That thing which Radley posted about is just horribly unjust.

I mean, My God! This is bone cancer, arguably the most painful Godawful kind!

C. S. Lewis, I believe, married a woman dying of bone cancer, so that he could better look after her.

In principle, yes. As a matter of science, I would not be in favor of doing anything that would prejudice a medical study, of course.

Do you think our system of property rights and enforcement of contracts has anything to with why we’ve come so far from a subsistence economy?

No. The development of Rule of Law instead of Rule of Great Men is not really connected with agriculture and advances in technology until comparitively recently (patent law protecting intellectual property, for example). Highly stratified and relatively advanced non subsistance societies abound in history without strong protections of property rights or contracts. In fact our very notion of private property is a very culturally specific more and is not universal by any means, as I illustrated earlier. Assuming that you advance out of subsistance by adopting Eurocentric (Anglo-Saxon/Dane Law…specifically) property rights laws has the problem exactly backwards and is unavoidably ethnocentric.

Property rights are a luxury of excess production and role specialization. Communal property strategies in sub-Saharan Africa are a survival mechanism dictated by the environment. Note that you do not have the same problem in native American traditional societies in the Pacific Northwest, which had a far greater food productivity potential, although the technological capability was roughly the same.

So do you also oppose the FDA’s policy of forbidding private companies fro selling potentially life-saving drugs to dying patients because the agency hasn’t yet approved them?

Other cultures who live a bit closer to life and death subsistance understand this all too well . . .

Do you think our system of property rights and enforcement of contracts has anything to with why we’ve come so far from a subsistence economy?

Your insistance on property rights taking precedance over other people’s survival in the hypothetical is interesting. People being what they are, you should not be surprised if somebody comes and takes an item by force if that thing is necessary for the life of a family member. I would, if oush came right down to shove. I suspect you would as well. Other cultures who live a bit closer to life and death subsistance understand this all too well, which is why the Gware in Kenya don;t even have “private property” as we understand it. The cow is not owned by a family…the family has rights to the milk every other day, for instance. The cow is too valuable to the community at large to be a private asset, and decisions made as to whether it is traded or not are made communally.

If you were serious about being bullish on human nature, then this position should certainly not be enough to draw so much anger.

You need to reread what I wrote about human nature. To wit:

(which means I am not bullish on human nature).

Hobbesianism and pessimism are generally found together. Hobbes observed the insanity of the English Civil War and the murderous populism of the Cromwell era. He was an avowed Monarchist, since at the time, the English people didn’t do such a hot job of managing their own affairs. Many modern Hobbesian pessimists talk of the need for “Benovolent despots”, espcially in third world nations where rule of law is weak and education/middle class structures are largely absent(as was such in 15th Century England, to some degree).

While I would not advocate such a policy here or other first world nations (We have a strong tradition of rule of law, good public education etc), I observe that human nature is universal and that our democracy survives only as long as we care to maintain it. You need only look to Hurricane Katrina to see what happens in a breakdown of civil society and lack of law enforcement (and you saw the breakdown with the police as well, let us not forget!).

I am a geology major with a minor in American History. I am not an anthropologist, although I have taken coursework in the field. Nonetheless, I am perfectly able to obsorve historical patterns and evaluate modern cultural practices. I see no reason to believe that a “purist” libertarian society would be able to function without some degree of support fromn outside sources to gain skill sets and get materials etc, and it would almost ceretainly have to be small (less then 100 people) to avoid severe conflict unless a centralized “law enforcement” mechanism were introduced.

It’s called wasting time for no particular reason. I could be painting Games Workshop miniatures, practicing Ballycastle Boys on my harp or reviewing calculus prior to classes starting on Monday. I am here on this thread instead. Go figure.

I quite enjoy the contradiction between the subject of your sentence and the thrust of your argument. “You guys are being way too selfish; instead, we’re gonna do things *my way*!”

And BamBam, your hysterical comparisons of taxation to slavery are pretty over the top. Seriously, I’m actually surprised you haven’t compared the IRS to Nazis. Do you really believe that forcing people into a life of unpaid labor and brutal abuse is the same as giving up a few dollars out of your paycheck? And where is this yes or no question you’re asking? I seem to have missed it.

No need to even respond. Your own words spotlight your lack of wisdom.

I don’t think ‘going Galt’ means ‘sitting around and responding to liberal’s blog comments’. Why aren’t you out producing? If you’re not a producer then you’re a looter or a moocher.

Also, where is your ‘voluntary society’ going to be?

Just because libertarians have no power (even Radley has admitted before that the U.S. will never have a minarchist government) doesn’t mean we can’t call you out on spouting off bullshit about Galt’s Gulch, or hearing @CK say wordy sentences such as:

“Once you have helped steal from me, I am not too interested in your motives or your excuses or your whinings; your a thief and all the high sounding rationalizations will not change that status.”

(yet ironically misspelling ‘”you’re”), LOL.

“Jebus fucking Christ. You actually resent some of the tax dollars you contributed going to help people with horrible diseases.

I have no way to express the contempt I have for you.”

If you were serious about being bullish on human nature, then this position should certainly not be enough to draw so much anger.

What you really mean to say is that you, celticdragonchick, are an enlightened ubermensch, who truly understands the needs of the masses, who clearly couldn’t determine their own best self-interests if their lives depended on it.

Luckily, the moral depravity of a narcissist lacking self-awareness doesn’t really impress me. It may others, though. Go, then, CDC, go to the people, and let them know their enlightened philosopher-king savior has arrived! Stop wasting your time with the proles.

But let’s leave behind your deflection. Answer the question.

Why do you waste so much time here if we suck so bad and don’t mean a damn?

Ah. More of the left/right dichotomy fail.

I am a Hobbesian realist (which means I am not bullish on human nature). I am not a conservative and I am not particularly liberal except for some some social matters regarding GLBT people. I own two assault rifles. Maybe you need to come up with some different labels for people who disagree with you.

“Most of the rest of us are willing to put up with the annoyance of some taxation in order to have civilization. We have a representative government that we elect to decide how it is spent.”

Such a utopian delusion is a rare sight to behold.

What has always puzzled me about you leftists is the combination of contempt and schadenfreude you seem to have towards a group that you yourselves admin hold no actual power in our society. Why do you care? Why are you even here, if we are such contemptible creatures who also don’t have any power? What exactly is your pathology? Are you looking for ways to assuage your guilt, as your subconscious is fully aware of the utter baseness of your “philosophy”?

I’m serious here. Why the fuck do you people waste so much time here if we suck so bad and don’t mean a damn?

Can I play?

Utopianism: it gets shit done!
Moping about taxes: it gets shit done!
Infantile fits about “theft”: it gets shit done!

This isn’t North Korea. You can leave any time you like and find a society with mores that reflect your own. Good luck with that. Keep in mind that you property rights here are upheld and defended with those taxes you are belly aching about, so wherever you go, you may want to be well armed and sleep lightly.

Yes it is.

“We have a representative government that we elect to decide how it is spent.”

Keep on believing that.

By all means, please continue. Clearing out deadwood with over-inflated notions of indispensibility is always a worthwhile pursuit, in my estimation. Of course, you reveal the hypocrisy of the entire “Galt’s Gulch” farce. Since it cannot exist in reality without a Deus ex machina like the perpetual motion machine in the book, you are forced to “mooch” off the infrastructure and legal framework of a society you do not actually want to pay into. You want the cake of civilization, but cannot stand the thought of paying for it. Therefore, you are reduced to theft.