Libertarian Purity Test

[Ramo]

To what extent do you care about varying degrees of libertarianism in your life? Sure your philosophy is purist to the extent of not wanting any taxes...but in daily life, do you care about half a loaf?

Personally, it depends on the nature of the authority you're referring to. The smaller the usurpation of freedom, the less I care about it.

[Urban Ranger]

Goverments can't accept private charities or they'd be under obligations. So user fees - since everybody uses government services, everybody pays. That's just taxes.

[Ramo]

How do you charge a user fee for national defense?

I have no clue. He'd probably say the answer is charity.

[TCO]

well...what do you say?

[Ramo]

Goverments can't accept private charities or they'd be under obligations. So user fees - since everybody uses government services, everybody pays. That's just taxes.

I believe the point is that user fees are "voluntary." If you want, for instance, your property to be protected, you have to have help pay for the police. But you aren't in any obligation to by the state.

[Berzerker]

Drogue, monopolies in the marketplace are rare and shortlived, but not when government establishes or protects them. You claim to be concerned about monopolies yet support a government monopoly over education. Your comments about health care and energy expose an unfamiliarity with market forces. If I have a monopoly over a service and start charging too much, I will not only anger my customers, I will be inviting competitition.

Consider what the medical industry has done with the aid of government. In the early 1900's there were many black colleges catering to blacks seeking an education in medicine. The AMA or it's equivelant of the time lobbied Congress and the various state legislatures to "license" doctors. Around the same time, universities teaching medicine became "accredited" (more government licensing) and black colleges were denied this license as those colleges with accreditation were limited in how many students could enroll each year. This allowed the AMA to limit supply thereby driving up the cost of demand, and black medical students suffered the most by being shut out. Inspite of this, medical costs remained relatively low until government got in the business of paying for it. Since then, medical costs have ballooned (what a surprise). Would that violate your definition of freedom?

Freedom means the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. There is no such thing as "some" freedom, that is a concept promoted by people who don't believe in freedom but at the same time try to convince others, if not themselves, that they do in fact believe in freedom. Your argument that economic freedom should be denied would make us all slaves to those owning our labor. If your body belongs to you with regards to social or personal freedom, why does it cease belonging to you when you use your labor to make a buck?

[David Floyd]

But is he smart enough to understand what a free-rider is? How do you charge a user fee for national defense? only way is a tax.

Can someone tell me why the US needs "national defense" in an age when a war on US soil is NOT going to happen?

Terrorism is a law enforcement issue, not a national defense one.

So, I can basically see no use for a military of any size in this day and age. No military means no costs, and hence we don't have to dump money down the drain any more.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Azazel
There are no natural rights. There is society and the there are the best ways to govern it to the benefit of all of it's humans, those best ways vary in different sircumstances.

I am not a utilitarian as well, I am a quasi-utilitarian humanist. that is, I care only about the success of the human race and the happiness of humans. utilitarians care about animals.

I agree almost completely. I don't want animals mistreated (I'm against torturing them, or keeping mink in tiny cages for instance) but I don't particularly care about animal testing etc.

Sounds almost Darwinian (He should have one the Greatest Briton )

[Ned]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Can someone tell me why the US needs "national defense" in an age when a war on US soil is NOT going to happen?

Terrorism is a law enforcement issue, not a national defense one.

So, I can basically see no use for a military of any size in this day and age. No military means no costs, and hence we don't have to dump money down the drain any more.

What would happen to Democracy elsewhere in the world if we abandoned it to its fate?

David, you seem to ignore the lessons of history.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Drogue, monopolies in the marketplace are rare and shortlived, but not when government establishes or protects them. You claim to be concerned about monopolies yet support a government monopoly over education. Your comments about health care and energy expose an unfamiliarity with market forces. If I have a monopoly over a service and start charging too much, I will not only anger my customers, I will be inviting competitition.

No, monopolies, in a completely unregulated economy, would be long lived. Since being a monopoly, it is relatively easy in most cases to put up barriers to entry. If you own the only sources of oil in the area, or the only piece of machinary that produces that product, it's very hard for competition to enter the market. The Government does not have a monopoly over education, you still have private schools (called public schools here strangely) so there is competition. I just don't think we should disband free education for all.

I'm all for destroying monopolies, but I think some things are too important to be solely in the hands of market forces. If what you said about monopolies being short lived, why would be need anti-trust laws?

Originally posted by Berzerker
Consider what the medical industry has done with the aid of government. In the early 1900's there were many black colleges catering to blacks seeking an education in medicine. The AMA or it's equivelant of the time lobbied Congress and the various state legislatures to "license" doctors. Around the same time, universities teaching medicine became "accredited" (more government licensing) and black colleges were denied this license as those colleges with accreditation were limited in how many students could enroll each year. This allowed the AMA to limit supply thereby driving up the cost of demand, and black medical students suffered the most by being shut out. Inspite of this, medical costs remained relatively low until government got in the business of paying for it. Since then, medical costs have ballooned (what a surprise). Would that violate your definition of freedom?

To be honest, I have no knowledge whatsoever of American medical licences or systems, so I can't comment. Here we have the NHS (National Health Service) and I'm very glad about that. Healthcare is too important for money to be an issue at the point of sale IMO.

Originally posted by Berzerker
Freedom means the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. There is no such thing as "some" freedom, that is a concept promoted by people who don't believe in freedom but at the same time try to convince others, if not themselves, that they do in fact believe in freedom. Your argument that economic freedom should be denied would make us all slaves to those owning our labor. If your body belongs to you with regards to social or personal freedom, why does it cease belonging to you when you use your labor to make a buck?

There is some freedom. I have some freedom of speech. I can say what I want, although there are regulations on 'hate speech' (via insightment to racial hatred etc) and libel/slander. You may say that isn't free speech, but it's a damn sight freer than some countries, where opposition to the Government is banned etc. Hence we have some free speech, but not total free speech.

I have nothing against economic freedom, I just don't see it as very important, and in many cases, less important to me than equality.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Can someone tell me why the US needs "national defense" in an age when a war on US soil is NOT going to happen?

Terrorism is a law enforcement issue, not a national defense one.

So, I can basically see no use for a military of any size in this day and age. No military means no costs, and hence we don't have to dump money down the drain any more.

Why is a war on US soil not going to happen? Only because you have a large military. If you didn't, Iraq, or anywhere else, might just invade. What's stopping them if you have no military?

However I do think the US spends way to much on it. As a deterent, it does not need $400 Billion spent on it. Even just spending $100 Billion it would be enough to stop any country trying to invade IMO.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Drogue, monopolies in the marketplace are rare and shortlived, but not when government establishes or protects them. You claim to be concerned about monopolies yet support a government monopoly over education. Your comments about health care and energy expose an unfamiliarity with market forces. If I have a monopoly over a service and start charging too much, I will not only anger my customers, I will be inviting competitition.

Consider what the medical industry has done with the aid of government. In the early 1900's there were many black colleges catering to blacks seeking an education in medicine. The AMA or it's equivelant of the time lobbied Congress and the various state legislatures to "license" doctors. Around the same time, universities teaching medicine became "accredited" (more government licensing) and black colleges were denied this license as those colleges with accreditation were limited in how many students could enroll each year. This allowed the AMA to limit supply thereby driving up the cost of demand, and black medical students suffered the most by being shut out. Inspite of this, medical costs remained relatively low until government got in the business of paying for it. Since then, medical costs have ballooned (what a surprise). Would that violate your definition of freedom?

Freedom means the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. There is no such thing as "some" freedom, that is a concept promoted by people who don't believe in freedom but at the same time try to convince others, if not themselves, that they do in fact believe in freedom. Your argument that economic freedom should be denied would make us all slaves to those owning our labor. If your body belongs to you with regards to social or personal freedom, why does it cease belonging to you when you use your labor to make a buck?

Break out of the purity ****-size mindset for a second. I'm not debating wether ANY imposition is wrong. I'm asking wether worse impositions are...worse.

Surely confiscation of 1% of property is different (in effect on your life quality) than confiscation of 90%. Just like confinement for a day would be different than confinement for 20 years. Sure, you can say both are wrong. but to say both the same in effect? Crazy!

[TCO]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Can someone tell me why the US needs "national defense" in an age when a war on US soil is NOT going to happen?

Terrorism is a law enforcement issue, not a national defense one.

So, I can basically see no use for a military of any size in this day and age. No military means no costs, and hence we don't have to dump money down the drain any more.

So you see no reason for a military because you beleive we have no dangers. Does this mean that in a situation where there are dangers, you would support taxes for national defense? Does it mean that if someone establishes (perhaps they evaluate the threats differently) a threat, than taxes for defense are ok? Do you think threats are less likely to exist because of our strong power? That with weaker power, threats might emerge? Like bulllies avoiding a strong man...but emerging when they see easy pickings? It's a theoretical question...not a question about immediate spending decisions or geopolitics. I'm asking if you could ever imagine a danger? What if you were France or Belgium (or UK or Germany or USSR or Poland or Hawaii) in the 30's? Do you think there are ever threats requiring defense forces?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by GP
Break out of the purity ****-size mindset for a second. I'm not debating wether ANY imposition is wrong. I'm asking wether worse impositions are...worse.

Surely confiscation of 1% of property is different (in effect on your life quality) than confiscation of 90%. Just like confinement for a day would be different than confinement for 20 years. Sure, you can say both are wrong. but to say both the same in effect? Crazy!

Exactly. Freedom is no absolute. Even Libertarians have conditions ([everyone is free] so long as they don't infringe upon the equal freedom of others) so to argue there is no ‘some freedom’ is silly. Every belief is on a scale, with extremes at each end. And very very few (if any) people are right at the extreme.

[Bosh]

68 here, always hard answering these sorts of things from a left-libertarian perspective, I ended up disagreeing with most of the policy questions (in a modern capitalist industrial society some kind of welfare state is pretty much inevitable) so most of my points came from the 5-pointer philosophical questions near the end.
What oh what is a minarcho-syndicalist to do