TheAgitator.com
Another Response
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009The problem with Balko’s question is that the underlying premise is false. As a libertarian, Balko accepts the idea expressed by Ronald Reagan that “government is the problem”. Therefore, all government is bad, and therefore, government is always too big, and too expensive.
The Right’s obsession with “big government” is a red herring, and always has been. The choice is, and always has been, between good government and bad government. As a libertarian, Balko believes that “good government” is a contradiction in terms, so he’s reduced to arguing that since government is inherently bad, less government is better than more government.
If you reject Balko’s unstated premise that government is always bad, then the answer to his question is pretty simple. Government should be big enough to do all the things the people want it to do, but no bigger. Taxes should be high enough to pay for all the things people want to pay for, but no higher.
First, I’m not part of “The Right.” Second, I do believe in a basic set of night watchman and public goods responsibilities to be legitimate functions of government. Third, I didn’t argue that all government is inherently bad. I asked for liberals to define an upper limit on how much government is too much, using some fairly common metrics. Presumably, most leftists want more government than we have now. And presumably, most leftists would stop well short of advocating a totalitarian or Soviet-style communist state. I’m asking them to give a rough estimate of where they’d place their boundaries.
Finally, what exactly does “all the things people want to pay for” mean? Anything anyone wants at any time, government should pay for? Anything a majority of voters want? Anything a majority of the Congress wants? If a majority of Congress or a majority of voters decided tomorrow that the federal government should buy everyone in the country a free ice cream cone each Tuesday, would that be an appropriate reason to raise taxes?
Comfortable apathy is comfortable.
I think the author may take offense at you considering this to be an unserious rebuttal. I think they are 100% serious that they have absolutely no idea how big is too big. They have no idea what things do cost, nor do they know what they should cost. Finally, they leave no party accountable to determine if the deed was worth the price be it in dollars or civil liberties.
Or “The Left”. Can I have an Amen brothers?
I don’t reside on the left-right line. There are other places than that one dimensional perspective in the plane of political thought. I’m not in the red-blue spectrum either. I’m more of a burnished silver.
Is libertarin thinking that friggin’ hard to comprehend?
I say smaller to NO gov’t would be great. Label it as you want. I know what I want and what’s best for me. Period.
Why must everything have a label? music,politics,to name just a few.
At least when TSHTF,the field will be level.
CIII
Where are we lining up for the ice cream cones? Or were you just taunting us with false promises of free ice cream? You know who this hurts the most? The Children.
What kind of monster deliberately hurts The Children?
“Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and don’t blink.”
I think he might be a Doctor Who fan. Good Episode.
Try this:
Q: “Would you buy this car if I tell you it runs on water?”
A: “I’d have to find out if what you said was true; this would take some investigation and I’d have to run some numbers to see if I can afford it once you tell me the price”.
vs.
Q: “Would you buy this car if I tell you it runs on water and costs $1 million?”
A: $1 million? You can stop there – I already know the price is too high regardless of how wonderful it is”
I don’t think that’s an unserious response at all.
From the respondent’s point of view, as long as government is good, it can be as big as it needs to be. If that means the government is the only employer, as long as the government is fair, honest, open, good, effective, etc, etc that’s fine with them.
I think they did call you out on your assumption that government is bad. However many left leaners assume that government is inherently better than private entities.
Also I think the idea of giving away free ice cream wouldn’t really be good government.
Abraham Lincoln summed this up perfectly:
As libertarians, we definitely recognize that there are things that we need to get together and do collectively. The obvious stuff is building roads and infrastructure, policing, fire protection, etc.
But governments, having no competitive pressures, are inherently inefficient. There’s just no way around it. So the best we can do is set the limits to those few things that government should be doing.
While I appreciate Radley’s question, the fact is that the Communists who killed at least 8 figures of people, possibly 9, last century are absolutely loved by the left. Their governments attempted to control all aspects of life, they knew no bounds. There’s no reason to believe that their drooling fan club would see it any differently.
Government itself is not the problem (waiting for “Cynical from CA” to argue with this), but it must be restrained. I mean, greatly restrained.
Radley, do you think there’s any way you could get the contributors of more prominent bloggers like say, Obsidian Wings or members of Huffington Post or something, to respond? I would think they would offer at least a serious pro-government attempt to answer your questions, and one that would be read and debated by a much wider audience.
After all as I understand it, one initial purpose of this endeavor was to get big name pro government bloggers to admit in writing where their limits lie, and then see if they maintained those limits when the administration/congress tried crossing them.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/
Government should be big enough to do all the things the people want it to do, but no bigger.
There’s a word for that: Infinite
J sub D
Is libertarin thinking that friggin’ hard to comprehend?
Unfortunately yes. You get any of these folks out of the Left/Right mindset and you might as well be talking to a schizophrenic who thinks your a manic depressive.
That’s right Ginger Dan. Some people have everything categorized into the left/right dichotomy despite it being an oversimplification and coming to be out of date.
Just to continue talking what Ginger Dan mentioned.
Ive lost friends over my libertarian positions. Seriously. They take offense at something-or-other, and when I bring out the fact that they are willing to use an agent of violent force to get their way, rather then letting the people work things out on their own, they flip their lid.
Fact is, to accept many libertarian positions today, you have to recognize the authoritarian umbrella we live under. And that harsh reality is just too much for people.. to the point that they wont even entertain your position. They will resort to namecalling, eyerolling, dismissiveness… just to avoid admitting that if i dont pay taxes to afford the war/abortion/bank subsidies/obama charities/whatever… people will force me, with guns, to do so… and that is morally wrong.
The argument that “the choice is, and always has been, between good government and bad government” relies on various assumptions about government that seems to be a liberal blind-spot.
Of course we went good governement. No one WANTS bad government. The problems are
1. Not everyone agrees on what is good government.
2. Even when we agree that the government is bad we have to live under it, good or bad.
It always amazes me that liberals forget that they lived under Bush II for 8 years, and could live under President Palin if the GOP base got its way.
Radley, you should know better: ice cream cones are fattening, and childhood obesity is an epidemic in the US. What we need to do is tax ice cream cones in order to fund free gym memberships for Americans.
Presumably, most leftists want more government than we have now. And presumably, most leftists would stop well short of advocating a totalitarian or Soviet-style communist state. I’m asking them to give a rough estimate of where they’d place their boundaries.
That’s not entirely true. As I’ve mentioned before, you’ll find a lot of support among leftists for, say, ending the drug war, scaling back defense spending, eliminating ag subsidies, reducing foreign aid to Israel, etc.
“Therefore, all government is bad, and therefore, government is always too big, and too expensive”
If he just replaced ‘bad’ with ‘a necessary evil’ this statement would be brilliant!
We do need some government. It is a necessary evil. But like all necessary evils, you want the bare minimum that you can get away with and every penny you are forced to spend on it just gnaws at you.
You should always be looking for ways to cut it back. It is easy to expand. It has a way of just expanding on its own, even if people don’t want it to. So the goal should always be to trim it. What can go and still keep the machine running?
As a short lived journalism major, one of these things I remember doing was writing an article, then going back and striking everything you could and still have the article make sense. It was a way of eliminating the natural fluff, or expansion, that just seems to happen on its own accord. When what was left still told the story, but had no BS, that was the good article.
Probably should have done that with this post, but screw it…I changed majors! “Government is always too big and too expensive.” Well said lefty guy. Well said.
I just figured it out.
Radley is a sly one.
He is luring lefty bloggers with bait so the Agitator Posse can bombard those blogs with rebuttals in the comments.
Patton said he liked being shot at by Germans because then he knew where the SOBs were.
#14
If that’s all it took to drive them away then they weren’t friends to begin withh and you’re better off without them. I have long term friends on both sides of the spectrum, one of my best friends is a cop, another is a preacher, and one is a dealer. I even have my own resident tree hugger.
Judging a person based solely on their political beliefs is sad. Of course if you don’t have ANY friends, it might not be politics that’s your problem.
“Taxes should be high enough to pay for all the things people want to pay for, but no higher.”
I would like a Playstation, please. Where’s my voucher?
Sheep don’t think. Too baaad for them. ; )
#7
There’s a third response:
Q: Would you pay $1 million for a car that runs on water?
Questioner is promptly knocked down by the flood of seekers ready to buy.
#9 | Michael Chaney
Right on Mike!!! I’m your huckleberry….
“Abraham Lincoln summed this up perfectly:”
Holy fucking shit! Quoting Lincoln in the context of “legitimate object of government!?!?” Conscription, aggressive war, half a million dead soldiers and untold civilian deaths, the first income tax, the initiation of paper money, jailing of the opposition … and this doesn’t even touch on private scandals like the Council Bluffs land grab and the routing of the transcontinental railroad and all the work he did as an attorney for the railroads to land sweetheart deals with the government. And on and on.
Let me be clear, there’s no example of “legitimate object of government” that will satisfy me short of anarchy, which is a form of government by the way, so to me there’s no difference between Millard Fillmore and Abraham Lincoln, but Lincoln doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
Now I will address Lincoln’s quote:
“The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.”
If a community cannot agree to do something without resorting to violence, then there is no moral legitimacy to the intended thing. On the flip side, if something needs to get done, then people will find a way to cooperate to achieve it, even while remaining in their individual capacities (the free market).
“As libertarians, we definitely recognize that there are things that we need to get together and do collectively. The obvious stuff is building roads and infrastructure, policing, fire protection, etc.”
I am officially not a libertarian anymore, if I ever was. I have no fucking clue what a libertarian is. Liberty is digital, a 0 or a 1, a switch, on or off, all or nothing. Either I can do what I want to do short of infringing on someone else’s freedom or I am being forced not to. What all of you are talking about when you say “libertarian” is minarchism — minimal statism, but statism just the same. Which leads to the next point…
“But governments, having no competitive pressures, are inherently inefficient. There’s just no way around it. So the best we can do is set the limits to those few things that government should be doing.”
Once the power of self-defense is delegated to an unaccountable superagency such as exists now there is no way to limit it (except perhaps by accelerating it to economic ruin, or by instituting a new, more violent gang).
“While I appreciate Radley’s question, the fact is that the Communists who killed at least 8 figures of people, possibly 9, last century are absolutely loved by the left. Their governments attempted to control all aspects of life, they knew no bounds. There’s no reason to believe that their drooling fan club would see it any differently.”
It may only be a matter of time before the government of the US matches the Communist figure. Who’s going to stop them?
“Government itself is not the problem (waiting for “Cynical from CA” to argue with this), but it must be restrained. I mean, greatly restrained.”
Well, interestingly I agree with you Mike. Government is not the problem. Humans are. Humans are fearful, superstitious, self-absorbed animals who seem to have no means of dealing with their fears except to make war on their fellow humans. Ironically, what humans do is to delegate the responsibility of self-defense to a group of their same imperfect brothers and sisters and then pretend that they control this armed gang. But there is no way of restraining this gang, except by forming a stronger gang, ad infinitum.
If humans retained the responsibility of self-defense (anarchism) then there would be a government of politically equal individuals each restrained by power of their fellow human and forced (!!!) to cooperate with each other!
All in good fun, Mike. Thanks for the nod.
Of course, you ninny. What have you got against ice cream? Are you afraid that once they take over the ice cream industry next will be chocolate, then cookies, and my god that would lead to complete State control of the desert industry! That is just silly alarmist rhetoric from a knuckl-dragging anarcho-capitalist. Grow up. I myself look forward to life under our desert determining over lords.
#14 Dubdedork:
“I’ve lost friends over my libertarian positions. Seriously.”
That’s sad, but not suprising.
It just goes to show how all encompassing “politics,” generally speaking, has become. If topics like drug use, abortion and marriage were private issues, and if government was largely responsible for public safety, courts, some infastructure, some (emergency) healthcare, and true defense (not aggressive military action), it would be less likely that we would lose friends over political differences. Left and Right would become increasingly irrelevant. Alas, the expanded role of government has distorted our views to the point that these things are bound to happen.
Government should be big enough to do all the things the people want it to do, but no bigger.
President Gerald Ford, what do you have to say about that?
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
Mmmm Ice Cream cones. I’ll vote for that one. How about only Ice Cream cones for people who meet a body weight goal. I’m sure the government wouldn’t mind creating a huge entity that is responsible for weighing people before handing them out. Its for our own good.
“If you reject Balko’s unstated premise that government is always bad”
Isn’t that an example of a straw-man argument? I mean to claim someone means something they themselves didn’t state, then to defeat that meaning is kind of a lame to try to win an argument, IMHO.
Interesting, that is a really solid argument. However, what if everyone agrees that the action is needed, and that they will create an entity to get the action done?
I’ve read David Friedman’s argument about how an anarcho-capitalist society can have a legal system that is private. That Cynical and I can agree that our transactions will be arbitrated by a third party we both agree on should either of us feel that the other is not living up to his side of the agreement. Isn’t that a case of resorting to violence? Is this okay if both parties agree to this?
Cynical?
I think I love you, Cynical. Your dedication to logic is quite unparalleled on this board and almost everywhere else. You are proof that anarchy is not the juvenile bitching most people believe it to be, but a valid alternative governing theory.
Government should always be considered as an absolutely evil entity. I actually consider government to be the ultimate evil entity. The antithesis of all that is good. It’s pretty hard to consider government anything other than that, when it has murdered 262 million of it’s own people in the last one hundred years. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
That does not include wars. Does anyone consider that stat to be a “good” thing? Remember what George Washington said, “A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master.”
Unfortunately our education system does not teach anything about this side of government.
“The problem with Balko’s question is that the underlying premise is false.” I would say that Balko’s underlying premise is right on the money, and anyone who looks at history would have to have their eyes wide shut to not see this.
Thanks for the props, Steve.
If everyone agrees that an action is needed and everyone agrees that an entity will be created to perform the action, then there is nothing immoral whatsoever about that arrangement (assuming the action does not threaten anyone else’s freedom). However, agreement must be substantial and not some implied-consent BS, i.e. each individual who is to contribute must put pen to paper or be free to decline. [Let the free-rider conundrum begin...]
In your example of a free market legal system, I see no resort to violence at all. Prohibiting such an arrangement is violent.
If you mean that enforcement of the terms of a contract would necessarily result in violence, well, I usually rejoin that there are non-violent means of contract enforcement such as ostracism (boycott) and negative publicity.
It all boils down to personal responsibility, the death of which has been bemoaned constantly during my brief adulthood. Once one cedes personal responsibility, the State rushes in like a flood.
This is not directed at you Steve. I suppose most people are too lazy and self-absorbed to want to devote the kind of energy that would be required to live a healthy, non-violent life. In an anarchist world, you might have to go without an Ipod or a paved road here or there. So, most people make a deal with the devil — you keep me “safe” and I’ll look the other way at all the violence you commit in my name to keep me “safe,” all the while paying you blood money so you don’t kill my ass.
Just because one doesn’t see the families slaughtered during weddings in Afghanistan, the millions displaced from Iraq, the tens of thousands eliminated in Latin America from death squads and the drug war, that doesn’t mean it is not happening. And all of it is to feed the beast that is the State so a small percentage of the human population can live in relative comfort and “safety.”
Thank you, that’s about the nicest thing anyone’s ever written to me Danny. In all fairness, the conclusions I draw have been developed by writers and thinkers who came before, as most anarchists on this board would recognize, and I try to link to them as often as possible. This logic is accessible to anyone who is willing to be honest. I think that intellectual dishonesty is the last refuge of the desperate statist. Well, second-to-last, because violence is always the last.
I am going to show your comment to my wife to prove to her that I’m not quite the raving lunatic she claims I am. :)
Ink on paper AKA “laws” will never stop this. History dictates what will happen and what needs to happen. I don’t understand why people believe we are enlightened and different than people of 500 years ago. We have more stuff, but human lust for war, power, control, lies, manipulation, etc. is exactly the same today as it was then, just different packaging.
What stops government tyranny? A large enough number of people that are willing to water the tree of liberty.
Cynical,
I was recalling, and my memory might be wrong, that the third party would have, by agreement enforcement powers. That is, suppose I am found to have not lived up to the agreement. The third party would then come and collect whatever it was that I failed to pay for/provide etc. Obviously I wouldn’t want them too, and so they’d be taking it by force. So I guess my question is, would my initial agreement to this set up negate the later application of force as being immoral?
I seem to recall that Friedman also laid out when his vision of an anarcho-capitalist system would work. IIRC, it would be where there are not significant public goods or externalities.
That is pretty much how I see it too. And that as time goes by the notion of keeping one safe seems to change to include more and more. Not only safe from the violent criminals, but also from eating too much, drinking too much, gambling, hurricanes, etc. As the list of things that we see as a danger to ourselves grows our list of freedoms shrink. It is a problem with both Democrats and Republicans. Its obvious once you jettison the partisan bullshit and blinders.
The Friedman I was referring to is not Milton, but David Friedman, Milton Friedman’s son.
Link
No problem, Cynical. And I know that none of us start with a clean slate, but it takes dedication and lots of time to think through and experience to come to optimal conclusions according to ones choice of emotion (e.g. everything for the “children”), logic (the golden rule), etc. Of course some conclusions are more pure than others, but all are optimal according to some set of beliefs about what is important. As far as clean slates, I’d venture a guess that even all of the great anarchist philosophers had much experience to base their theories on, but when it mattered they got the inspiration they needed to fill in the gaps. From my own meager experience, my effects and decisions are grains of sand on the beach of history. My decisions can and will effect millions or billions to come in small or not-so-small ways, but then, my actions today are based on the decisions and actions of billions of people and other animate objects that have gone before me.
Anyway, sorry for rambling, but my point was that all that really matters is that we do the best we can right now. Choose a strategy and follow it to the best of your ability. Anybody who can do so for the majority of their adult (i.e. cognitive) lives can be called a success, and to me that’s all that matters. Of course, I can only claim a success of a person that matches my attempts for optimized logic simply because it’s what I understand.
Oh, and I was going to not submit this comment because of its vagueness and it probably sounds like an idiot rambling, but take what truth you can from it and move on. I figured something in it would at least benefit somebody. ;-)
“The choice is, and always has been, between good government and bad government”
The problem with the contender’s response is that the underlying premise is false. You see, government is not intrinsically “good” or “bad”; just like an individual is not inherently good or bad. Rather, the actions are what ought to be judged. The government usually oversteps boundaries and treads upon individual liberties, which is why we libertarians are so opposed to them. However, I would believe that we would be just as opposed to a corporation in the free market that restricted individual liberties in some way.
The issue is not that government is bad- it is that excessive authority and control of our individual lives is harmful and detestable. The red herring here is the false dichotomy that the author forces upon us.
Cynical: “If everyone agrees that an action is needed and everyone agrees that an entity will be created to perform the action, then there is nothing immoral whatsoever about that arrangement (assuming the action does not threaten anyone else’s freedom).”
So a group voluntarily creates a proprietary community of some kind via formal consent, establishes procedures for resolving disputes and making changes, and then… what happens to the next generation? They didn’t consent. Do they get a veto or right to opt-out while remaining in the community, or just the freedom to exit?
It is very dangerous to dismiss one’s opponents and to call them unserious. Personally, regardless of whether you agree or disagre, I felt that this response was very serious and far more deserving of rebuttal than mockery.
Initiating force is inherently bad. Except in defense, the only ethical way to get someone to do what you want is through reason, not force.
There are ways to defend against invasion, hold criminals accountable, and build infrastructures useful to large populations without killing those who don’t want to be a part of your efforts. And, no matter how you slice it, having government always, always, always ultimately involves murdering innocents who dare to dissent.
Forgot to close the blockquote, dammit.
Thanks again Danny, your compliment means even more after reading post #37. Your clean slate metaphor rings very true, as I contemplate my statist upbringing, public school indoctrination, young adulthood spent uselessly debating statist tripe and then my dive headfirst into political philosophy and devouring of anti-statist literature. The task is daunting indeed, just to persuade one individual, just how much re-education is necessary. But I do it for love, not money. And at least my kids will know there’s more to life than what the President of the United States tells them there is.
That’s one BIG victory. Keep spreading the word.
Steve, I have read D. Friedman and found myself in agreement with much of what he wrote, but disagreeing with some as well. He is an improvement on Friedman the Elder, who was a statist apologist and power-seeker.
Regarding a contract that binds two parties to a violent resolution in case of breach, logic dictates that if the two parties entered voluntarily and agreed explicitly in writing to the means of dispute resolution that included violence, then it is valid.
The analogy I would suggest is the simplest of all anarchist contracts, and the one that does not morally require a signature — the responsibility of each person to not violate the freedom of another person. Thus, if person A attempted to kill person B, the dispute would be settled by person B (or his DRO*) defending himself, possibly to the death, against person A with violence. This is valid under anarchism, since the responsibility for self-defense lies with the individual (or DRO if a person chooses to contract voluntarily with an organization for self-defense).
I stress that as long as humans exist, so will violence. The question is not one of eradicating violence, but redistributing it to the individual level for maximum diffusion. After all, only States can kill in the millions. What’s the record for a single human? 100? 1000?
* Dispute Resolution Organization (private)
Not only will you not get any limits established by leftists, you won’t even get any serious ability to formulate a response.
Maybe ask the lefties “If Jefferson were alive today, after seeing the explosion of government would he a) kill himself, b) grab a pitchfork, hot tar, and a map to Capital Hill, c) leave the country.”
I think “C”, because he was real smart.
Can someone refer me to a case, famous or not, of a political journey from anarchism/libertarianism toward statism (or the same by any other name)?
“So a group voluntarily creates a proprietary community of some kind via formal consent, establishes procedures for resolving disputes and making changes, and then… what happens to the next generation? They didn’t consent. Do they get a veto or right to opt-out while remaining in the community, or just the freedom to exit?”
Let’s start at the most basic. Certainly any honest group of anarchists would not interfere with any member’s decision at any time to opt out and leave, else they are not anarchists.
For those of the next generation that choose to opt out and remain, the elders could either be magnanimous and offer to let them stay (free riders), or they could treat those that wanted to opt out and remain with shunning or negative publicity or some other non-violent means of expressing freedom of association or expression. Making someone feel unwelcome in no way infringes on their freedom.
If the next generation wanted to opt out and remain and form a criminal gang to impose their will on the community, then they would be committing violence against the signatories, and the signatories would be justified in defending themselves with violence if necessary, on a volunteer basis of course.
All of this is just my own musing. The thing about anarchy is that there is no central plan, no set way of doing anything except for the respect of the freedom of the individual. This is a hard concept for statists to grasp, that there is no certainty at all, that you just have to figure it out as you go along, and that this is superior to statism in every way to every individual involved.
OTOH anarchy might just result in even more restrictive and less responsive social institutions to take the place of government. I mean, your view of government is apparently just that it’s a tool to rule people and force them do things, but the reality is a bit more complicated. At its best, government is an effective means of engendering cooperation and minimizing strife between disparate communities with potentially conflicting interests and values. The anarchist alternative might just be more homogeneous communities with far less tolerance for deviation from social norms.
According to Wikipedia, the UK’s Dr. Harold Shipman holds the record for confirmed victims at 218. The highest number of possible victims (931) goes to Thug Behram, leader of India’s Thuggee cult.
As a pre-emptive measure, let me add that I was merely quoting Wikipedia, not lending credence to the veracity of the claims.
I’ve read elsewhere that the Thuggee cult was largely the invention of Imperialist interests in India, much like the Sawney Bean case was anti-Scottish propaganda.
#46 | anarch — “Can someone refer me to a case, famous or not, of a political journey from anarchism/libertarianism toward statism (or the same by any other name)?”
The only thing that sprang to mind was a quote I once read from someone who attributed it to Winston Churchill:
“If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.”
By which it is reasonable that the classical definition of “liberal” (market anarchist) was being used.
Problem is that according to Wikipedia, the quote is falsely attributed to Churchill and actually belongs to mid-19th century historian and statesman François Guizot who said:
“Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head.”
That aside, it begs the question of how someone could go from the morality of anarchism to the immorality of statism. I suppose exposure to extreme unmitigated violence could do it, kind of like being in a Death Wish film or somesuch.
#48 | Matt D
Points well taken. Your crystal ball is as good as mine. But I consider myself a student of history, and history records slaughter after slaughter conducted by state after state. States do attempt to manage conflicts, siphoning off their cut as they do, but so often they fail.
When they fail (or succeed, as I argue), the body counts are several orders of magnitude greater than any individual can achieve. And even in times of relative “peace” such as someone might argue we live in now, the body counts are exactly as I have described.
Part of the problem that I have with left and right is that they will take an issue, decide what their position is, and then file it in their library of responses. They will then move on to the next issue, treating it completely independently, quite often just substituting the official party stance for their own reasoning. If you broach an issue that they haven’t done this with they will not know how to respond. While they say they have guiding principles, they violate them so regularly that their positions have to be memorized.
Aside from a limited number of contentious issues, veteran libertarians tend to adhere to a few very basic concepts, most notably of which include limited government, individual liberty, the sanctity of contracts, and respect for private property.
Ask a Republican about how they could support Bush’s protectionist policies or expansion of medicare even as they profess to being for free trade and limited government. Ask a Democrat how they can believe in free speech and a woman’s control over her own body but still be in favor of banning pornography and prostitution. The list of issues at which they diverge from their own professed principles is endless.
It’s no fucking wonder that mainstream party loyalists think libertarians are simplistic. Libertarians, like mathematicians, use a few tools to solve many problems whereas the typical mainstream party member can’t offer a solution to a problem unless they’ve already seen it answered before and have memorized what the answer was. In a pinch they will usually tell you whether they’re for or against a particular plan if you tell them whether it originated from their own party or the other party. Bush’s policies were evil when Bush was doing them, but they’re not really that bad when Obama does them (even after denouncing them when he was running for office). Why aren’t they outraged?
There is no doubt that libertarians have similar problems, but very few libertarians were raised libertarian and it takes time to completely unlearn a way of thinking and then replace it with something completely different.
This is why I’m in no hurry for the Libertarian Party to become huge and popular. As a small fringe group, libertarians can afford to have integrity and remain consistent in their core principles. To become a viable contender against the mainstream parties, Libertarians would have to compromise and eventually become just like them.
#48 | Matt D — “The anarchist alternative might just be more homogeneous communities with far less tolerance for deviation from social norms.”
Very likely actually. However, the key omission is that in true anarchist societies (remember, if there is forceful restriction of liberty, it’s not anarchist), any dissenting individual would be free to leave and associate with like-minded individuals.
Any anarchist society that had as its only rules “First do no harm, then do as you please” would likely be a tolerant, vibrant community and just the sort of place I’d like to live.
You might too, Matt!
#50 | Mister DNA — “I’ve read elsewhere that the Thuggee cult was largely the invention of Imperialist interests in India, much like the Sawney Bean case was anti-Scottish propaganda.”
Much like Al Qaeda was the invention of the CIA/ISI.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
Ask a Democrat how they can believe in free speech and a woman’s control over her own body but still be in favor of banning pornography and prostitution.
Well, I generally vote Democrat and I’m not in favor of banning pornography or prostitution (or, for that matter, gambling). I’d guess that a lot of younger liberals hold the same positions.
The problem with being moderately famous is that fucking retards try to talk to you. See also, exhibit A.
:D
Ignore the morons, Radley. Sadly, they still get to vote.
Or, to sum up their argument another way:
“I have no principles.”
Dave Krueger #55
Brilliant as usual Dave! No, even more than usual!
I know a lot of liberal-slash-democrats who don’t think porn and prostitution should be illegal, but they think any woman who consents to “act” in a porn movie or engage in prostitution is being exploited somehow, making her consent rather dubious.
When I lived in SF, my landlord was a die-hard leftist hippie chick. She used to think I was really cool because of my collection of old-school country music (on vinyl, no less), but she absolutely flipped when she saw my Slayer albums. She told me I might as well start sniffing glue, and that if it was up to her, she’d have the government ban crap like heavy metal.
She felt she could still support free speech and a gov’t ban on Slayer because heavy metal served no purpose other than to appeal to our baser interests, thus qualifying as obscenity.
The only other time I’ve run across an opinion similar to hers was from Robert Bork.
“Good government”…argh. To this day, I can never understand why serious liberals tend to be locked into such denial about the proportion of unambiguous capital-B BAD that governments do to what would fit their definition of good. Really, how does someone give a monopoly on force to whatever group of egotistical liars is capable of lying their way into the trust of another group of people that only barely pay attention to the world beyond their block, and then have the nerve to act shocked when, instead of somehow divining “the will of The People” and using that to pursue an elusive “common good” and nothing else, that class of proven liars uses that power to stroke their egos and/or enrich them & their friends?
How many times does someone have to keep breaking your legs with the bat you gave them before you stop letting them have the goddamn bat?
#48 | anarch — “Can someone refer me to a case, famous or not, of a political journey from anarchism/libertarianism toward statism (or the same by any other name)?”
Sorry anarch, one more go. It just occurred to me that Roy A. Childs might be your man. He was considered a wunderkind of anarchism in his younger years and then devolved into a confused statist of sorts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Childs
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/
Cynical #53, thanks for looking. Similar, I guess, to this chestnut:
>At the Democratic National Convention in 1980, Ed Koch gave a speech relating an incident while he was giving a talk at a retirement home. Koch told the people at the retirement home about a liberal judge, known for being soft on criminals, who had been mugged, and then gave a press conference announcing that his decisions would be unaffected. An elderly lady at the back yelled out, “Then mug him again.”<
Exactly. For people who led a rebellion about women’s rights, the idea that they are actually smart enough to make up their own minds about some things is completely impossible for them to fathom. Women are sovereign over their own bodies as long as they pick an approved choice. How can an adult woman not be insulted by the idea that they’re too feeble minded to decide for themselves under what conditions to have sex.
In any case, that example came to mind, but I could have picked corporate welfare (ie: currently referred to as bailouts) or renewable energy as long as it doesn’t disturb some spotted gopher. What about faith based initiatives, once thought to represent the complete destruction of separation of church and state is now perfectly acceptable with a tweak or two?
There’s probably not a single major principle of either party that they don’t violate as often as they uphold. I find it stunning that their members aren’t even vaguely bothered by that.
@66,
Sorry, I attempted to hit the ‘thumbs up’ button but accidentally pressed the ‘thumbs down’ option.
“I’m asking them to give a rough estimate of where they’d place their boundaries.”
And they’re evading the question. This suggests they don’t want to answer it. My hypothesis: they don’t really, truly place any boundaries. Similarly, if you asked Fabians like G. B. Shaw (i.e. gradualist totalitarians), they may well evade the question, probably by attacking the person asking it.
Cynical in CA:
I agree with what Danny wrote (Comment #31). Please add me to the list that you submit to your wife.
In case you don’t already know, I think you’d really like Stefan Molyneux and Freedomain Radio. I’d imagine many who visit the site would as well.
http://freedomainradio.com
http://youtube.com/freedomainradio
a.
Hey Cynical…
“Very likely actually. However, the key omission is that in true anarchist societies (remember, if there is forceful restriction of liberty, it’s not anarchist), any dissenting individual would be free to leave and associate with like-minded individuals.”
I haven’t voted for a major-party president in decades (as if that’s some kind of credential… it’s not) so judge me as you may, but to me that statement of yours I quoted is the biggest problem with Anarchism. That is, people WILL associate with like-minded individuals, those with whom they share opinions, and therein lies (in my meager opinion) the ultimate dysfunctionality of pure anarchism as a political base: it won’t last, silly Random Joes WILL congregate with Like Joes and form coalitions of their own. And once you’ve established means to regulate those coalitions’ grasp on everyone else’s throats, you’ve betrayed pure anarchism by forming a government.
Just a thought. Sorry. Blame the vodka and the layoffs. Best regards…
Matt
We don’t even need a full “night watchman state.” A sheriff, a hundred or so well-armed deputies and the posse comitatus are more than sufficient for policing the community. Professional municipal police are vastly overrate for the good that they do.
#62–
So? I’m sure we all have anecdotes about that time some vaguely batty acquaintance of ours said “if it were up to me the government would [do something weird].” Some people actually believe it, and for some people it’s just hyperbole.
There’s one common thread tying all the blogger’s responses together so far…That to ask “where to draw the line” is an illegitimate question. That’s all the response I need to know exactly where the line is drawn. There is no line.
#20, #26
I was really dissapointed in my so-called ‘friends’ reaction to my arguments. I was stunned when they took it as far and as personal as they did. I just dont take an individual’s politics as all that important.. but apparently, they did. -shrug- I felt some loss, but it wasnt too terrible. And, honestly, I have no shortage of friends. I laugh about it now, and shake my head.
Exactly. For people who led a rebellion about women’s rights, the idea that they are actually smart enough to make up their own minds about some things is completely impossible for them to fathom. Women are sovereign over their own bodies as long as they pick an approved choice. How can an adult woman not be insulted by the idea that they’re too feeble minded to decide for themselves under what conditions to have sex.
Well, again, I don’t think porn or prostitution should be illegal. But I do sympathize with the viewpoint that both are exploitative. I mean, there’s a potential for exploitation in any encounter between a marginalized and a powerful individual, and that’s exacerbated when the former is performing illegal or disreputable acts at the behest of the latter.
In any case, I don’t think most liberals even hold the position that porn should be illegal, and I’d guess that a majority even favor legalizing prostitution. So I’m not even sure what position you’re attacking here.
The line between a voluntary community and a state is admittedly a difficult one to find. I recommend David Friedman’s essay Capitalist Trucks. His approach is to think about the environment in which these communities operate: if there is only one community, which is impossible to leave, it might be considered a government or might soon become one. But if there are many such communities operating in a broader context, in competition, such that it’s not too difficult to take your business from one to another, then they are more aptly considered providers of a service.
Michael Chaney opined:—As libertarians, we definitely recognize that there are things that we need to get together and do collectively. The obvious stuff is building roads and infrastructure, policing, fire protection, etc—.
Really? Can you prove any of this?
Is there no way these services can be provided through free-market means?
Matt D…if you can stand it, watch a few episodes of that holier-than-thou twat and Liberal, Tyra Banks. She’s had plenty of sex workers, porn stars and strippers on her show, all of whom she blasts and sneers at as if these adult women are incapable of consenting to their own means of employment. All should bow down and listen to her superior wisdom and not worry their pretty little heads. Same with Dr. Phil and Oprah and the Today Show. And probably many more that I haven’t seen. All at some point have basically contradicted their own so-called belief in equal rights by implying that sex workers and others involved in “vice”-type jobs can’t make thier own decisions.
#78–
I’m not sure what your point is. Tyra and Dr Phil are hardly representative of feminism or liberalism. In fact, I can assure you that there are tons of feminists out there who go apeshit when they see that sort of thing on TV. During the Spitzer scandal, for instance, most of the feminist blogs that I read were all about defending the prostitute in question (I forget her name) from unfair media criticism and “slut-shaming.”
Indeed, I would guess that very little of what you see on Tyra or Dr Phil or anywhere on TV has to do with liberal prejudice against prostitutes, and everything to do with the fact that TV loves to be sensationalist and cater to that lowest common denominator crap where we all bag on hookers and, you know, internet sex fiends or whatever.
False. If you’re not forcing people to do things, you’re not a government, by definition. You’re a co-op, an organization, an association.
Any time I see someone saying, “…the reality is…,” I put on my waders. Yes, I know that “in reality” the vast majority of people do not follow principles to their logical conclusion. That doesn’t invalidate those principles. It just means most people don’t follow them.
The line between a voluntary community and a state is admittedly a difficult one to find. I recommend David Friedman’s essay Capitalist Trucks. His approach is to think about the environment in which these communities operate: if there is only one community, which is impossible to leave, it might be considered a government or might soon become one.
Yeah, I was going to make that point up-thread. Freedom to leave isn’t always such a freedom if, for instance, there’s nowhere to go.
If you want to help a marginalized individual, you don’t restrict their choices in order to compensate for the marginalization. You should be attacking the marginalization, which after all, is something that society (including political parties) is doing to these women, not something they’re doing to themselves.
Prostitution is disreputable not because of what the prostitute is doing, but because of society’s prejudices. Making it illegal simply institutionalizes the persecution and disguises it as morality.
Maybe I’m completely dense, but my answer would be to stand up for them instead of denouncing them, eliminate the laws banning their profession so they are subject to the same civil and legal protections as any other legitimate business, and start working to change people’s attitudes toward them. Sex between two people should not a crime.
For the record, I don’t, for a minute, categorize the majority prostitutes and other sex workers as being exploited. The one’s I’ve met are intelligent, energetic, strong willed, and stunningly independent-minded.
There will always be people who are exploited. Laws that hurt them further aren’t the answer. Women make life and death decisions throughout their entire lives and it’s insultingly paternalistic to make rules about when they’re allow to have sex under penalty of criminal law. And the same thing applies to their customers.
OK, Matt…when I get off work I’ll go find you many more examples of so-called “equal rights” champions who think these silly fluffy-headed sex workers & strippers need to be told what to do.
#69 | Andrew — “Cynical in CA: I agree with what Danny wrote (Comment #31). Please add me to the list that you submit to your wife. In case you don’t already know, I think you’d really like Stefan Molyneux and Freedomain Radio. I’d imagine many who visit the site would as well.”
Thanks Andrew, I appreciate it, and you are now on the list. I am very well acquainted with the work of Mr. Molyneux but admit it’s been some time since I visited his site. Thanks for reminding me. His video vignettes are very instructive.
#70 | Matt — “people WILL associate with like-minded individuals, those with whom they share opinions, and therein lies (in my meager opinion) the ultimate dysfunctionality of pure anarchism as a political base: it won’t last, silly Random Joes WILL congregate with Like Joes and form coalitions of their own. And once you’ve established means to regulate those coalitions’ grasp on everyone else’s throats, you’ve betrayed pure anarchism by forming a government.”
Look Matt, if I form an anarchist community with other like-minded anarchists, all we want to do is be left alone to live according to our worldview. Will others do the same? Sure. They might even resort to violence, and they wouldn’t even be anarchists. What I would like is the right to defend myself and my community against this sort of violence instead of having to delegate that to some unaccountable superagency such as presently exists.
Is this a dicey existence? Sure! But it’s honest and free. If that’s not worth much to a particular individual, that person would be free to live as a slave in whatever statist system they chose.
Freedom, man. Freedom.
#74 | dubdedork — “I was really dissapointed in my so-called ‘friends’ reaction to my arguments. I was stunned when they took it as far and as personal as they did.”
Politics and religion are inseparable. They are both polluted with faith and bereft of reason, generally speaking. Challenge someone’s worldview with unassailable reason and you will get a response roughly equivalent to that of a cornered wolf.
My advice is to ease off the gas around your friends. Most of them are so completely indoctrinated that they don’t even understand your frame of reference, and so it is banging your head against a brick wall.
Thanks for the response Cynical, that was my reading of it as well. So long as both parties signed the agreement that included possible violent enforcement of the contract, then its valid.
My problem with democracy in general is that there will always be those who didn’t sign on to the decisions desired by the majority, but they are bound by said decisions and if they fail to uphold them violence is directed at them. For some instances such as a catastrophic public good the argument can be persuasive for many people. Problem is today we have more and more of our actions/decisions covered by collective action which are private. Smoking in one’s own residence, drug use, sexual partners, what to eat, what to watch, what to read, and so forth are more and more becoming determined by collective action.
Many people these days are, quite simply, cowards. They want to be provided for like pets, told what to do, and not have to take any responsibility. Its not my fault, nobody stopped me from doing it…that’s the new defense for people not taking responsibility.
Question for y’all. Suppose you posed the question to utilitarians instead of to liberals, and the utilitarian replied “I look at each individual instance of government intervention in the economy and decide whether than good outweighs the bad and support or oppose it accordingly.”
Would you consider the challenge met?
Personally, as an old lefty, I think the issue has to do with being honest about government–stop the lie about free markets, etc. and see what investments are good investments for the populace via the government to pool its resources in. Our health care system via private enterprise is in a shambles; is it a wise long term investment to invest in the health and expendirues vis a vis health–sure looks like it.
On the other hand–wars of choice, military iadventurism, ungodly experimental programs that drain our national treasure without even so much as experimental success such as Star Wars missile defense technology–give me a break.
Does it pay a society to invest in education for its youth? Does it pay to rather kept said youth incarcerated?
The larger problem of course is that phoney baloney libertarianism and conservatism has (just look at debt and deficit since Reagan, just look at the historic transfer of wealth from many to few during that same period) has eviserated our national wealth to such a degree, we have arrived in such a ditch, that it well may take going way far deeper to get us out.
But one thing for sure as long as those who have benefitted from the screwing from which the rest of us have suffered can get away with propagating a tax evasion nation mentality, the deeper and more problematic our straits will be.
Matt D,
I don’t dispute that there are liberals who oppose laws against prostitution and I am certain they far outnumber conservatives who feel the same way. I didn’t mean to imply that they were non-existent, but I think I came across that way. Some very high profile liberal women have defended sex worker rights, although their sentiments were not widely shared.
I only meant to say that the “sexual revolution”, feminism, and liberalism in general have not been kind to the rights of women in the sex industry and in many cases have been rabid in their stand against them.
Citizen E, you can’t have it both ways. Welfare and warfare go hand in hand. Once socialism is instituted at home, wars are necessary to fund the socialism.
Also, you commented that we need to end the “free market” BS, then you complain that the “private” health care system is in a shambles. Pray tell, what exactly is private about the health care system? Occupational licensure, the FDA, Medicare/Medicaid, prescription drug benefits, etc., are all government interventions.
There is no free market, thus it is impossible to blame the current situation on the free market.
Consumatopia, the challenge is not met because the knowledge you claim your utilitarian possesses is beyond human comprehension. It is simply impossible to know whether the good outweighs the bad, and at any rate, it’s all subjective — it only matters whose opinion gets counted and we know that ours is not.
The only thing of which I am certain is that the government is ALWAYS wrong and inefficient and the unhampered, truly free market is the only means of discovering truth in economics.
@ #88, I don’t think that’s a good answer for a utilitarian — it’s more of a non-answer. After all, a good utilitarian should be interested in aggregate and long-term effects of policies, not just whether they seem to increase utility at one point in time in one particular situation. And Radley’s question is essentially utilitarian in nature: it’s not so much asking if government spending X percent of GDP (for example) is intrinsically wrong, but asking if you think spending that much would be too difficult to sustain or would have negative effects correlated with it.
@93, I was unclear, I apologize. By “each instance”, I don’t mean each time the policy is applied, but each policy. So, I agree, you have to be interested in the aggregate and long-term effects of each program, so you should modify the utiltiarian’s answer accordingly–they evaluate each policy and decide whether the aggregate good outweighs the aggregate bad resulting from the individual policy.
However, this has nothing to do with adding _all of the policies_ together. We’re talking about two kinds of aggregation. The utilitarian would aggregate all the effects of the single program together, but see no reason to aggregate all of the programs together.
“This program will cost $X billion” is a worthwhile utilitarian argument against an individual program, but “this program plus all other programs will add up to X% of GDP” is not.
I didn’t mean to suggest X% of GDP would be a valid criterion on which to make a decision, but rather the number is a *rough* proxy for what kind of society the utilitarian thinks is optimal — i.e., one that is largely dominated by the central government, one that is mostly private and market-based, or one that is somewhere in the middle.
Most people, including utilitarians, have a general idea of what sort of policies they think are desirable (regarding health care, stimulus packages, military, education, etc.), and should have at least a vague idea of what it would take to fund them. Thus, I still think it would be evasive for a utilitarian not to answer the questions by stating he or she would simply apply a utilitarian calculus to each policy.
So: the point of the exercise is not to force the utilitarian to make a decision using Radley’s metrics, but to get a general idea of what the country would look like if the utilitarian’s beliefs were adopted full force.
Radley, you state above that there are certain functions that legitimately fall within the purview of government (a statement some of your commenters clearly disagree with). Yet, when you ask liberals to define “too much government”, you don’t ask them to define it in terms of government functions, you ask them to define it in terms of size and expense.
From the way you phrase your response, you seem to believe that as soon as government reaches a certain percentage of GDP, gulags and May Day parades start appearing spontaneously. Do you really believe that sheer size can cause a government to become tyrannical?
Yes. When the size of government = 100% of GDP and all wealth in the country then the government controls every facet of your life. Your food, your house, your car, your health care, etc.
See, wasn’t that hard.
#82:
Philistine!
I didn’t mean to suggest X% of GDP would be a valid criterion on which to make a decision, but rather the number is a *rough* proxy for what kind of society the utilitarian thinks is optimal — i.e., one that is largely dominated by the central government, one that is mostly private and market-based, or one that is somewhere in the middle.
And any liberal is going to say “somewhere in the middle” or “mostly private and market-based”, as either of those easily apply to anything Obama or any mainstream democrat has proposed.
But here’s the thing–you say the number is a “rough” approximation of the three categories, but a number is seemingly more precise the words, but not in a way that’s actually useful at understanding anything about a utilitarian’s point of view. For liberals specifically, the change in size of government has more to do with macroeconomic and political constraints than platonic ideals, and asking us to pre-guess the size we’d want is the budgetary equivalent of not listening to your generals in the field. Whatever Gov. Clinton’s answers to the challenge would have been in 1991, they changed significantly once he had a conversation with Sec. Rubin. And Obama’s likely shifted in the other direction as the current recession began.
Moreover, Balko didn’t ask for a “rough approximation”. He asked for “limits”. And that’s the reason so few people are interested in his challenge–my limit is often way, way higher than I expect to actually expect or want to happen. In some strange post-singularity circumstances, maybe I’d want the top 1% of people to pay 90% of the taxes. Maybe they’re making 95% of the money? Who knows? I don’t expect to tax that much. But in some possible worlds, I might. Any inference you draw from this about my likely actions in *this* world are going to be false or misleading.
And note that % of GDP is the most defensible example here–the rest like inflation or debt as a share of GDP are even more dominated by contingent economic circumstances and less useful in getting “a general idea of what the country would look like”–they could plausibly (in my view) become worse in a smaller-government environment.
And it’s completely different in kind from the original pro-war libertarian quiz, which didn’t have numbers. If the pro-war libertarian quiz asked what level of DoD funding, in dollar terms or % of GDP, they’d accept in the 21st century, then I, as a very anti-war liberal, would say that’s a completely unfair question.
Most people, including utilitarians, have a general idea of what sort of policies they think are desirable (regarding health care, stimulus packages, military, education, etc.), and should have at least a vague idea of what it would take to fund them.
Could does not imply should for above reasons.
Thus, I still think it would be evasive for a utilitarian not to answer the questions by stating he or she would simply apply a utilitarian calculus to each policy.
It’s the most relevant answer that can be reasonably given. Any attempt to add details is not a statement about the utilitarian’s preferences, but an extraordinary act of economic prognostication.
Getting back to exploited/unexploited sex workers:
It’s easy to assume rational, uncoerced decisions from middle-class women in a rich country like ours. The luxury of a libertarian critique is less easy in poor countries where women might have little chance of economic advancement in the mainstream culture.
“Any anarchist society that had as its only rules ‘First do no harm, then do as you please’ would likely be a tolerant, vibrant community and just the sort of place I’d like to live.”
Me, too! This is exactly the same idea professed (in almost the exact wording) as the “witch’s creed” — “An it harm none, do as thou wilt.” Which is why I find it so strange that most modern witches are liberals rather than libertarians. I have questioned that political dichotomy among the witchy community for years and have never received a straight answer, one would think said community would embrace the anarchist road over any other. Perhaps libertarians should be targeting the witchy community BBs/forums for anarchist discussions with the idea of growing our numbers?
“My advice is to ease off the gas around your friends. Most of them are so completely indoctrinated that they don’t even understand your frame of reference, and so it is banging your head against a brick wall.”
Actually, tho in general I agree with your advice, I have found with my friends (most of whom I’ve known since grade school, we get together about 4 times a year, for a long weekend — conducive to wide ranging conversations) I have made chinks in their political armor via some of those conversations I’ve had with them. Usually said conversations result as tangents of a comment one of us has made, and consists of my asking questions of them rather than lecturing. It is not always a successful tactic, but sometimes I actually break thru that armor entirely (of course I’ve been working on them for about 55 years).
Oooh! Ooooh! Me next! Me next!
“Playing a libertarian’s game: Radley Balko’s “State your limits” challenge
#82:
Philistine!