On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
It's honestly the reason why I'm growing less and less dismissive of Levinas' thought that freedom cannot precede morality. There is obviously a great deal of danger in this as well, but honestly, when you think that there is something wrong about having the responsibility to help someone else then there is something really wrong with your mentality and the society that fosters such sentiment.
On January 05 2012 03:56 dafunk wrote: I would say that liberalism is much worse than any social healthcare but thats just my opinion.
The Fed gave 1.2 trillion dollars to banks during the crisis in 2008 at 0,01% to save them, while countries have to borrow banks money at 9% interest when they are in crisis.
Our world is ruled by the monetary system and they can get away with anything they want. We have to take them down and it's the only solution cause they arnt going to stop by themselves.
Giving people too much liberty is just insane. And that dosnt apply only for banks.
And about healthcare.. Ye, only in the US people would argue that its bad. Cause you know, helping people is just bad :/ Cant understand the mentality of you guys but I guess its just different culture.
See this is the problem. So many are completely ignorant about liberalism.
Are you actually suggesting that banks getting free money is a liberal policy? A part of being for liberty?
Why do you even post.
Liberalism in the american context (liberal => left-wing) is not the same as "vanilla" liberalism. Yes I know, it's confusing.
On teamliquid, liberalism retains the original meaning of the word, and as it is used in Europe and other places in the world.
I don't think giving away free money to banks is very progressive/democrat either. It's just crony capitalism.
How is it capitalism? In capitalism the banks who fcked up would be fckd up, and only the competition who did better survived, and not the ones who were deemed important by the state. Not even crony.
Crony capitalism is not capitalism in any way. Crony capitalism and capitalism are two completely independent things.
Hardly independent. It's what you get when you apply the capitalism pipe dream to the real world and real people. In the real world, whoever gets ahead and gets in a position of power will look to assume control and bend or break all the rules necessary to eliminate any present or future competition.
And without control mechanisms, there are no means to effectively stop them from doing that.
The control mechanism are what allow them to do that. If the government didn't have the power to regulate, subsidize and bailout, there would be no reason to buy politicians. The control mechanism we need against companies using the government to eliminate their competition isn't government regulation on the market, it is regulation on the government. Regulation on the government would take the form of a constitution as well as the vigilance of the people.
Explain to me how government regulation of the market prevents companies from eliminating competition in any unfair way? If that isn't what you believe, what is your problem with capitalism?
Imperfect information, what you're talking about can't work and never will. One of the prerequisites for a free, competive market is perfectly symmetrical information, so that everyone can make appropriate decisions. Regulations are what prevent people from being taken advantage of by asymmetrical information. I bet you're one of those people who don't think that insider trading is rampant too.
Insider trading should be legal. If someone has placed himself in a position where he will have information that allows him to trade more wisely, there isn't anything wrong with taking advantage of that. It certainly doesn't harm anyone when he does so. All it does is allow stocks to come to their true value faster. People who buy stocks from insiders aren't victims because they want those stocks. If no insider had been there to sell to them they would have bought stocks from some non-insider they would have had to pay more and would have lost more wealth. The insider has no more obligation to reveal his inside information or not use it to trade intelligently anymore than a stock broker who has determined, through common information and the use of logic, that a companies stock will fall. Neither has any obligation to commit self-sacrifice.
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
Its funny because the anti-libertarians are the ones who want to punish people for exercising their individual rights. They want to put people who get caught smoking weed too many times in jail to serve ridiculous overlengthy sentences. They allowed lobbyist groups to shut down Online Poker in the United States even though it is a perfectly legitimate past time in other NATO countries such as Canada, the UK. The current way of thinking says that you need to criminalize prostitution, even though many women choose of their own free will to go into prostitution because it can make them more money than doing some other forms of onerous work that they'd rather not do. When it comes to heavy handed punishments against people who are exercising freedoms that don't hurt anyone else, the current regime is much worse than a libertarian one.
And for the record, I think the war on drugs is a joke, (and one that benefits private prisons especially), and that prostitution *should* be legal.
My point was that the arguments being made for these opt-in systems is that "he fucked up, thus he deserves to lose his house".
Like, why stop at private fire departments? Let's disband the police, and let people buy into private security companies. Perhaps the government shouldn't build roads, and let private companies build them and charge people to drive on them. Let's get rid of public sewage plants, and allow people to buy into programs to filter water. Etc etc etc etc. I simply do not see how these things can be practically applied to a modern society with 315 million people in it.
I might actually support a lot of libertarian ideals if we lived in an *actual* fair society. The difference in opportunity between people born into wealth and people born into poverty is incomprehensible to too many people. That "50% of Americans that don't pay taxes" that conservatives are always complaining about? http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 That's how much money they make. That's how much money they actually have to live off of.
How are those people going to afford any of these services?
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
It's honestly the reason why I'm growing less and less dismissive of Levinas' thought that freedom cannot precede morality. There is obviously a great deal of danger in this as well, but honestly, when you think that there is something wrong about having the responsibility to help someone else then there is something really wrong with your mentality and the society that fosters such sentiment.
Explain to me how I have a responsibility to help others. I certainly do help others but I only do so because it is also beneficial to me. To help someone with no benefit to myself would be self-sacrifice. Why do I have a responsibility to sacrifice myself to others? Don't tell me because society sacrifices itself to me. I don't expect or force anyone to sacrifice themselves to me. I only expect to participate in voluntary, mutually beneficial relationships. These mutually beneficial relationships include things like giving charity to improve my community, helping people in emergencies (but not severely risking my life or limb to do so), risking my life for people I highly value, etc.
On January 05 2012 03:56 dafunk wrote: I would say that liberalism is much worse than any social healthcare but thats just my opinion.
The Fed gave 1.2 trillion dollars to banks during the crisis in 2008 at 0,01% to save them, while countries have to borrow banks money at 9% interest when they are in crisis.
Our world is ruled by the monetary system and they can get away with anything they want. We have to take them down and it's the only solution cause they arnt going to stop by themselves.
Giving people too much liberty is just insane. And that dosnt apply only for banks.
And about healthcare.. Ye, only in the US people would argue that its bad. Cause you know, helping people is just bad :/ Cant understand the mentality of you guys but I guess its just different culture.
See this is the problem. So many are completely ignorant about liberalism.
Are you actually suggesting that banks getting free money is a liberal policy? A part of being for liberty?
Why do you even post.
Liberalism in the american context (liberal => left-wing) is not the same as "vanilla" liberalism. Yes I know, it's confusing.
On teamliquid, liberalism retains the original meaning of the word, and as it is used in Europe and other places in the world.
I don't think giving away free money to banks is very progressive/democrat either. It's just crony capitalism.
How is it capitalism? In capitalism the banks who fcked up would be fckd up, and only the competition who did better survived, and not the ones who were deemed important by the state. Not even crony.
Crony capitalism is not capitalism in any way. Crony capitalism and capitalism are two completely independent things.
Hardly independent. It's what you get when you apply the capitalism pipe dream to the real world and real people. In the real world, whoever gets ahead and gets in a position of power will look to assume control and bend or break all the rules necessary to eliminate any present or future competition.
And without control mechanisms, there are no means to effectively stop them from doing that.
The control mechanism are what allow them to do that. If the government didn't have the power to regulate, subsidize and bailout, there would be no reason to buy politicians. The control mechanism we need against companies using the government to eliminate their competition isn't government regulation on the market, it is regulation on the government. Regulation on the government would take the form of a constitution as well as the vigilance of the people.
Explain to me how government regulation of the market prevents companies from eliminating competition in any unfair way? If that isn't what you believe, what is your problem with capitalism?
Imperfect information, what you're talking about can't work and never will. One of the prerequisites for a free, competive market is perfectly symmetrical information, so that everyone can make appropriate decisions. Regulations are what prevent people from being taken advantage of by asymmetrical information. I bet you're one of those people who don't think that insider trading is rampant too.
Insider trading should be legal. If someone has placed himself in a position where he will have information that allows him to trade more wisely, there isn't anything wrong with taking advantage of that. It certainly doesn't harm anyone when he does so. All it does is allow stocks to come to their true value faster. People who buy stocks from insiders aren't victims because they want those stocks. If no insider had been there to sell to them they would have bought stocks from some non-insider they would have had to pay more and would have lost more wealth. The insider has no more obligation to reveal his inside information or not use it to trade intelligently anymore than a stock broker who has determined, through common information and the use of logic, that a companies stock will fall. Neither has any obligation to commit self-sacrifice.
And as an outside investor, why would you ever want to invest in anything that you do not have insider information about? Consider that at least 99 of 100 investors are in this situation. You make the market completely unprofitable for people without inside informations and thus remove 99 of each 100 $ in the market. The situation in the markets are bad at the moment, but your suggestion would completely crash the market almost instantly.
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
It's honestly the reason why I'm growing less and less dismissive of Levinas' thought that freedom cannot precede morality. There is obviously a great deal of danger in this as well, but honestly, when you think that there is something wrong about having the responsibility to help someone else then there is something really wrong with your mentality and the society that fosters such sentiment.
Explain to me how I have a responsibility to help others. I certainly do help others but I only do so because it is also beneficial to me. To help someone with no benefit to myself would be self-sacrifice. Why do I have a responsibility to sacrifice myself to others? Don't tell me because society sacrifices itself to me. I don't expect or force anyone to sacrifice themselves to me. I only expect to participate in voluntary, mutually beneficial relationships. These mutually beneficial relationships include things like giving charity to improve my community, helping people in emergencies (but not severely risking my life or limb to do so), etc.
You take so fucking much for granted living in a modern orderly society. That you can't recognize it blows my mind.
On January 05 2012 09:14 DoubleReed wrote: I don't understand. Right now we have public charity (like welfare and medicaid), and all he's suggesting is private charity. It's basically the same kind of idea, but rather than people being forced to pay, you would be expected to pay. I don't see how that changes the situation that significantly.
It changes the situation very drastically.
Social aid is not charity. It is something that is guaranteed by law. It is your right, it belongs to you as a citizen of that country. Nobody can legally deny it to you. The money you get from social aid belongs to you, in every sense of the term. It's not actually somebody else's money that was given to you, it's YOUR money, because that's what the law says.
Charity is driven by someone's "good will" (which in itself is unreliable, but not the core of the problem). The money you get from it is basically a gift. Moreover, private charities are governed by private interests. In fact, let's look at this in a more systematic way:
1. Private charity is potentially your only source of income 2. Private charity is governed by private interest 3. Private charity doesn't have an obligation to help you out
Now go ahead and put 2 and 2 together and you'll come to the conclusion that they OWN you, in a very literal fashion. They have the ability to make you vote whoever they want you to vote, to make you only buy products they want you to buy, to make you apply for jobs that they want you to apply for, to make you live where they want you to live. And if you want to qualify for their financial aid program, you have to suck it up.
And this is easily something that would actually happen in reality under such conditions.
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
It's honestly the reason why I'm growing less and less dismissive of Levinas' thought that freedom cannot precede morality. There is obviously a great deal of danger in this as well, but honestly, when you think that there is something wrong about having the responsibility to help someone else then there is something really wrong with your mentality and the society that fosters such sentiment.
Explain to me how I have a responsibility to help others. I certainly do help others but I only do so because it is also beneficial to me. To help someone with no benefit to myself would be self-sacrifice. Why do I have a responsibility to sacrifice myself to others? Don't tell me because society sacrifices itself to me. I don't expect or force anyone to sacrifice themselves to me. I only expect to participate in voluntary, mutually beneficial relationships. These mutually beneficial relationships include things like giving charity to improve my community, helping people in emergencies (but not severely risking my life or limb to do so), etc.
You take so fucking much for granted living in a modern orderly society. That you can't recognize it blows my mind.
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
Its funny because the anti-libertarians are the ones who want to punish people for exercising their individual rights. They want to put people who get caught smoking weed too many times in jail to serve ridiculous overlengthy sentences. They allowed lobbyist groups to shut down Online Poker in the United States even though it is a perfectly legitimate past time in other NATO countries such as Canada, the UK. The current way of thinking says that you need to criminalize prostitution, even though many women choose of their own free will to go into prostitution because it can make them more money than doing some other forms of onerous work that they'd rather not do. When it comes to heavy handed punishments against people who are exercising freedoms that don't hurt anyone else, the current regime is much worse than a libertarian one.
And for the record, I think the war on drugs is a joke, (and one that benefits private prisons especially), and that prostitution *should* be legal.
My point was that the arguments being made for these opt-in systems is that "he fucked up, thus he deserves to lose his house".
Like, why stop at private fire departments? Let's disband the police, and let people buy into private security companies. Perhaps the government shouldn't build roads, and let private companies build them and charge people to drive on them. Let's get rid of public sewage plants, and allow people to buy into programs to filter water. Etc etc etc etc. I simply do not see how these things can be practically applied to a modern society with 315 million people in it.
I might actually support a lot of libertarian ideals if we lived in an *actual* fair society. The difference in opportunity between people born into wealth and people born into poverty is incomprehensible to too many people. That "50% of Americans that don't pay taxes" that conservatives are always complaining about? http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 That's how much money they make. That's how much money they actually have to live off of.
How are those people going to afford any of these services?
The counter-argument to your example of disbanding the police is imo , think of this . If in a crowd of 100 , every individual has a gun , would any of those 100 start shotting at another for personal material gain ? That would open himself to the aggression of others because he initiated in an act of violence ( and anyways , out of 100 people only 1 is capable of hurting others without careing in a situation of balance and peace ) so he will be seen as a missfit of that society . You attack others => you are opened to others attacking you . What you would say ... well the smartest will start a group and try to rule the society , but I believe there will be a counter-group to that group so it would be a gang of 50 against 50 , but since no1 stays to gain from a war between themselves without taking serious risks I would guess everyone would be peacefull because being selfish leads to their most probable death ^^... This is my own take on things . It may very well be wrong and if you see a good counter-argument to my opinion please give it ^^
On January 05 2012 09:14 DoubleReed wrote: I don't understand. Right now we have public charity (like welfare and medicaid), and all he's suggesting is private charity. It's basically the same kind of idea, but rather than people being forced to pay, you would be expected to pay. I don't see how that changes the situation that significantly.
It changes the situation very drastically.
Social aid is not charity. It is something that is guaranteed by law. It is your right, it belongs to you as a citizen of that country. Nobody can legally deny it to you. The money you get from social aid belongs to you, in every sense of the term. It's not actually somebody else's money that was given to you, it's YOUR money, because that's what the law says.
Charity is driven by someone's "good will" (which in itself is unreliable, but not the core of the problem). The money you get from it is basically a gift. Moreover, private charities are governed by private interests. In fact, let's look at this in a more systematic way:
1. Private charity is potentially your only source of income 2. Private charity is governed by private interest 3. Private charity doesn't have an obligation to help you out
Now go ahead and put 2 and 2 together and you'll come to the conclusion that they OWN you, in a very literal fashion. They have the ability to make you vote whoever they want you to vote, to make you only buy products they want you to buy, to make you apply for jobs that they want you to apply for, to make you live where they want you to live. And if you want to qualify for their financial aid program, you have to suck it up.
And this is easily something that would actually happen in reality under such conditions.
Private charity is a fake thing anyways - it only stays to grow the image of the guy who gives out charity . I believe the libertarian idea of charity is banding people together to start programs for charity for people who genuinely need the help .
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
It's honestly the reason why I'm growing less and less dismissive of Levinas' thought that freedom cannot precede morality. There is obviously a great deal of danger in this as well, but honestly, when you think that there is something wrong about having the responsibility to help someone else then there is something really wrong with your mentality and the society that fosters such sentiment.
Explain to me how I have a responsibility to help others. I certainly do help others but I only do so because it is also beneficial to me. To help someone with no benefit to myself would be self-sacrifice. Why do I have a responsibility to sacrifice myself to others? Don't tell me because society sacrifices itself to me. I don't expect or force anyone to sacrifice themselves to me. I only expect to participate in voluntary, mutually beneficial relationships. These mutually beneficial relationships include things like giving charity to improve my community, helping people in emergencies (but not severely risking my life or limb to do so), etc.
There's lots of ways to argue that. I'll give you two.
The libertarian answer to that would be because during our history lots and lots and lots of transactions occurred that weren't mutually agreed upon, and these transactions have created a world where the current economic relations between people and countries are unfair and that the deck is stacked in favor of certain classes. This calls for restitution for things such as slavery, colonialism, withholding minority and female voting rights, you name it. (This is more or less Nozick)
The more liberal answer to that is that the poor person could have been you, and that if we were to design a society without knowing anything about our position in life, a system where the less fortunate classes are supported by those more fortunate is the only fair and logical outcome. You can read more about this in the works of Rawls.
Now, if you have the time, I'd appreciate a response to my post on the previous page. Any other free marketeer would be fine too.
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
Its funny because the anti-libertarians are the ones who want to punish people for exercising their individual rights. They want to put people who get caught smoking weed too many times in jail to serve ridiculous overlengthy sentences. They allowed lobbyist groups to shut down Online Poker in the United States even though it is a perfectly legitimate past time in other NATO countries such as Canada, the UK. The current way of thinking says that you need to criminalize prostitution, even though many women choose of their own free will to go into prostitution because it can make them more money than doing some other forms of onerous work that they'd rather not do. When it comes to heavy handed punishments against people who are exercising freedoms that don't hurt anyone else, the current regime is much worse than a libertarian one.
And for the record, I think the war on drugs is a joke, (and one that benefits private prisons especially), and that prostitution *should* be legal.
My point was that the arguments being made for these opt-in systems is that "he fucked up, thus he deserves to lose his house".
Like, why stop at private fire departments? Let's disband the police, and let people buy into private security companies. Perhaps the government shouldn't build roads, and let private companies build them and charge people to drive on them. Let's get rid of public sewage plants, and allow people to buy into programs to filter water. Etc etc etc etc. I simply do not see how these things can be practically applied to a modern society with 315 million people in it.
I might actually support a lot of libertarian ideals if we lived in an *actual* fair society. The difference in opportunity between people born into wealth and people born into poverty is incomprehensible to too many people. That "50% of Americans that don't pay taxes" that conservatives are always complaining about? http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 That's how much money they make. That's how much money they actually have to live off of.
How are those people going to afford any of these services?
The counter-argument to your example of disbanding the police is imo , think of this . If in a crowd of 100 , every individual has a gun , would any of those 100 start shotting at another for personal material gain ? That would open himself to the aggression of others because he initiated in an act of violence ( and anyways , out of 100 people only 1 is capable of hurting others without careing in a situation of balance and peace ) so he will be seen as a missfit of that society . You attack others => you are opened to others attacking you . What you would say ... well the smartest will start a group and try to rule the society , but I believe there will be a counter-group to that group so it would be a gang of 50 against 50 , but since no1 stays to gain from a war between themselves without taking serious risks I would guess everyone would be peacefull because being selfish leads to their most probable death ^^... This is my own take on things . It may very well be wrong and if you see a good counter-argument to my opinion please give it ^^
That's just... insane.
Society isn't a deterministic and fully observable environment. Human beings are not fully rational. Nor identical.
The only outcome in such an environment is a small group of people seizing authoritarian rule for themselves, the only variable is how many people will die before that happens. Most likely, there would never be any opposition to the group of people that organizes themselves in an attempt to seize power - because whoever gets organized first already has a massive advantage.
Ok, Kiarip has been repeating the same fallacy to attack the idea of a right to healthcare for a few pages now and I don't think anyone has pointed out how flawed his reasoning was, so here goes.
He writes:
On January 05 2012 04:02 Kiarip wrote: In the United States, at least the democratic decisions can never take away a person's personal rights granted by the United States Constitution, this is important, because the majority rule can often times be ruthless, and unfair towards the minority, it's important that everyone's basic rights are preserved. The idea of a "right" to healthcare whichever way you spin it violates the rights of whoever provides the healthcare.
This is exactly in line with the argument made by Rand Paul in the following video:
Now, why is this a fallacy and a complete misrepresentation of the idea of a right to healthcare? Well, I actually already explained why on page 172, since Wegandi was guilty of the same fallacy. To quote myself: " the right to healthcare that Sanders evokes would not be opposable to other individuals but to the State - just like the right to counsel or the right to a civil trial by jury that appear in the US Bill of Rights (again, do you consider lawyers to be slaves?). The state wouldn't force any single individual to treat patients, it would provide financial retribution to those individuals willing to treat them (if you don't understand how this works, read this)".
So no, dear Kiarip, a right to healthcare would definitely not be "analogous to slavery" and "violat[ing] the rights of whoever provides the healthcare". IT WOULD NOT BE OPPOSABLE TO INDIVIDUALS. The STATE would be paying WILLING individuals to provide care. How is this violating the doctors' rights? If you consider this a waste of taxpayer's money feel free to argue so (even though I don't agree), but to argue that it violates the rights of the healthcare providers is a flat-out lie and a misrepresentation of the idea of a right to healthcare. Period.
Ok, now that I've debunked your little claim on this matter, let's move to our unfinished business that dates back to December 21st.
LOL this is like the basis for all his "ideas" on economic policy and he doesn't even understand his own over-simplified example.
Paul Krugman's "ideas" are an insult to the ideas that children have.
No, they're not. Calling you an idiot would, however, be an insult to idiots.
On December 21 2011 09:30 Kiarip wrote:
On December 21 2011 09:01 kwizach wrote:
On December 21 2011 02:38 allecto wrote: Getting back to the main point: in my opinion, none of these bailouts and stimulus packages worked, and I don't see any data backing up why they would've worked, especially in the long run.
Your opinion is wrong. Countless non-partisan studies have shown the stimulus had a very positive impact on the economy - it simply wasn't big enough to suffice.
right, and countless others have shown that it doesn't...
No, that claim is factually incorrect. But be my guest and provide me with several serious non-partisan studies showing the stimulus did not have a positive impact on the economy if you can.
User was temp banned for this post.
Here I brought you some link-flowers for your ban-grave.
1. First link: - The study does not examine the stimulus bill that was passed, it looks at the average effect of government spending - It does not address overall job growth but only PRIVATE job growth - In the footnote nr. 12, another paper is mentioned. I find this particular footnote interesting because it serves no real purpose except to mention ONE study that agrees with their findings. In the very sentences they quote from the said paper, however, it is also written that "[I]ncreases in government spending do lower unemployment" (the emphasis is mine), when looking at BOTH private sector jobs and public sector jobs.
2. Second link: - If you read the conclusions, the authors argue that they were unable to look at spillover effects, and that doing so "might result in estimates of a large positive jobs e ffect", since "[if] this type of spillover from interstate trade is widespread nationally, then the economy-wide jobs e ffect of the ARRA may be actually larger than what we find" - Even without taking into effect these effects, the study does not outright dismiss the possibility of a positive effect of the stimulus: "the best-case scenario for an effectual ARRA has the Act creating/saving a (point estimate) net 659 thousand jobs, mainly in government."
3. Third link: - Like the first link, this does not examine the stimulus bill that we were discussing - It is a short article in the WSJ and the methodology/findings can hardly be critically evaluated - It is argued that spending multipliers usually do not exceed one, not that government spending has zero/negative effects - The stimulus bill also included tax cuts, something the article says "boosts growth". This article therefore supports the idea that the bill had a positive effect - way to shoot yourself in the foot.
On January 05 2012 09:14 DoubleReed wrote: I don't understand. Right now we have public charity (like welfare and medicaid), and all he's suggesting is private charity. It's basically the same kind of idea, but rather than people being forced to pay, you would be expected to pay. I don't see how that changes the situation that significantly.
It changes the situation very drastically.
Social aid is not charity. It is something that is guaranteed by law. It is your right, it belongs to you as a citizen of that country. Nobody can legally deny it to you. The money you get from social aid belongs to you, in every sense of the term. It's not actually somebody else's money that was given to you, it's YOUR money, because that's what the law says.
Charity is driven by someone's "good will" (which in itself is unreliable, but not the core of the problem). The money you get from it is basically a gift. Moreover, private charities are governed by private interests. In fact, let's look at this in a more systematic way:
1. Private charity is potentially your only source of income 2. Private charity is governed by private interest 3. Private charity doesn't have an obligation to help you out
Now go ahead and put 2 and 2 together and you'll come to the conclusion that they OWN you, in a very literal fashion. They have the ability to make you vote whoever they want you to vote, to make you only buy products they want you to buy, to make you apply for jobs that they want you to apply for, to make you live where they want you to live. And if you want to qualify for their financial aid program, you have to suck it up.
And this is easily something that would actually happen in reality under such conditions.
Private charity is a fake thing anyways - it only stays to grow the image of the guy who gives out charity . I believe the libertarian idea of charity is banding people together to start programs for charity for people who genuinely need the help .
It's the same thing, with the same outcome.
Who decides who "genuinely" needs the help? Who decides who is qualified to receive that help? If these decisions are made by someone following their own private interest, and someone who is in control of all the money, the outcome is the same.
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
Its funny because the anti-libertarians are the ones who want to punish people for exercising their individual rights. They want to put people who get caught smoking weed too many times in jail to serve ridiculous overlengthy sentences. They allowed lobbyist groups to shut down Online Poker in the United States even though it is a perfectly legitimate past time in other NATO countries such as Canada, the UK. The current way of thinking says that you need to criminalize prostitution, even though many women choose of their own free will to go into prostitution because it can make them more money than doing some other forms of onerous work that they'd rather not do. When it comes to heavy handed punishments against people who are exercising freedoms that don't hurt anyone else, the current regime is much worse than a libertarian one.
And for the record, I think the war on drugs is a joke, (and one that benefits private prisons especially), and that prostitution *should* be legal.
My point was that the arguments being made for these opt-in systems is that "he fucked up, thus he deserves to lose his house".
Like, why stop at private fire departments? Let's disband the police, and let people buy into private security companies. Perhaps the government shouldn't build roads, and let private companies build them and charge people to drive on them. Let's get rid of public sewage plants, and allow people to buy into programs to filter water. Etc etc etc etc. I simply do not see how these things can be practically applied to a modern society with 315 million people in it.
I might actually support a lot of libertarian ideals if we lived in an *actual* fair society. The difference in opportunity between people born into wealth and people born into poverty is incomprehensible to too many people. That "50% of Americans that don't pay taxes" that conservatives are always complaining about? http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 That's how much money they make. That's how much money they actually have to live off of.
How are those people going to afford any of these services?
The counter-argument to your example of disbanding the police is imo , think of this . If in a crowd of 100 , every individual has a gun , would any of those 100 start shotting at another for personal material gain ? That would open himself to the aggression of others because he initiated in an act of violence ( and anyways , out of 100 people only 1 is capable of hurting others without careing in a situation of balance and peace ) so he will be seen as a missfit of that society . You attack others => you are opened to others attacking you . What you would say ... well the smartest will start a group and try to rule the society , but I believe there will be a counter-group to that group so it would be a gang of 50 against 50 , but since no1 stays to gain from a war between themselves without taking serious risks I would guess everyone would be peacefull because being selfish leads to their most probable death ^^... This is my own take on things . It may very well be wrong and if you see a good counter-argument to my opinion please give it ^^
I guess if you view each and every person as being better off armed with a lethal weapon 24/7 as an improvement of quality on life, then sure, this is a perfect argument.
On January 05 2012 09:14 DoubleReed wrote: I don't understand. Right now we have public charity (like welfare and medicaid), and all he's suggesting is private charity. It's basically the same kind of idea, but rather than people being forced to pay, you would be expected to pay. I don't see how that changes the situation that significantly.
It changes the situation very drastically.
Social aid is not charity. It is something that is guaranteed by law. It is your right, it belongs to you as a citizen of that country. Nobody can legally deny it to you. The money you get from social aid belongs to you, in every sense of the term. It's not actually somebody else's money that was given to you, it's YOUR money, because that's what the law says.
Charity is driven by someone's "good will" (which in itself is unreliable, but not the core of the problem). The money you get from it is basically a gift. Moreover, private charities are governed by private interests. In fact, let's look at this in a more systematic way:
1. Private charity is potentially your only source of income 2. Private charity is governed by private interest 3. Private charity doesn't have an obligation to help you out
Now go ahead and put 2 and 2 together and you'll come to the conclusion that they OWN you, in a very literal fashion. They have the ability to make you vote whoever they want you to vote, to make you only buy products they want you to buy, to make you apply for jobs that they want you to apply for, to make you live where they want you to live. And if you want to qualify for their financial aid program, you have to suck it up.
And this is easily something that would actually happen in reality under such conditions.
No, social aid is entitled to you by the government. You are completely owned by the government, in the exact same fashion. The government can legally deny it to you. The government can make you jump through just as many hoops. The only difference is you replace the government by some generous folks who want to help people.
I do not see how in any way that equates to slavery. There are plenty of people being helped by private charities all over the world. They are not slaves. Private charities can and do work, and it sounds like you don't respect their hard work.
And saying goodwill is "unreliable"? Are you sure about that, or are you just guessing? Because there is evidence for things like that.
On January 05 2012 09:33 koreasilver wrote: You're basically espousing a system that would lead to a form of aristocracy. I might as well just time travel my way back into Chosun.
The fact that it might lead to a form of aristocracy doesn't automatically discredit it. Some forms of aristocracy are arguably far superior to what we have now.
On January 05 2012 08:39 Haemonculus wrote: I think that's exactly my problem with so many of these libertarian arguments. It sounds more like the point is to punish those making decisions you disapprove of, rather than actually helping out other human beings.
Its funny because the anti-libertarians are the ones who want to punish people for exercising their individual rights. They want to put people who get caught smoking weed too many times in jail to serve ridiculous overlengthy sentences. They allowed lobbyist groups to shut down Online Poker in the United States even though it is a perfectly legitimate past time in other NATO countries such as Canada, the UK. The current way of thinking says that you need to criminalize prostitution, even though many women choose of their own free will to go into prostitution because it can make them more money than doing some other forms of onerous work that they'd rather not do. When it comes to heavy handed punishments against people who are exercising freedoms that don't hurt anyone else, the current regime is much worse than a libertarian one.
And for the record, I think the war on drugs is a joke, (and one that benefits private prisons especially), and that prostitution *should* be legal.
My point was that the arguments being made for these opt-in systems is that "he fucked up, thus he deserves to lose his house".
Like, why stop at private fire departments? Let's disband the police, and let people buy into private security companies. Perhaps the government shouldn't build roads, and let private companies build them and charge people to drive on them. Let's get rid of public sewage plants, and allow people to buy into programs to filter water. Etc etc etc etc. I simply do not see how these things can be practically applied to a modern society with 315 million people in it.
I might actually support a lot of libertarian ideals if we lived in an *actual* fair society. The difference in opportunity between people born into wealth and people born into poverty is incomprehensible to too many people. That "50% of Americans that don't pay taxes" that conservatives are always complaining about? http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 That's how much money they make. That's how much money they actually have to live off of.
How are those people going to afford any of these services?
The counter-argument to your example of disbanding the police is imo , think of this . If in a crowd of 100 , every individual has a gun , would any of those 100 start shotting at another for personal material gain ? That would open himself to the aggression of others because he initiated in an act of violence ( and anyways , out of 100 people only 1 is capable of hurting others without careing in a situation of balance and peace ) so he will be seen as a missfit of that society . You attack others => you are opened to others attacking you . What you would say ... well the smartest will start a group and try to rule the society , but I believe there will be a counter-group to that group so it would be a gang of 50 against 50 , but since no1 stays to gain from a war between themselves without taking serious risks I would guess everyone would be peacefull because being selfish leads to their most probable death ^^... This is my own take on things . It may very well be wrong and if you see a good counter-argument to my opinion please give it ^^
I guess if you view each and every person as being better off armed with a lethal weapon 24/7 as an improvement of quality on life, then sure, this is a perfect argument.
No it isn't, because it assumes that everyone is rational. Newsflash: people are not always rational. Guess what happens if one of them develops a brain tumor that causes his aggression to flare up and he gets mad at his ex (There are real life examples of this)? He pulls out his gun and shoots, then he gets shot. 2 people dead, one innocent, and that's if we're lucky enough for nobody to get hit in the crossfire. You know what the Britain model is? No guns for anyone, very few people are allowed to have guns. Even most police don't have guns. They also crack down much stricter on the gun trade. Guess what their murder rates are compared to those in the United States? It's much MUCH better.
EPT
