Reality Check, American Style
Sep 22, 04 | 4:46 am by John LopezSo, you have a job. It’s an ordinary, near-thankless one, where you’re only noticed when you screw up. But damn it, you want to do it right. You go well above and beyond what your employer was expecting, and what happens?
That’s right, the good ol’ American Government comes down on your ass like a bale of income tax forms dropped on a kitten:
CARLISLE, Pa. — A plucky newspaper carrier and her father used a rubber raft to reach flooded subscribers — and both wound up in trouble with the law.
Betsey Patrick, a carrier for The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, delighted six stranded subscribers along the rain-swollen Conodoguinet Creek on Sunday when she and her father floated down in the raft.
“The people were so excited,” Patrick said Monday. “They couldn’t leave their houses. It made their day.”
But police and a state Fish and Boat Commission officer weren’t amused, and cited her father, Rick Patrick, for negligent operation of a water craft.
…
A Patriot-News carrier since 2001, Patrick said she took to the raft because she didn’t want the remnants of Hurricane Ivan to mar her perfect delivery record.
Remember that phrase, “negligent operation of a water craft”. We’ll get back to that later. Worse for Betsey, she had the fuck-all nerve to backtalk those uniformed cretins:
Betsey Patrick said she was arrested for disorderly conduct after arguing about the $220 citation and handcuffed in front of her 2-year-old daughter.
Smart-mouthing pinhead members of “the authorities” is never a good idea, and Betsey is frankly lucky that she didn’t end up tasting taxpayer-funded Mace or suffering “heart failure” (a disease strangely endemic to police detention facilites). Now about that “negligence”…
Police involved in the case could not be reached for comment, but Roger Kohr, spokesman for the Cumberland County Office of Emergency Preparedness, said officials barred access to many flooded areas.
“We need people to use common sense,” Kohr said. “They’re putting themselves in peril, and they’re putting the people who would have to go in and rescue them in peril.”
And here you probably thought Betsey was weaving her car-topper through folks’ flooded driveways, tossing empties through their front windows: “No tip last year? I’ll give you a tip, mother-fucker!”. No, it turns out that Betsey’s negligence stems from the fact that she was endangering herself. Here in the land of the free, it’s negligent to endanger yourself, and that’s because the US Government owns your ass. It owns you, your paper route, and it even owns your little watercraft.
“…Officials barred access to many flooded areas.” You got that? “Officials” have told you where you can and can’t go, and your little piddly-assed job, boat, and life had better damn’ well give way. “Using your common sense” now means doing exactly what you’re told, telling off some possum sheriff is now “disorderly conduct”, and there’s a mass of low-IQ jackboots just itching for a chance to deliver you a severe beat-down, if you think otherwise.
But who cares? Heck, just look at all the places the Pennsylvania State Fish and Boat Commission didn’t make off-limits - acres and acres where you can move about without being fined and/or arrested! Can everyone wave their IDs and say “Free Country”? Okay? Okay!
Now move along, Citizen, before you bump into a squad car and get your feelings hurt.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 5:54 pm
Yeah, these seem just as bad as the murderous Burmese junta, or Gabon’s dictator, who the US has increasingly close relations with, or Equatorial Guinea (newly oil rich) and its dictator.
Arresting someone who, in a National Disaster area, took unnecessary risks, yeah, that sounds like Tyranny to me.
Aristocratic Republicans For Anti-Libertarianism, which is really just a bunch of businessmen who want to snort blow off hooker’s tits, legally, while their taxes go down.
Taxation is the Price of Liberty — Montesqueiu
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 5:59 pm
Officials didn’t ban access to the flooded areas during normal times, only during a massive emergency, when rescue/emergency workers, and their associated staffs, are working as hard as they can.
The last thing they need is some numnuts (i.e. a newspaper delivery person) _unnecessarily_ endangering themselves, and potentially straining (further) the already stressed rescue/emergency infrastructure.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 6:01 pm
Was it the American Government which came down on the aforementioned’s rear end, or was it a member of the STATE Fish & Game Commission.
Do you elect your STATE Fish & Game Commissioners?
Do the races for STATE Fish & Game Commissioners get much press in your local papers?
Is your finger broken, trying to point at the Feds while actually pointing at some small town schmoe?
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 6:22 pm
Amazing they found the time and the manpower to issue the citation isn’t it, Josh?
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 6:26 pm
State Fish & Game Commissioners are supposed to be emergency workers? Nice conflation, Mr. Stedman. Try again, Hawkshaw.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 6:45 pm
I assumed they were. If not, then I suggest they be cited for being in such a dangerous area.
Who is who is not the deep issue here, anyhow. The question is, does one person’s intention to do good deeds, such as rescue people, entitle them to restrain those who would endenger themselves? The libertarian answer is “no.” It is not “maybe, how much danger are we talking about here?”
The rescue workers, of course, have a right to decide not to endanger themselves trying to rescue people who take silly risks, or anyone at all for that matter. They also have a right to offer those services at a price. I imagine that “free” (tax funded) rescue services only encourage irresponsible behavior (which the newspaper deliverer’s may or may not have been.)
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 7:24 pm
You are serious? Let’s begin at the beginning.
Are you saying cops can’t cite people for running into burning buildings when the Fire Dept. is on the scene? Does the Fire Dept. issue citations usually? I know the Fire Inspector does, but he isn’t a firefighter (at least, he doesn’t wear the uniform/equipment).
Was anyone rescuing people, or were they just delivering the paper? If you were a rescuer, and skilled in the arts required (I imagine you’d have to know all the life-saving techniques of an EMT combined with Life Guard/Water Rescue), wouldn’t you want to co-ordinate with the immensely larger and more organized (evil) Official rescuers? Perhaps you want to try empty house after empty house, looking for people?
Actually, rescuers don’t usually have the right to let people drown, no matter how many times you bang your fists on the desk and say it, it JUST IS NOT SO. They _DO_ offer their services at a price, usually called a wage+bennies.
Your last supposition made my eyes bug out open. Fires are more likely when there are firefighters? People drown more near Life Guards? Small boats get stranded at sea more often when there is a Coast Guard?
When the IDF prevents journalists from going into the Palestinian refugee camps, I get mad. I know they are, more likely than not, covering their own asses.
In this case, however, there were no helicopter gunships mowing down members of Hamas (I recently learned how they recruit, and what it means to be a member, having just returned from Israel myself, for a six week visit), no one was killed at all. No one was maimed. There was a situation where rescue-workers were being used at maximum capacity, and some numnuts (pardon me, but their job, as an adult, is delivering the paper, which is often considered an adolescent’s job) decides to endanger themselves (certainly they didn’t _know_ how dangerous currents like this are, since it is a one-time situation) to deliver the gosh-darn paper!
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 8:04 pm
Your premise, Mr. Narins, is that government is a parent who knows best, and we are all children. Unless we work for it, of course. In the interest of brevity I’ll address your points without quoting you.
Cops can and do cite people for running into burning buildings, but they ought not to. If someone wants to take that risk, why is it anyone else’s business? They are not endangering the firemen–if the firemen attempt to rescue that person it’s their choice, not his.
It doesn’t matter if the people on the raft were attempting rescue, delivering the paper, or just stopping by for a chat. It is not the place of the police, the rescue workers, or the Fish&Wildlife service to parent them.
If rescuers don’t have the right to let people drown, that makes them a slave to anyone drowning, no matter how many times you bang your fists on the desk and deny it. By the way, I don’t bang my fists in frustration over anything I read anywhere. Yes, the rescue workers are working for wages, but the wages are paid by taxpayers, not by those in need of rescue.
If you think that people, on the margin, don’t take more risks when rescue services are available at no cost to them than when such services are unavailable or expensive, you have little understanding of human nature. Of course, they don’t set out to get in trouble on purpose, but it’s one more factor to weigh when they’re considering doing something potentially dangerous.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 8:16 pm
That was not my premise, ergo, you are creating a strawman argument to knock down.
Firefighters DIE when untrained people (who don’t have the right equipment) barge into a burning building and try, not being part of a trained unit, to help. I know you don’t give a shit about firefighters, but they work as a team. Rogue Elements do NOT help.
The rest of your argument isn’t even worth referring to, generally.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 8:32 pm
No, Mr. Narins, yours is the strawman. If you want to argue that the person running into the building is endangering the firemen by interfering, you have a case we can talk about. If the person doesn’t own, lease, or rent part of the building, he is trespassing and can be dealt with as such. If he is an owner in some way, and the firemen are concerned for their safety, they can let him know they will stop doing all that putting-out-the-fire stuff until he gets out of their way, as is their right. See, I do give a shit about firefighters.
If you want to argue, on the other hand, that the guy running into the building, owner or not, is endangering the firemen by forcing them to rescue him, you’re just plain wrong. He can no more force them to rescue him than he can force them to fix his car, unless your worldview makes slaves out of firefighters. After all, the firefighters have the ability, he now has the need. From each according to his…
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 9:38 pm
You are supposing, in a truly stupendous way, that, in the fire, a Firefighter, already in the building, will be able to distinguish between the occupants (I suppose you want firefighters to ask for fees at that point, but that’s your own hysteria) and those who have recently rushed into the building.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 9:57 pm
That’s a problem, Josh, and it’s not one that’s solved with fines. Someone who runs unprotected into a burning building is either highly motivated (their baby is inside) or insane. A fine won’t discourage either case, so it’s certainly not a good argument for fining people who do so. Enforcing property rights and holding people responsible for damage they cause covers most cases.
This has got pretty far off track from the original situation, though. The people in the raft were endangering no one but themselves. I would be far less supportive of them if they were doing something analagous–say if they were trying to use the raft to rescue someone while at the same time the professionals were trying to do so from a helicopter. In that case they ought to defer, unless the person being rescued made it clear that they would prefer that the professionals leave.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 10:08 pm
Wrong. Since emergency workers would have had to respond to their emergencies, based on the regulations they follow, the entrance of a non-professional into the emergency scene endangered everyone else who, for whatever foolishly Statist reason, was relying on them.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 10:33 pm
That’s true on the surface. However, these people are not responsible for the policies, regulations, or actions of rescue workers. They are only responsible for their own actions, and there is nothing inherently wrong with delivering a newspaper in a raft, endangering only yourself. The problem is on the other end, if indeed rescue workers are required to rescue everyone in every situation (which I very much doubt, as the courts have ruled that the police are not required to save women from rapists.) But, hey, such a law enslaving rescue workers would not completely surprise me.
If someone announces that they will force me to rescue you if you get in trouble mountain climbing, does that give me a claim to prevent you from climbing? And, if you go climbing anyway, are you responsible for endangering me, or is the person making the threats (which they call “policies”) responsible?
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 10:35 pm
Your mountain climbing example entirely misses the point, that there was an emergency, perhaps a declared Federal Emergency, at the time.
And, by your own logic, no one is enslaved to the rules of their job, they can just go get another one in our beautiful neo-laissez-faire economy, n’est-ce pas?
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 10:46 pm
Oh, a Federal emergency. Well, that sounds terrribly important, so I suppose if you want to eliminate individual freedoms for that it’s probably okay. I mean, if the Feds say so.
Or, are rights meaningless if they disappear when inconvenient?
And no, no one ought to be so enslaved. If my employer orders me to do something I don’t want to do, I’m quite free to leave. Presumably, the rescue workers will voluntarily rescue idiots if they end up needing it, but they’re certainly free to quit their jobs if needed to avoid doing so. Even if this would be inconvenient for them, and more than it has to be in this mixed economy, it is still not a moral claim to restrict the actions of the people in the rubber boat. We can criticize the mixed econpmy itself without involving them.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 10:51 pm
You are impressing the heck out of me.
Again, you are assuming any rescue workers will be able to distinguish between a drowning local and a drowning person who is just being an idiot? I suspect the rescue workers wouldn’t even _want_ to leave behind someone, just because they proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were a complete idiot, in case of emergencies.
In cases where complete idiocy is a risk to the lives of others, tickets or citations seem to be in order. See: speeding.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 11:11 pm
“Taxation is the Price of Liberty — Montesqueiu”
Mr. Narins, what exactly are you doing at an anarchist site?
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 11:14 pm
Well, someone, somewhere is able to distinguish between idiots and non-idiots, otherwise how do you know who gets the tickets? Actually, they might all be idiots. Did people not know in advance about the flooding? Does it take more of an idiot to deliver papers from a rubber raft, or to build a house in a flood plain and stay there as the creek rises? I haven’t investigated this incident enough to see whether it might have been a complete surprise.
You’re right that the rescue workers would want to rescue even the idiotic and irresponsible. I have some friends in the business, and the work attracts people who want to help, and enjoy danger. The fact that they want to do it, again, is not a claim to restrict someone else’s actions. That requires one of two statist justifications: “we’re stopping you for your own good” or “we’re stopping you so we won’t have to help you, so it’s for our own good.” Those can be used to justify a whole grab-bag of things if you allow them (drug war, seatbelt laws, smoking bans…)
Speeding opens a new can of worms. Were the roads privately owned, the owners could set whatever rules they wanted, of course. But they’re not, and speeding (exceeding the posted limit) is not in and of itself endangering anyone. Going too fast for traffic conditions is, but it has almost nothing to do with the posted limits.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 11:17 pm
Sabotta went blog-hopping, and Josh Narins followed him home, Bill. See here. I think he figured we’d be neocons, though.
September 22nd, 2004 at Sep 22, 04 | 11:28 pm
Only an idiot could suggest that someone might not be able to tell there was a flood currently in progress.
You aren’t anarchists, you are libertarians.
I’m an Aristocratic Republican, and reading Thomas Jefferson’s Commonplace Book(on law) shows he was no Libertarian, but, like Madison, Hamilton, Jay and Adams, a firm proponent of the works of Montesqueiu.
Why did Jefferson name his party the Democratic-Republicans? After Montesquieu.
Perhaps the greatest crime in miseducation is our lack of respect for his work. Locke was a ninny, by comparison. Did you ever read Locke’s Constitutions? He wrote them, you know. Incredibly royalist.
Sabotta left rubbish on my blog. No rhyme or reason attached. I still don’t understand why he wants the Crusade for Oil to extend to Sudan.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 12:17 am
Josh Narins: “Only an idiot could suggest that someone might not be able to tell there was a flood currently in progress.”
If you’re calling me the idiot, I suggest that you have misread me. Go back. I think you should judge everyone by the same standard: the person who takes a [hopefully] calculated risk to deliver the paper, and the person who takes [perhaps] the same calculated risk and stays home when the flood’s coming. They both may need rescuing, and both made decisions which potentially put them in that position.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 12:39 am
I misread you a little, some of it seems vague even now. “Did people not know in advance about the flooding?” It hardly matters in the case of the newspaper delivery person.
Your point still seems wrong. A person who lived there is, admittedly, in a flood zone. Almost the entire city of Albuquerque is in what is called a “100 year flood zone,” as are, I imagine, most of the population of the Midwest.
Ironically, I bet you would be against regulations that say “If you live in a 100 year flood zone” (which doesn’t account for floods so great they only might occur every 1,000 years by chance) you must build your house to a certain level of code, in order that we don’t have to rescue your butt.
In any event, the flood-plains-dwellers did nothing extra, on the emergency day, to endanger themselves. The newspaper delivery person entered into the emergency situation.
And it might have even been a Murdoch owned newspaper, i.e. no news value at all.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 2:04 am
Yeah, these seem just as bad as the murderous Burmese junta…
Narins, those town clowns in the story would happily shoot your ass just as dead as the Burmese would. Do you dispute that? No? Good.
Now, get this: I don’t give a runny shit about Burma, Iraq, Iran, Cambodia, Whatthefuckistan, or whatever other third-world shithole that myopic conservatives are pointing to this week to convince themselves that they aren’t kept like sheep behind triple-strand barbed wire.
I don’t live there. I live here, where the untold hundreds of thousands of armed and uniformed goons pose a threat to me that is literally orders of magnitude greater than some two-bit jihadi picking lice out of his beard halfway around the word. The fact that I can’t sit down on my front lawn, fire up a blunt, and field-strip my AK-47 without being attacked by armed government thugs matters infinitely fucking more to me than how many people are going to be herded into the voting booths in Afghanistan this year.
As for your love of “taxation”, ostensibly to pay for “liberty”, a commodity supposedly delivered by the American Government (I’ll just let that laugh-riot sit there), let me present a little something from an obscure old anarchist:
— Lysander Spooner
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 2:14 am
Hello Mr. Lopez.
See, I consider one of the great threats to the peace of mind of the great body of Americans, yourself included, not the gun-toting (haven’t shot anyone in decades?) Fish & Wildlife Commissioners, known to run amok and rape the wives of hapless citizens, but, in fact, Terrorism.
I believe, and have written about this, that there are three kinds of terrorists: Wackos, the Aggreived and Confused, and the Aggreived.
Wackos, like the Unabomber or the Manson Family, tend not to gain a lot of adherents.
The Confused and Aggreived lash out at the wrong perps.
The Aggreived are the real worrisome types, because no amount of talk is going to convince them that they haven’t been wronged. They are in the category of “wronged” in the first place.
I’m a Fundamentalist, Born-Again Atheist. That means that there is no god, and, in fact, it was really just a guy, nicknamed “El,” with his seventy children, known as the “Elohim” which the Jews are worshipping, and by extension, the Christians and Muslims. The guy died 4,000 years ago, I don’t think he hears jack shit, including prayers. Therefore, OBL is “confused and aggreived” about the presence of US troops in the Muslim Holy Land.
However, his confusion is a mass confusion, like Christianity, and therefore, his potential support base among the “similarly confused” is quite large, as has been shown by his legions of die-hard cohorts (al-Qaeda is estimated to contain two or three hundred die-hard members, although it has trained closer to 10,000 people).
US Foreign Policy, entirely bankrupt since Eisenhower stopped the Suez Crisis, is entirely to blame.
Ergo, you can be happy in your home, rest easy, because other people are considering, and attempting to tackle, the problem of terrorism.
Thank you.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 2:36 am
Josh Narins: Ironically, I bet you would be against regulations that say “If you live in a 100 year flood zone” (which doesn’t account for floods so great they only might occur every 1,000 years by chance) you must build your house to a certain level of code, in order that we don’t have to rescue your butt.
You’re right, but it’s in no way ironic.
Nature provides consequences for people who builds on flood plains. These are generally well known in advance. Those who do should be willing to bear the costs.
I have no problem, of course, if an insurance company, voluntarily retained by a homowner, insisted on such policies in order to continue coverage.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 2:50 am
See, I consider one of the great threats to the peace of mind of the great body of Americans, yourself included,…
Stop right there. You don’t get a say in the matter of my “peace of mind”, pal. You got that?
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 3:20 am
I’m not going to apologize, Mr. Lopez. I am a New Yorker, I am aware that we have launched two wars, and countless other actions, in the name of defeating “terrorism.”
I was across the street on 9/11, I watched the second plane fly in. Other things happened. My cable TV went out while I was watching the Flight 587 coverage. My view of New Jersey meant that I saw that New Jersey was dark the day of the Ohio Blackout.
Many, many polls say terrorism affects people. Poll after poll, even in Bumbletwit, Idaho, say people are concerned terrorists might strike them.
You are obviously immune to such considerations. Your head is either in the sand, or you live far from any urban area or possible target. You are immune.
Congratulations.
Hip Hip Hooray for you.
I would note you are probably still paying taxes to a Government which is Dead-Set on catching people like OBL “Dead or Alive.” (or at least, they were). They have enacted the largest re-organization of Government since WWII in order to combat terrorism.
Ergo, your taxes belie your statements.
Having fun?
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 3:42 am
I am a New Yorker, I am aware that we have launched two wars,…
Who exactly is “we”?
Many, many polls say terrorism affects people. Poll after poll, even in Bumbletwit, Idaho, say people are concerned terrorists might strike them. You are obviously immune to such considerations.
You’re exactly right.
Ergo, your taxes belie your statements.
Let’s think: taxes are extracted under the threat of death. That’s hardly a voluntary contribution. After such extraction, they are promptly pissed down a myriad of ratholes, such that my (former) dollar is spread into a microscopic-thin smear across the budget. If you were to actually try to quantify where that money goes, rather than spout nonsense, you’d see that precious little of it goes to The War Against Terror. Not that I have a say in the end use of that stolen loot, anyhow.
Ergo, you’re wrong from beginning to end.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 4:02 am
You are free to leave, and, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever died as a direct result of not paying taxes. Not playing along with the thuggish techniques of IRS agents is _not_ the same crime as not paying taxes. You might go to jail, but no one has been killed for not paying taxes. That’s the second time someone here has suggested that low level officials kill.
“We” includes you, because, whatever you say to the contrary, are a part of this country. “I” am in Iraq. I was a Marine, now I am not, I am still on Inactive Ready Reserve (although have no chance for getting called up). This is “my” country, despite the stupid, stupid things it does, and despite the morons like Bush, and you (killed for taxes?) that inhabit it.
Your % that goes to the war on terror is, for all practical purposes, the same as anyone elses. Last year, 10% of receipts went to the War in Iraq. Therefore, last year, more than 10% of your tax money went to the ‘war on terror.’ (Yes, I know, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11).
Thanks for putting forward the canard that people die from withholding taxes (it has happened, but almost exclusively when the non-payers get in a fight with the IRS Agents who come to arrest them) , the stupid idea that an insignificant portion of your taxes is spent on idiocy, and picking on my choice of pronouns when I said “we.”
You are adding to the debate.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 4:26 am
Josh Narins:…and, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever died as a direct result of not paying taxes.
Josh Narins, three paragraphs later:Thanks for putting forward the canard that people die from withholding taxes (it has happened, but almost exclusively when the non-payers get in a fight with the IRS Agents who come to arrest them)
I guess he picked up some better “knowledge” in between those snippets. Or something.
This is just fucking hopeless.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 4:45 am
They didn’t die because they didn’t pay taxes, they died because IRS Agents showed up and there was a struggle.
But, you are right, you have no hope.
Read The Spirit of Laws by Montesquieu, it is _the_ book which turned Jefferson into a revolutionary, and was the backbone of the political theory of the framers of the Constitution, “left” and “right.”
Then read some Adam Smith, like this… http://satp.blogspot.com/2004_06_08_satp_archive.html
Also read some stuff from the Constitutional Debates, the guy who actually wrote the Constitution, Gouvernor Morris, had this to say…
http://satp.blogspot.com/2004_02_26_satp_archive.html
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 5:10 am
You are free to leave
The Mafia shows up on your doorstep and demands protection money. The protection, of course, is from them first, because they’ll be happy to snap your legs and burn your house down.
The State shows up on your doorstep and demands protection money. The protection, of course, is from them first, because they’ll be happy to beat you with a nightstick and lock you in a concrete and steel box.
You can leave the grip of the state, of course, but you can also leave the Mafia’s neighbourhood. What does that choice have to do with the morality of the extortion?
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 5:59 am
If it wasn’t for the excellent Spooner quote cited by Lopez, this thread would be pointless.
Damn, it’s so good, I gotta see it again.
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain—that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”
Many, many polls say terrorism affects people. Poll after poll, even in Bumbletwit, Idaho, say people are concerned terrorists might strike them.
People are idiots. Poll after poll say that people believe there is evidence indicating that Saddam was in cahoots with Bin Laden and that we already found weapons of mass destruction.
The greatest effect terrorism has on my life is the government’s response to it. I’m no more concerned that terrorists will strike me than I am that I will drown in my bathtub, which has a far higher probability of occurance.
This is “my” country just as much as it is yours; that is to say, it is neither of ours. No one owns this country other than the individual private property owners.
I am free to leave, luckily, but will not do so - neither you nor anyone else has any legitimate authority to tax me or defend the act of taxation with the false alternative of “love it or leave it.”
And being murdered in an act of self-defense against the IRS is not in any way conceptually different than being murdered in a pacifist act of refusal to the IRS. If the IRS has no legitimate authority to seize my property — and it does not — then it also has no legitimate authority to kill me if I choose to defend myself against its aggression.
Your argument concerning the person who willingly chooses to put himself into harms way, in turn justifying state intervention to prevent him from doing so, is quite similar to a whole host of other paternalist, illiberal arguments I’ve been encountering lately. People try to justify immigration restrictions on the grounds that, because of the welfare state, immigrants impose externalities on us by increasing the cost of government services. People try to justify junk food bans and fast food regulation on the grounds that, because of socialized medicine, other people’s obesity imposes externalities on us by increasing the cost of health care. And you try to justify restrictions on freedom of movement on the grounds that putting oneself in harm’s way imposes externalities on us by increasing the cost of rescue services and decreasing their effectiveness.
In all three of these examples, the error is the same. The problem in all three cases does not lie in too much freedom, but in too much socialism. Remove the socialism and you effectively internalize these externalities, forcing people to face the true costs of their own actions. As Andy correctly observed, providing tax funded welfare, healthcare, and rescue services only encourages irresponsible behavior on the part of immigrants, the obese, and committed newspaper carriers. The fault lies with the government, not the victims of government.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 7:10 am
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September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 7:30 am
Schneider,
Dig the comments by Narins here.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 3:03 pm
I am more than familiar with logical fallacies, but I usually use this set of them, with more normal names. Pigeonholing, for instance, is a term from mathematics, but it is used improperly on your webpage… http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html
Fallacy logic is a branch of Informal Logic. You are assuming, ass, that I respect that we are all playing by that limited set of rules.
People who praised Montesquieu, and incorporated his ideas in the formation of America: Thomas Jefferson (certainly smarter than your dumb ass), James Madison (again, a smart guy), John Adams (a royalist at heart, but a committed revolutionary, and none too dumb), John Jay, (1st Supreme Court Justice, but also a royalist), Alexander Hamilton (don’t you guys drool over him).
If all those guys thought Montesquieu was the brightest political philosopher ever, and Montesquieu wrote his book during the reign of King Louis XV and under a Church which banned books at will. Both forces would have killed Montesquieu if he hadn’t done a decent job sticking up for the Loony Church and the Brutal King.
And yet he did it.
Read more about Logic. Fallacy logic is simply one way of looking at it, ‘tard.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 3:29 pm
Cl, dspht: Jffrsn *ld* whn h wrt “W Th Ppl”.
H gts t g t Hll.
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C’mn, pnk. Shw m yr LGC, r gt th fckn’ fcktty-fck ght hr.
Stpd “‘trd.”
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 4:11 pm
The Framers were intelligent men of good will. But they were mistaken about government, especially about the ability to construct a government which could be constrained from growing by itself. They were mistaken that government is a necessary evil. Evil yes, necessary no.
I recognise the intelligence, honour, good will, and bravery of the Founding Fathers. But they made a fundamental mistake, one that has exploded in our faces.
(And why the devil do you think anarchists would revere Hamilton more than, say, Jefferson or Mason?)
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 4:52 pm
Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike……
….you’ve been neglecting your gratitude journal again; I can tell.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 5:37 pm
Joshua Holmes,
You, and your fellow travellers here, are imagining a form of government which has never existed. You are no better than the Bolshevik/Soviets or Anarcho-syndicalists
I. however, am basing my arguments on an _ideal_ form of the government we now have, based on the theoretical principles, Aristocratic-Republicanism, and Democratic-Republicanism, that the originators of said Government had in mind when it began.
Any other course is revolutionary, and hence going to be considered by me to be nothing more than the rants of disgruntled subversives, that is, until I hear something more than J.S. Mill type “You can throw your fist anywhere you want, up to, but not including, the point where it hits me” argument. It is ideal, but someone needs to point out a place where such a libertine government is, or has been, in place _at_the_same_time_ that the place isn’t barbarian (see the laws of the Germans, from Tacitus, if Fish & Game Commissioners and IRS Agents aren’t already breaking down your door).
Repeatedly the people here have pointed to the lethality of the IRS and small time State officials, as if there is any comparison at all to places we(the United States, which you are _all_ a part of, unless you leave) do business with, e.g. E. Guinea, Gabon, Chad, Niger, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.
As a side note, I believe Hamilton would be more praised because the Republicans praise him, and the Libertarian Party tends to vote with Force’n'Fraudster Republicans, if their allegiance to the Cato or Von Mises Institutes is a guide. The Republicans push Austrian Economics, while the Democrats are still basically Keynesians. Similarly, the Republicans say they are lowering taxes (a flat out lie, re: 2005, unless you are top quintile, everyone else is paying higher than 2001), while John Kerry, for example, expects to repeal the tax cuts for the top wage earners.
To the douche who cried “dipshit,” let his mushbrain slowly absorb the fact that I was not quoting the Declaration of Independence, nor relying on it, but on Jefferson’s own, private notes. Notes he decided to hide from his peers by drafting them in, alternatively, French and Italian. However, I am interested in anything Jefferson wrote that shows he acknowledged he was lying about the Declatation. Jefferson’s writings fill volumes, and I certainly have had time to read them all. What say you, Douche? Have anything in your shorts you wish to share? Something about Jefferson laughing about his “big lie,” the Declaration of Independence? Thank you in advance for whatever insight you can bring, Douche.
Cheers,
Josh
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 5:54 pm
“You are no better than the Bolshevik/Soviets or Anarcho-syndicalists”
Are!
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 5:56 pm
<>Wht sy y, Dch?
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September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 6:04 pm
Dearest John T.,
To prove that, you simply need to indicate a government that doesn’t threaten force, or imprisonment, on non-payment of taxes, and similarly provides no emergency services or roads, relying in each case on the private sector to provide.
Similarly, this government can’t be a tyranny, monarchic, or barbaric.
I will guess that no such government has existed, nor is there any revolution currently in progress which will bring such a nation into being, ergo, you are, shall I say, cloud-watchers, day-dreamers, and generally unrealistic, even as, or perhaps precisely because, you are moved by unimpeachable ideals.
I feel so damned old.
Happy Days,
Josh
P.S. God? The ones the Jews worship? It was a guy, a guy they called “El.” That’s the rumor from a student of a top Dead Sea Scrolls scholar (Prof Saul of U of Jerusalem or Hebrew U). Did you know the word Elohim was plural? It refers to El’s seventy sons. All this time the rational people have been frustrated, unable to prove god doesn’t exist. Turns out he did exist, and he had a nickname, and lots of kids. More archaeology would help.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 6:16 pm
Dear Mike,
I object to the use of the word steal. It would be stealing if we weren’t all part of a civil society. If you consider taxes “stealing,” then what do you consider roads and civil defense? 365 day a year Christmas?
It’s only because you are a latecomer to the conversation, and posing what I consider a false question, that I had avoided answering.
Why are there taxes, is that what you are asking? I have never “stolen” anything from you Mike.
Are you asking “Why do I support taxation, including taxation of you?” Why do I support the IRS being able to seize property, and incarcerate people, if taxes are not paid? The second half of that question can be answered because people tend to be free riders (the concept from game theory), and would not volunteer to pay taxes unless there was a penalty for avoidance. In the world of taxation, which (ideally) is fairly distributed (each person making $X dollars and getting $Y deductions pays the same amount of taxes, even the President (although not certain corporations), we all participate because we all get something out of it. The exact amount we ought to put in, and get out, is supposed to be decided by the most Representative body, the lower House of Congress. Since the 1972 Budget Impoundment and Control Act, the White House has produced the Budget. I don’t like that, but the House of Reps were getting really slow at it. I would try to show that WH OMB production of the draft Budget is a violation of the Constitution, if I were in Congress. From out here, it is a waste of breath. I do have different ways in mind to speed the production of a budget in a large, deliberative body, but that can wait for another time.
I believe there are “public goods” and “private goods” and the definition of “public goods” are those which no private sector entity would engage in, because the marginal returns to any single entity are insufficient. No electricity, for example, would be wired into poor communities. It is hard to see why poorer communities would get hooked up with any public services. And yet, as you well know, being barred from electronic communication techniques (phone, internet) pretty much keeps a person completely unable to voice their opinion. You know full well how useless most of the modern newsprint papers are, and how few appropriate addresses are available to the general public.
I hope that begins to answer your question, and I am sorry I have only given you an “off the cuff” answer. I am sure clearer arguments exist.
Have fun choking your monkey,
Josh
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 6:24 pm
Mike,
“Kennedy, kindly instruct this diarrhea flood-filling *asshole* to answer my twice-asked question forthrightly, under penalty of you’re punting his ass to kingdom-come for being a disingenuous, evasive commie weasel, or this will be the last time I ever visit here on account of me being just bone-tired of all the horseshit indulged at this place.”
I’ll moderate as I see fit, thanks. I currently have no plans to instruct or punt this guy.
“Beck was *absolutely right* about this bleeding ages ago. Outright WAR is the only possible outcome of this.”
I really don’t need this. If you want to precipitate a war do it somewhere else.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 7:40 pm
I. however, am basing my arguments on an _ideal_ form of the government we now have, based on the theoretical principles, Aristocratic-Republicanism, and Democratic-Republicanism, that the originators of said Government had in mind when it began.
(!) The U.S. Government, as it presently exists, is ideal? This is the government the founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitution?
I don’t even know how to begin to respond to that.
Any other course is revolutionary, and hence going to be considered by me to be nothing more than the rants of disgruntled subversives, that is,
Wait, this, after just fawning all over Madison and Jefferson? You’ve got to be shitting me. Yep, those founders, all so conservative and anti-revolutionary. Definitely not subversive.
It is ideal, but someone needs to point out a place where such a libertine government is, or has been, in place _at_the_same_time_ that the place isn’t barbarian
Before I give you some examples, ask yourself what you would say to someone who charged Jefferson with utopianism for trying to implement a Republican form of government in a world consisting solely of monarchies.
On to the history:
David Friedman - “Private Creation and Enforcement of Law — A Historical Case” Journal of Legal Studies , (March 1979), pp. 399-415.
Terry L. Anderson and Peter J. Hill - The Not So Wild, Wild West - Property Rights on the Frontier, Stanford University Press, 2004
Bruce Benson - The Enterprise of Law: Justice without the State, Pacific Research Institute, 1990
Robert C. Ellickson - Order Without Law : How Neighbors Settle Disputes, Harvard University Press, 1994
See generally Randy Barnett and Tom Bell on Polycentric Law.
Also, here is collection of books and articles on polycentric (i.e. anarchist, non-monopolistic) law.
Repeatedly the people here have pointed to the lethality of the IRS and small time State officials, as if there is any comparison at all to places we(the United States, which you are _all_ a part of, unless you leave) do business with, e.g. E. Guinea, Gabon, Chad, Niger, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Since when did anyone here compare the U.S. to any of these other countries? The relatively worse tyranny in these countries in no way diminishes the lethality or the illegitimacy of the U.S. govenrment.
As a side note, I believe Hamilton would be more praised because the Republicans praise him, and the Libertarian Party tends to vote with Force’n'Fraudster Republicans, if their allegiance to the Cato or Von Mises Institutes is a guide.
Evidence, please? While there may be some members of Cato who vote Republican, there are just as many who have come out in favor of gridlock and thus voting for Kerry, some who support the LP, and some who don’t bother voting at all. As for Mises, you’d be hard pressed to find even one person affiliated with their organization who plans to vote for Bush.
The Republicans push Austrian Economics, while the Democrats are still basically Keynesians.
Evidence that Republicans push Austrian econ? Last I checked, they were still supply siders.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 7:55 pm
No electricity, for example, would be wired into poor communities. It is hard to see why poorer communities would get hooked up with any public services. And yet, as you well know, being barred from electronic communication techniques (phone, internet) pretty much keeps a person completely unable to voice their opinion.
Somalia, which everyone agrees is currently in a state of anarchy, has one of the most advanced cellular markets in the region, comparable to even 1st world country cellular infrastructure.
So much for your example of a public good.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 8:07 pm
I object to the use of the word steal. It would be stealing if we weren’t all part of a civil society. If you consider taxes “stealing,” then what do you consider roads and civil defense? …
I object to the word rape. It would be raping if we weren’t all part of a civil society. But we are all part of a civil society. A society so civil that we should not be concerned if its members never consented to its formation. A society so civil that the Aristocrats get to rape all of the common women whenever they choose. After all, if the common folk don’t like it they are free to leave. If the term civil society means anything, it means the freedom to tax - I mean, rape.
Are you asking “Why do I support taxation, including taxation of you?” Why do I support the IRS being able to seize property, and incarcerate people, if taxes are not paid? The second half of that question can be answered because people tend to be free riders (the concept from game theory), and would not volunteer to pay taxes unless there was a penalty for avoidance.
Let’s say your assumptions are correct and certain public goods exist that could not be provided without taxation. Perhaps you even think that these public goods are so desirable that they justify taxation. Fine. But you must still admit that this is theft, even if it is worthwhile theft given your goals. You are taking what does not belong to you, against the legitimate owner’s will, for your own purposes (or what you believe to be in the victim’s interest as well, and if he wasn’t such a greedy bastard for wanting to keep his own stuff, he would realize that you are just looking out for him). That is theft.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 8:16 pm
“While there may be some members of Cato who vote Republican, there are just as many who have come out in favor of gridlock and thus voting for Kerry,…
I think the gridlock vote is mostly disingenuous. It’s really just anti-war voters who don’t have an anti-war candidate attempting to justify a vote for Kerry. I doubt you’ll find a single proponent of a gridlock vote who isn’t anti-war. Even if the Dems held congress these people would find another reason to vote Kerry.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 8:48 pm
<>Knndy: ‘ll mdrt s s ft, thnks. crrntly hv n plns t nstrct r pnt ths gy.
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<>….d t smwhr ls.
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Yh. Lk nd dly nstllmnts f tht.
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September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 9:04 pm
“Yeah. Like I need daily installments of that.”
It’s a free market, this blogosphere. The entry costs are low for anyone who wants to run their own show.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 9:06 pm
I think the gridlock vote is mostly disingenuous. It’s really just anti-war voters who don’t have an anti-war candidate attempting to justify a vote for Kerry. I doubt you’ll find a single proponent of a gridlock vote who isn’t anti-war. Even if the Dems held congress these people would find another reason to vote Kerry.
Regardless, the belief that the Cato people are Republican hacks is pretty clearly false.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 9:17 pm
Agreed, they’re mostly statist libertarian-ish policy-wonk hacks. Dems are usually further from them on economic policy issues so they’ll naturally tend to side more with republicans in such matters.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 9:17 pm
Good Lord, Mike, get a grip. If you don’t like arguing with Mr. Narins, just stop doing it. Problem solved.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 9:20 pm
Rod Long told me at Mises U that Tom Palmer is an anarchist. I’m not 100% sure about Gene Healy, but I think he’s pretty damn close. I bet there are a handful sprinkled about, here and there.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 10:09 pm
Heaven forbid any there be any ethical standards here
I value ethics too, but the standard shouldn’t forbid the participation of fools who don’t share our ethics. Not here anyway. If JTK permitted the participation of only those who share our ethics, it’d have the feeling of a fuckin’ circle jerk here ala the 700 Club in short order.
I agree with you about one thing tho, there’s no market for rational arguments anymore. People have seen them, they know they’re out here and where to get them, but they just ain’t buying them.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 10:25 pm
I think the signal-to-noise ratio in comments on NT is pretty decent, and I hardly ever boot anyone. I will when I think it’s useful.
Not that I should have to explain this to anyone, but one of my notorious henchmen went to this guy’s site and lambasted him. I’m inclined to let him take his best shot here for now.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 10:53 pm
Amen, Kennedy.
Wait a sec… you get henchmen? Why can’t I have henchmen? Where the hell is Aaron?
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 10:57 pm
Oops, did I say henchmen? I meant to say associates.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 11:09 pm
I am not a henchman. I am Fantomas!
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 11:29 pm
Yeah. Like I need daily installments of that.
Open favorites….locate No Treason…delete…”Are you sure?”….pending…..
Hey, Schneider.
After the way you ran American Liberty you have no standing to lecture anybody about how they run their blog.
And John and Lynette are much nicer people than I am. If I ran No Treason, I’d have never let you on here at all, after what you did to them there. But I don’t. It’s not my site and not your site - it’s their site. I’d think you’d have the common decency to be a little ashamed and act in a less pompous and arrogant fashion, but apparantly not.
I’ve actually been pretty restrained, for old times sake, but the spectacle of you coming around here and acting like you have some stake in something that isn’t yours is absolutely the last straw. This is Kennedy and Lynette’s site, not yours - if you don’t like it, well that’s too fucking bad, isn’t it? Delete away, for all I care. Pursue your hallucinatory revolution elsewhere.
September 23rd, 2004 at Sep 23, 04 | 11:44 pm
“And John and Lynette are much nicer people than I am. “
Sure, but then again you don’t set that bar very high….
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 12:05 am
A friend of mine who summered at CATO a few years ago said that, each summer, there’s a cook-out and a softball game. The teams? Objectivists v. Anarchists, usually. The Anarchists are well-stocked.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 12:09 am
Is Cato well stocked with Objectivists? Someone better alert Micha.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 12:49 am
I don’t despise all Objectivists; only the annoying ones. People like Timothy Sandefur, Roderick Long, and Chris Matthew Sciabarra are a-ok in my book.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 12:55 am
In order? OK.
I meant to imply that I was basing my theoretical arguments on the ideal form (Aristocratic-Republicanism combined with a little D-R), not that our government even knows what that is anymore (although Ted Kennedy does evince some knowledge, if awkwardly placed).
Jefferson and Madison were revolutionaries, and I criticized you for alleging to be one. However, Republics had existed before, and Jefferson took copious notes on the United States (what he called Holland), Switzerland, and the elected Monarchies of Sweden, Denmark and Poland.
It is with that in mind, and not Roman-era German barbarians (the only example I can think of with a State as small as you desire) that the American Colonists revolted and “created.” That is why the revolutionaries were not Utopians. There would be no checks and balances in a Utopian system, if I might be glib a moment.
As you say, On To the History…
—
David Friedman is an ignoramus, or evil. Of Iceland’s laws, Friedman says “Killing was a civil offense resulting in a fine paid to the survivors of the victim.”. He expects shock on the part of the reader (see: repeated use of the word “peculiar”), and follows with “The wergeld–the fine for killing a man–was an essential part of the legal system of Anglo-Saxon England, and still exists in New Guinea.”
Why is Mr. Friedman either evil or an ignoramus? He is ignorant, or feigns ignorance of, the barbarian codes of the Germanic tribes which conquered the western Roman Empire. The Frankish Empire (the Salic law) and the Ripurian, Burgundian and Visigothic Laws _ALL_ had payments for murder. Instead of being revolutionary, as is implied when the author only quotes sources post-dating 10th C. Iceland, Iceland’s laws were, in fact, BARBARIC. Mr. Friedman is evil if he intentionally neglects to mention this, and is, as seems apparent, PROPOSING BARABARISM FOR AMERICA.
From Montesqueiu: “When the German nations subdued the Roman Empire, they learned the use of writing; and, in imitation of the Romans, they wrote down their own usages, and digested them into codes.”
—
I had to skip the rest of the things you link to, because they are all books which I would be forced to buy. Since you are easily fooled by Mr. Friedman, I imagine you would be easily fooled by many, many people. Again, Mr. Friedman points to BARBARIAN CODES OF JUSTICE and says how great they are. Whoopee!
—
You asked when anyone here referred to other countries, because their lethality in no way diminishes the LETHALITY of the FISH & GAME COMMISSION. I would like to suggest that lightning kills more people, per annum, than either the IRS or F&G Comm. Ergo, your likelihood of getting killed by either, EVEN IF YOU BREAK THEIR RULES, is less than the chance of being hit & killed by lightning. There are no RULES of the IRS which say they can kill you unless you resist with force. The same is true of the F&G Comm. To call them lethal agencies is exaggeration in the extreme. It is useless blather.
—
Cato & Von Mises…
I have been reading Cato and Von Mises pubs for a long time now. At every turn, you must admit, both argue for (generally) lower taxes. Cato, especially, argues for reduced regulation and lower taxes ahead of reducing social legislation each and every day. If one were to watch Cato organized events on C-SPAN, something which I have had more than a dozen opportunities to do (opportunities of which I availed myself) you would see that in each case Cato used its soapbox to push for goals which are more in direct alignment with the Republican Party than with the Democrats. Similarly, when it comes to Cato, they receive funding from the same group of whore-mongering whining idiots that fund groups like the Heritage Foundation, AEI, and the Hudson, Manhattan and Hoover Institutes. If anyone but Chuck Pena at Cato is voting for Kerry, they have fooled me.
—
Von Mises Vs. The Supply Siders. Who do proponents of Von Mises hate more, Supply Siders or Keynesians? I apologize for suggesting Austrian Monarchist Economics, and/or the Monetarism of Hayek/Friedman is somehow Supply Side (that’s a Laff ;). However, all non-Keynesian economists are essentially arguing against the mainstream meme of Keynesianism, and have been for more than half a century.
—
Somalia and celphones.
You are full of crap. http://www.cellular-news.com/coverage/somalia.shtml
—
The word rape. I didn’t bring it up. Non Sequitur. Judges? Do “Aristocrats” (which would mean elected officials and judges) get to rape in America? No. Not legally. Certainly rules different rules for plebes and elites in an A-R system is a sign of corruption. I am unaware of any laws that allow IRS agents or Fish & Game Wardens to rape people. Taxes are another issue, but you didn’t seem to stay on topic.
—
Let’s say your assumptions are correct and certain public goods exist that could not be provided without taxation. Perhaps you even think that these public goods are so desirable that they justify taxation. Fine. But you must still admit that this is theft, even if it is worthwhile theft given your goals. You are taking what does not belong to you, against the legitimate owner’s will, for your own purposes.
I do not agree this is theft. The legal order of our day dictates that the money is not spent for _my_ purposes, but the collective will of a group of people, and tradition, which is defined, in plain text, in the laws. In this case, mostly by Congress and the President and the United States Code. Their purposes, dictated also by tradition and previous law, are what are honored. _I_ am not taking the tax money, “We the people,” rather, our representative (aristocratic) government, is taking the money. You seem quite alienated from your government, while I simply hate the buffoons who are currently President, and in Congress, blaming the greedy corporate fuckers who run the media for making douches out of most everyone (including my erstwhile “Democratic” allies), and generally trying to ignore our grievous sins of the past (overthrowing most of the countries of Earth in the last 50 years, and pretending we didn’t do squat).
Perhaps you really believe in Barbarian Laws like the Salic or Burgundian codes, I don’t know. Perhaps you are simply a harbringer of the end of America, and represent the barbarism to come. I hope not.
—
The phrase: tax-slavery.
Cuba has no taxes. Dictatorships, generally, lack taxes. Taxes are used everywhere by civilized peoples. The only exceptions are oil-rich nations. Taxation, you already heard, is the price of liberty. Unless you can name a nation which has no taxes and liberty? You can not.
—
Anarchists at Von Mises…
These are people who are against Our State, not all states. Von Mises was a big fan of the Hapsburgs, the Austrian MONARCHY. That is why it is called Austria’s Revenge (having lost the War to End All Wars, they took over our money).
—
Cato and Objectivits…
Maybe they get disillusioned quickly (Cato is, after all, always pushing the Republican line when it comes to their C-SPAN presentation, i.e. when they are getting the _most_ attention), but O-ists are _of_course_ going to be drawn to a big, well-funded, ostensibly libertarian think-tank. Libertarians are simply “right-anarchists,” vs people like me, who are “left-anarchists.” Just because I argue for the State, does not mean I am a Statist. I just know what it _should_ be up to, based on the THEORY…
You know, the theoretical backbone of the country in which we all(?) happen to live?
Montesquieu?
Thanks,
Josh
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 1:14 am
By the way, in one of the Germanic barbarian codes, all penalties were established by the family’s of the perpatrator and the perpatratee. In other words, they did without those expensive and obnoxious jack-booted thugs, or activist Judges, which simply _plague_ America today.
And if your family wasn’t big enough, or your Godi (see David Friedman’s Iceland tale) was a moron, well, tough shite.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 1:54 am
Somalia and celphones.
You are full of crap.
http://www.cellular-news.com/coverage/somalia.shtml
What the fuck? Did you even read your own link? It in no way indicated that I am “full of crap.”
Try actually reading this time, starting with this article:
http://www.undp.org/dpa/choices/2003/december/somalia.html
Over the past five years, Somalis have outpaced their neighbours in East African countries in developing their information and communications technology. With a steadily increasing number of mobile phone, fixed-line and Internet service providers, Somalis have turned to technology to fill an infrastructure vacuum in this nation struggling to rebuild itself after a decade of civil war. While there is no official banking system or postal service, and while many Somalis don’t have regular running water or electricity, most do have access to fixed phone lines. Many others own mobile phones while colourful Internet cafés are springing up along Hargeisa’s bustling downtown streets.
“In traditional African societies, it’s sometimes difficult for government officials to embrace technology, but here, it is the people who decide,” says Abdi Karim Mohamed Eid, manager of Telesom, a private telecommunications company.
A decade ago, Somaliland had a single phone company providing fixed lines only. There are now four private telecommunications companies—with a fifth scheduled to have entered the market by the end of 2003—and a growing number of Internet users.
“We started with a few hundred subscribers and now we have about 3,000,” says Mr. Eid. “If you add up the other companies, there may be around 20,000 Internet subscribers in Somaliland. That’s much more than we anticipated initially and it’s a remarkable achievement given that there is no backing from the international community. This is solely done by the Somali business community. We are really proud of that.”
In all of Somalia, there are nine companies providing service today through over 105,000 fixed lines and almost 39,000 mobile lines. In 1993, 33 years after independence, there were only 17,000 telephone lines, 14,000 of which were in the capital Mogadishu. Almost 87 percent of the country now has telephone service.
In Somaliland, fierce competition between the private companies has driven consumer costs down, despite the fact that companies must rely on expensive satellite technology rather than fibre-optic cables. International calls on mobile phones cost US$1 per minute or less, five or six times lower than in most African countries. The lack of a government has also helped keep costs down—there is no tax on telephones.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 2:13 am
My link said that, after being in operation a year, all the mobile companies stopped service. My link said that none of the mobile phones could connect with any of the other services.
Your post says that, in a nation with a population of SIX AND A HALF MILLION THIRTY NINE THOUSAND have mobile phones.
You called this “comparable to even 1st world country cellular infrastructure.”
POINT SIX PERCENT of the population has cel-phones. Less than two percent have landlines.
Somalia is one of the poorest nations on Earth, and they pay about a dollar per minute, according to your post.
In America, with the taxes that destroy existence itself, people usually pay TWO CENTS PER MINUTE, One Fiftieth The Price. Other plans are probably even cheaper.
Try reading my blog, maybe it will help you. It is called “Remain Calm”
I call it that because the truth is really, really harsh. Not insurmountable, but quite ugly.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 2:46 am
You, and your fellow travellers here, are imagining a form of government which has never existed.
True, although it has existed in parts. But so what? Montesquieu also proposed a form of government which had never existed before. Some people read his works, thought he had a good idea, and ran with it. It did well for a while.
You are no better than the Bolshevik/Soviets or Anarcho-syndicalists
That depends if you mean morally or efficaciously. I’d agree with the latter and disagree with the former.
I. however, am basing my arguments on an _ideal_ form of the government we now have, based on the theoretical principles, Aristocratic-Republicanism, and Democratic-Republicanism, that the originators of said Government had in mind when it began.
That’s great, but several of their ideas turned out to be wrong:
* That the populace would zealously guard their liberty.
* That the infighting among the three branches of the federal government would restrain the power of the state.
* That the states would zealously guard against encroachments on their sphere of authority by the federal government.
* That a written Constitution and a written Bill of Rights would constrain the power of the federal government (remember, Britain’s constitution is unwritten).
* That political parties would not form.
All of these turned out to be wrong. Now, you could say that if we could just get the right people in office, it would work. Problem is, if the right rulers could be found, they would be tempted as the wise and good of other generations by the state’s power.
Any other course is revolutionary, and hence going to be considered by me to be nothing more than the rants of disgruntled subversives
The course we’re on is revolutionary. The Framers had no intention of setting up a world empire run by the executive-emperor, with impotent states coming with hat in hand to the federal government asking for the crumbs that fall from the master’s table, all rubber stamped by a docile and subserviant Congress and Judiciary. Re-read the Federalist Papers and tell me if the government they envisioned has come to pass.
Of course, “We’ve always done it this way!” is a horribly bad argument, for two reasons:
1. That tells us nothing of the morality or efficacy of this way.
2. We haven’t always done it this way.
As a side note, I believe Hamilton would be more praised because the Republicans praise him, and the Libertarian Party tends to vote with Force’n'Fraudster Republicans, if their allegiance to the Cato or Von Mises Institutes is a guide.
If you can find a good word written about President Bush in 3 years at the Mises Institute, I’ll eat the page. Hell, the Mises Institute dogged Reagan through his 8 years in office, and the Republicans have practically canonised him.
However, I know you don’t believe this tripe, since you obviously realise we’re not Republicans.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 4:09 am
Stand by your words, Josh, or I’m finished wasting time with you.
First you criticized anarchists for “imagining a form of government which has never existed.” I’ll get to your responses to my examples in a moment. For now, though, lets consider the fact that you distanced yourself from this imaginary business by “basing [your] arguments on an _ideal_ form of the government we now have, based on the theoretical principles, Aristocratic-Republicanism, and Democratic-Republicanism, that the originators of said Government had in mind when it began.”
This is essentially the argument made by unreconstructed Marxists, except worse, because at least Marxists can try to claim that “real” communism has never been tried. You, on the other hand, are attempting to put forward two contradictory statements at the same time: that your system is both “ideal” and cannot be judged by the empirical failures we observe today and also non-imagined since we now have it. Well which is it? Has your system existed or hasn’t it? If it never existed the way you think it should, then you have no right criticizing anarchists for lack of empirical evidence. If it did exist, and devolved into our current government, then as Spooner said earlier in this thread:
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain—that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”
Next, you said that you consider any revolutionary course to be “nothing more than the rants of disgruntled subversives.” This after you just finished ejaculating praise all over Jefferson.
Now that I caught you in a stew of your own contradictions, you write:
“Jefferson and Madison were revolutionaries, and I criticized you for alleging to be one. However, Republics had existed before…”
Which doesn’t address the argument at all. Your complaint wasn’t just lack of historical precedent — which by itself is a completely absurd criticism, since everything can be traced back to its original historical precedent, itself having no historical precedent. It’s about as bad an argument as Aquinas’ prime mover argument: everything must have an initial cause/mover/creater that is not itself, therefore, we must go all the way back to the beginning of history, and lo and behold, what do we find? God must be the prime mover for everything. Sillyness.
So your complaint was not about historical precedent; no, your complaint was about the revolutionary rants of disgruntled subversives. Yet now you realize that you caught yourself in a contraction, because Jefferson was a revolutionary and a disgruntled subversive. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
All of this ignores the fact that I nor anyone else in this thread called for revolution. So this whole criticism of yours is a straw man. I don’t advocate revolution. I have an ideal in mind, but I advocate gradual, progressive change to reach that goal.
Your objection to Friedman’s Icelandic evidence doesn’t even deserve a response.
p1. Murder was a civil offense under Icelandic law.
p2. Murder was a civil offense under the barbarian codes of the Germanic tribes.
p3. Germanic tribes were EVIL BARBARIANS (ALL CAPS TOO!!! LIKE, OMFG!!!! YOU KNOW HOW TO USE THE SHIFT KEY!!!!)
Therefore, Icelandic law, by virtue of the fact that it shares a civil offense for murder with Germanic tribes, is also evil and barbaric.
Compare to:
p1. Hitler has a mustache.
p2. Tom Selleck has a mustache.
p3. Hitler is an evil dictator.
Therefore, Tom Selleck, since he shares a facial hair style in common with Hitler, is also an evil dictator.
You asked when anyone here referred to other countries, because their lethality in no way diminishes the LETHALITY of the FISH & GAME COMMISSION. I would like to suggest that lightning kills more people, per annum, than either the IRS or F&G Comm. Ergo, your likelihood of getting killed by either, EVEN IF YOU BREAK THEIR RULES, is less than the chance of being hit & killed by lightning. There are no RULES of the IRS which say they can kill you unless you resist with force. The same is true of the F&G Comm. To call them lethal agencies is exaggeration in the extreme. It is useless blather.
Again, you are ignoring the issue. No one ever claimed that the IRS is more dangerous than lightning, or that the IRS is more dangerous than tyrannical agencies in other countries.
Lightning is not a moral crime. Theft is. No one can or should hold lightning accountable for its sometimes devastating effects, because lightning is not a moral actor. IRS agents, and those who support them, are.
How exactly should we describe an agency which threatens to put you in its prison if you don’t pay extortion, and if you try to defend itself, will kill you? Is it lethal? Is it theft? Is it criminal?
I have been reading Cato and Von Mises pubs for a long time now. At every turn, you must admit, both argue for (generally) lower taxes. Cato, especially, argues for reduced regulation and lower taxes ahead of reducing social legislation each and every day. If one were to watch Cato organized events on C-SPAN, something which I have had more than a dozen opportunities to do (opportunities of which I availed myself) you would see that in each case Cato used its soapbox to push for goals which are more in direct alignment with the Republican Party than with the Democrats.
Let’s see, on Cato’s front page we find:
An Ominous U.S. Model
by Jonathan Clarke
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/clarke-040922.html
American response to 9/11 has been almost exclusively military. Other instruments of American policy — political, economic, social, allies — have fallen by the wayside. All other priorities of government have been subordinated to the “war on terrorism.” This approach of total “with us or against us” war derives much of its ideological underpinning from the intensely pessimistic neoconservative worldview based on an absolute division between good and evil.
Schooled by the failure of liberal democratic institutions to head off either Nazism or Soviet communism, neoconservatives argue that there is no point in analyzing the root causes of a phenomenon like terrorism; the only thing to do is to get your shot in first and worry about the consequences later.
The result is an embrace of a no-holds-barred approach to terrorism that neoconservative organizations like the newly revived Committee on Present Danger dub “World War IV.” Under this model, military force trumps all else, and input from the international community counts for little.
—
Cato Daily Dispatch for September 23, 2004
United States Agrees to Hamdi Release
http://www.cato.org/dispatch/09-23-04d.html#1
In “Hamdi and Habeas Corpus,” Timothy Lynch, director of Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice, writes: “[T]he Bush administration has been using the Hamdi case to advance a sweeping theory of executive branch power. According to this theory, the president can deprive anyone in the world of his liberty and hold that person incommunicado indefinitely.
“… The Al Qaeda terrorist network is an evil organization that must be vanquished. But as we go about that task, we must not lose sight of what we are defending. Free societies do not ‘just happen.’ Freedom in America rests upon a framework of checks and balances that was designed by men who were steeped in history and political philosophy. If that framework is neglected, constitutional guarantees will become nothing more than hollow promises on pieces of paper.”
The Cato Institute filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Hamdi’s behalf.
—
We’re at War not with a State but an Armed Ideology
by Gene Healy
http://www.cato.org/dailys/09-23-04.html
Sept. 11, 2001, should have concentrated the mind wonderfully as to the type of enemy we’re fighting. Too often, however, the administration has insisted on “fighting the last war.” Having rightfully removed the one state that was directly related to the terror threat, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the administration continued on to Iraq, as if the war against terror was a war against states. But it’s hard to understand how regime change in Iraq aided the war against anti-American terrorism. Iraq appears to have had few, if any, genuine Al Qaeda links and no WMD stockpiles to speak of, much less a plan to pass off weapons of mass destruction to anti-American terrorists.
—
Issue Ads: Let ‘Em Rip
by Stephen Moore
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/moore-040920.html
(Article on issue ads and the First Amendment)
–
And so on and so forth. None of this is more in line with Republicans than with Democrats. When you say things like, “If anyone but Chuck Pena at Cato is voting for Kerry, they have fooled me” all it indicates is that fools are easily fooled. That is the only way to explain your conclusion after reading articles like this
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/boaz-040803.html
and this
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/boaz-031130.html
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 4:12 am
Similarly, when it comes to Cato, they receive funding from the same group of whore-mongering whining idiots that fund groups like the Heritage Foundation, AEI, and the Hudson, Manhattan and Hoover Institutes.
Guilt by association, now? Who the fuck cares what other ideological organizations some of Cato’s donors support if our only question is what Cato and its policy analysts believe?
Von Mises Vs. The Supply Siders. Who do proponents of Von Mises hate more, Supply Siders or Keynesians? I apologize for suggesting Austrian Monarchist Economics, and/or the Monetarism of Hayek/Friedman is somehow Supply Side (that’s a Laff ;). However, all non-Keynesian economists are essentially arguing against the mainstream meme of Keynesianism, and have been for more than half a century.
So, you have no evidence that “Republicans push Austrian Economics.” In fact, Bush has been widely described by economists as pursuing Keynesian policies. Second, Keynesianism is no longer mainstream. It has been replaced by newer schools like Rational Expections, and even the neo-Keynesians are now but one among many competing schools of thought.
The word rape. I didn’t bring it up. Non Sequitur. Judges? Do “Aristocrats” (which would mean elected officials and judges) get to rape in America? No. Not legally. Certainly rules different rules for plebes and elites in an A-R system is a sign of corruption. I am unaware of any laws that allow IRS agents or Fish & Game Wardens to rape people. Taxes are another issue, but you didn’t seem to stay on topic.
Are you really that incapable of understanding an analogy? Rape is wrong. Stealing is wrong. We would view it as fundamentally unjust if government bureaucrats were allowed to rape innocent people at will. Yet people like you see nothing wrong with different rules for government and everyone else. Neither you, Bill Gates, or I are allowed to steal with impunity. Politicians are.
I do not agree this is theft. The legal order of our day dictates that the money is not spent for _my_ purposes, but the collective will of a group of people, and tradition, which is defined, in plain text, in the laws. In this case, mostly by Congress and the President and the United States Code. Their purposes, dictated also by tradition and previous law, are what are honored. _I_ am not taking the tax money, “We the people,” rather, our representative (aristocratic) government, is taking the money.
This is why the rape analogy is relevant. Imagine if I said,
“I do not agree this is rape. The legal order of our day dictates that the woman does not own her own body, but is owned by the collective will of a group of people, and tradition, which is defined, in plain text, in the laws. In this case, mostly by Congress and the President and the United States Code, which states that so long as the majority of people enact laws and traditions which allow for the rape of innocent women, then it is okay. Their purposes, dictated also by tradition and previous law, are what are honored. _I_ am not raping this women, “We the people,” rather, our representative (aristocratic) government, is raping her.”
Got any problems with that?
You seem quite alienated from your government, while I simply hate the buffoons who are currently President, and in Congress,
I am alienated from the concept of government, which is nothing but tyranny and pain. I have nothing against this particular government; it’s better than most, yet still unacceptable by any standard. Yet you are foolish enough to believe that if only the right people were in power, things would be okay. You fail to recognize the structural condictions which cause the failure.
Cuba has no taxes.
Wrong. http://www.worldbank.org/html/prddr/trans/mayjun97/art11.htm
Dictatorships, generally, lack taxes. Taxes are used everywhere by civilized peoples. The only exceptions are oil-rich nations. Taxation, you already heard, is the price of liberty. Unless you can name a nation which has no taxes and liberty? You can not.
From Anthony de Jasay’s Justice and Its Surroundings:
Throughout its history, humanity has permanently displayed a physical condition classified in ordinary language as illness or disease. There has always been what Hume would call a constant conjunction between human life and illness.
The Hobbesian hypothesis that illness is a necessary condition of the human species has strong empirical support. It has never been falsified.
Throughout its history, humanity has permanently displayed a social condition classified in ordinary language as the state or government. There has always been what Hume would have called a �constant conjunction� between human society and government.
The Hobbesian hypothesis that government is a necessary condition of social life has strong empirical support. It has never been falsified.
Arguments in favour of the prevention or eradication of disease are evidently misguided, and may be dangerous. They are often put forward by naive persons with little understanding of reality.
Arguments in favour of fostering society’s capacity to evolve anarchic orders and live with less or no government are evidently misguided, and may be dangerous. They are often put forward by naive persons with little or no understanding of reality.
Anarchists at Von Mises…
These are people who are against Our State, not all states. Von Mises was a big fan of the Hapsburgs, the Austrian MONARCHY. That is why it is called Austria’s Revenge (having lost the War to End All Wars, they took over our money).
Mises was not an anarchist. And cite some evidence for your claim that any members of the Mises Institute support others states but not the U.S.
Libertarians are simply “right-anarchists,” vs people like me, who are “left-anarchists.” Just because I argue for the State, does not mean I am a Statist.
Um, yeah.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 4:23 am
I just wrote a long post responding to your outright lies about Somalia clearly evident to anyone who reads the two articles you and I posted. Unfortunately, my post got eaten by my browser, and I am not going to waste my time with you any longer trying to rewrite it. Anyone who is interested is free to read the two articles and see how you deliberately inserted claims not present in either article and replaced stastistics that are plain for all to see.
The point remains. In less than a decade, Somalia has increased its telephone infrastrucure, coverage, and reduced its prices without the presence of government, and now has one of the best and cheapest systems in the continent. This sufficiently refutes your claims that public goods cannot be provided without coercive government, that no one would be wired in poor communities and that poorer communities would not have any public services.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 5:08 am
The unexpected Ghertnerite-Sabottean popular front agrees - Narins is a lying lunatic whore.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 5:09 am
<>Sbtt:Hy, Schndr.
Fbls. Y’r fnlly spllng t rght.
<>ftr th wy y rn mrcn_Lbrty…
Y lkd t wll ngh whn kckd ll th nt-nzs (rptdly). L ws nvr sppsd t b bg, nttndd plygrnd lk ths plc s (d fct, f nt by dsgn) wth hndrds f pcs dy strnglng pr-brdbnd cnnctns. (nd th dnc wll dly nt tht nthr y nr JTK nr Lyntt hs sn ft t pstr m prvtly r pblcly bt whtvr llgdly dd t thm.) …bt ngh ndlgnc f yr brn-ll-brdgs prsnlty-dsrdr.
My sbjct ws ll bt cddlng thvs, lrs nd wsls, nd t’s plnty clr t m tht mst f th dnzns f tr Blgl wll ccpt NY mnt f sclsm r slmsm r nkd nzsm jst s lng s t lvs thm sngl lt phsphr f pxl t blt nt whl t’s dng whtvr t lks t thr hndqrtrs.
nc pn tm, thr ws Jhn T. Knndy wh wld dmnt, “Wht rght d y hv t rl m?”, nd xpct n nswr.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 5:14 am
<>Sbtt: Th nxpctd Ghrtnrt-Sbttn pplr frnt grs - Nrns s lyng lntc whr.
Mk tht th :nxpctd Ghrtnrt-Sbttn-Schndr pplr frnt. Whr th llnc cllpss s vr wht t d bt t.
s rcncltn pssbl wth y?
Tht’s srs qstn.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 5:14 am
The unexpected Ghertnerite-Sabottean popular front agrees - Narins is a lying lunatic whore.
Narins is a uniter, not a divider.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 5:49 am
<>Mch: Ths sffcntly rfts yr clms tht pblc gds cnnt b prvdd wtht crcv gvrnmnt
h, gd Lrd,….
Lk:
1. “Pblc gds” s fls-cncpt.
2. Y ndn’t ccpt hs prms (vn fr th prpss f plyng ‘Dvl’s dvct’) ntl h stblshs fndtn. .., whr ds h gt th rght t stl frm y? (f thft s mrlly prpr btwn ndvdls, thn sy h shld jst sht p nd frk vr m hs cmptr rght *nw*.) Whnvr s lbrtrn/mnrchst/ “cnsrvtv”/whtvr rgng wth wsl n nd n nd n nd n bt clnd r Sml r Fbls Fltng Cts n th Hrrcn Blt, knw ‘m rnd ppl wh hv n rthly d wht thy’r dng r wht thy’r p gnst.
“Pwr cms frm th brrl f gn!” M sd t, nd th wsls knw t. Nrns cldn’t gv dmn whthr r nt shny, hppy Smlns hv frsh wtr sns gvrnmnt crcn; ll h’s cncrnd wth s th mst xpdnt wy h’s sd t gttng t — nd t’s rght mprtnnt f y nt t sht p nd drp th c-nts vr th brrl f hs hrd rprsnttv’s gn.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 6:02 am
A thousand points of light, Mike. (Damn, I’ve been quoting Bush the First way too much lately.)
Focusing solely on rights isn’t going to get you very far. Most people just don’t care about rights talk. Or if they do care about rights, they don’t care solely about rights. They want to see results too.
Then again, it’s not like I fool myself into believing my arguments will be any more convincing than rights talk in this case. Perhaps I may plant a seed of doubt, but I mainly just do it for the practice and because I can’t let a bad argument go uncriticized.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 6:18 am
<>Fcsng slly n rghts sn’t gng t gt y vry fr. Mst ppl jst dn’t cr bt rghts tlk.
Ths “mst ppl” rn’t gng t lstn t nythng ls, Mch; thy’ll blthr ntl thy’r bl n th fc bt thr “nds” ntl *rlty* s *slppd* nt thm. Th rrtnl mnd s nt swyd by rsn.
Dd y vr d th “stl pn” trck?
– sk t “brrw” pn frm yr mrk. Whn y’r dn, mk shw f lkng th pn (”Hmm; nc pn…”) nd pt t n yr pckt nstd f gvng t bck. Ntrlly, h’ll bjct (th rlty-slp s yr brzn thft) n th grnds f t bng hs prprty nd nt yrs. — nd wth tht, y nw hv n bjctv bss t dmnstrt hs hypcrsy vr wht sclst rbbsh h my b rnnng t th yp bt.
<>Thy wnt t s th rslts
sk hm whch gvrnmnt gncy h lcnsd hs pn frm.
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 5:41 pm
“Make that the :unexpected Ghertnerite-Sabottean-Schneider popular front. Where the alliance collapses is over what to do about it.”
On this site? I don’t recall hiring any consultants.
Lynette, is there something you forgot to tell me?
September 24th, 2004 at Sep 24, 04 | 6:29 pm
Private justice, as described by the ahistorial ignoramus Mr. Friedman, is barbarian justice. They paid fines, they didn’t rely on any State. They had destroyed the Roman Empire, then they learned to read and write, and they wrote down their codes.
Considering that Micha thinks .6% market penetration is a 1st world standard, can we all agree to write him off as a nimcompoop? Great.
Mr Holmes,
Montesquieu only wrote about government forms which had existed. The main Republics he wrote about were Rome before Caesar and the Greek city-states. Roman laws were passed, during the Republican era, first by the Senate. One year later, during which time it was in effect, all citizens voted on the law. Not that we are here to discuss the flaws of ancient Republics, but I consider heredity a terrible way to pass on authority, and this was certainly a problem with the Roman Senate. The triumvirate, by the way, could defeat Rome with troops, troops who were motivated by the lack of their veteran’s benefits (had been promised land in the conquered territories).
Of your five “unexpecteds,” I can only see myself concerned about one, the fact that all three branches of the Federal government seem to have an interest in increasing their power, and that the States have not retained their perogatives. However, I also believe there are particular, historial reasons for this, which can rationally, if not easily, be returned. They have done it in England already, it was called devolution.
The Federalist Papers were basically propaganda. If you don’t read the Anti-Federalist Papers at the same time, I am not sure what you could possibly get out of it. Of _course_ our countryfolk, of late, have acted like big, fat greedy assholes. They would take slavery, with TV, over freedom without (the vast majority, anyway). Why? I would argue because no tough decisions are made. No one calls the President or the media-whores liars. Chris Matthews is an _ignorant_blowhard_. That is why he is paid many millions of dollars per year. The US House of Representatives was set up to keep watch over the machinations of the rich to take power. The rich, FYI, have succeeded. People here seem to want to institute barbarism/anarchy in order to fix the problem. I just want to fix what’s wrong with an otherwise respectable system. Americans, generally, are lazy and happy.
The von Mises Institute hasn’t even praised any of Bush’s tax cuts (which are all actually long term tax hikes on the lowest four quintiles)? Well, color me surprised.
—
Micha,
Sorry about Cuba. You will note it says “Cuba’s new personal income tax.” You did not answer the more fundamental question about taxation and liberty (twice now, you diarrhea laden shitwit), to wit, name a single country with liberty, and without taxes. Show me a country with miniscule taxes and liberty.
Micha, you are terrible at debate. You say my ideal system can’t be judged, yet I judge it myself. This is the grossest of contradictions. I will not repeat myself further.
The important thing is that the words in the Constitution have a basis, and not every word in the basis made it into the Constitution. Ergo, if you are ignorant of Montesquieu, you are ignorant of the context of the Constitution. End of story. Guess what? You are ignorant! You have, by my reckoning, made so many completely false, unfounded and delusional statements that I fear you are hopeless.
Almost every “interesting” or “peculiar” feature of private justice, as described by numnuts Friedman in his Iceland article, was present in the Codes of the German Barbarians. Congrata-fuck-u-lations, Mr. Selleck.
I’ve watched Cato host Straussians on C-SPAN, I’ve watched their Iraq war debates. In each case, Cato took the administration line. Only one Cato guest or speaker EVER took an anti-war position on C-SPAN, in the relevant timeframe, and that was Chuck Pena. I am glad they have more nuanced views on their website, but far more people are exposed to them via television, as every dipshit like you should learn.
Stephen Moore is another ignorant blowhard. The Club for Growth are loony liars. The number of cases where Moore’s ads have flat out lied, not to mention dissembled, is to great for me to consider them seriously. Moore’s presence at Cato, and the Club for Growth’s 100% support of the GOP over the Democrats, proves my point, thanks for pointing out how important that douche is at C