entry to anyone for any reason. If you own a business however, you can't. I can't make a distinction between private property like that.

If we specifically allow anyone of any race, gender, creed, sexual identity, etc to open a business that serves the public, how can we possibly turn around and then say that business has the right to not allow another race, gender, etc use its services? You are all about "freedom", but then you say it's ok to deny people the freedom to walk into any restaurant they want without being kicked out. That is not how freedom works. Let's take it a step further: should the police be allowed to not answer a home invasion call because the family is gay? No, they should have the freedom to avail themselves of the same public protections that the everyone else in society takes for granted. That's why private security firms as a replacement for the police are a joke.
"Great, replace one book about an abusive, needy asshole with another." - Will (moderator) on replacing hotel Bibles with "Fifty Shades of Grey"

The Magic Pudding

#12
I've enjoyed NatsuTerran's posts.
Libertarians make as little sense to me as cutting my arm off because it's a bit itchy.

New Zealand I think would be in same grouping as Australia, UK and Canada, not an anarchist haven unless I've missed something.

QuoteThere has been criticism in the wake of large losses in the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market that occurred despite being assigned top ratings by the CRAs. For instance, losses on $340.7 million worth of CDOs issued by Credit Suisse Group added up to about $125 million, despite being rated AAA or Aaa by Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Group.

Fat capitalists, we need them perhaps but I wouldn't trust them as far as I could kick them.

Ali

QuoteDon't laugh; libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul has argued that Lincoln should have just "paid off" the slave owners instead of outlawing it.
Quote from: ThinkAnarchy on February 03, 2012, 07:07:19 PM
He should have. Britain did something similar after outlawing slavery. They paid the slave owners for the slaves they were losing. It's also worth noting Lincoln was a terrible human being. He was a racist himself and didn't truly care if the slaves were free. The civil war was about the South succeeding, not slavery. He said multiple times he didn't care if a single black man were freed, the south would not succeed. In another speech he gave, he essentially said he knows black people are the inferior race.

So yes, he should have offered compensation to the southern slave owners, hopefully avoiding a bloody and needless war. Even if the south would have gained it's independence, slavery likely would have been ended soon after.

Stuff like this is what really confuses me about the libertarian stance.  Lincoln should have paid off the slave owners?  Where would he have gotten the money, except from taxes?  And what if the people he was taxing didn't really want the government to take their money to give it to slave owners. I wouldn't want my money to go to pay off people to stop doing something they shouldn't be doing in the first place. Wouldn't people being taxed for something they don't want to pay for go against libertarian beliefs?

And seriously, Ayn Rand?  

Anne D.

I don't get the appeal of libertarianism either, and I don't understand how a purely libertarian society could function in the real world.

How is an individual supposed to determine whether the medication he bought works and is safe if there's no public regulatory agency? Same with the food supply.

How is an individual supposed to prevent a company from, or hold it accountable for, polluting the environment?

And we can't all be entrepreneurs. Someone's always going to be someone else's employee. I rather like all those pesky work laws that hamper business but ensure workers aren't exploited. I have no desire to go back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution labor-laws-wise.

I'm also grateful for the decent public education I got. A society where only those with money can ensure their kids get an education sounds like the Third World to me (because it is).

Quote from: Ali on February 04, 2012, 03:57:04 PM. . .

And seriously, Ayn Rand? 

LOL