I'm So Embarrassed That I Ever Called Myself A "liberal."

[Queequeg]

Saying you would rather be free is implicitly accepting the NAP, and therefore exposing libertarian politics.

That isn’t exactly true. A lot of political systems incorporate what has been relabeled as the Non Aggression Principle. I would say I am espousing a classical liberal view a la John Locke.

IMO Libertarians make a fetish out of the idea of individual rights. They seem to ignore the concept of the Social Contract where we agree to give up some rights so that other rights may be preserved by the State or that society as a whole is improved. This “no victim, no crime” BS is one such example. Being against Anti-Discrimination laws and being for open borders would be two others.

 

[Queequeg]

Here's my point, I'll spell it out:
1) assuming the "elite" control the world, ie your ability to make choices and use your body and resources you can acquire to build and trade as you see fit towards your desired ends
2) you see this as "bad"
3) how can you decide that this is bad, unless you have a prior concept of the idea that liberty in your body, property, and life choices is "good?"

Do you not realize that, in order to refer to elite control of the world as "bad," you have to already have baked in the concept of the NAP into that statement? That's all I was saying, but somehow you missed it because you think that you don't have preconceptions baked into your statements. That's very dangerous.

By the way, I think it's a good preconception to have, the NAP. It's good that you see a conspiratorial world-government that uses force to control others as bad, but you can't see that as bad without thinking the force part is bad, without believe in the NAP.

I am pretty sure that was not the point you were trying to make. As I recall you were making the argument that economic laws cannot be defied by the elite, economics is a real science, and that the elite are not implementing real versions of economics theories such as free trade so you cant blame the theory. Nobody disagreed with that.

 

[Kyle M]

That isn’t exactly true. A lot of political systems incorporate what has been relabeled as the Non Aggression Principle. I would say I am espousing a classical liberal view a la John Locke.

IMO Libertarians make a fetish out of the idea of individual rights. They seem to ignore the concept of the Social Contract where we agree to give up some rights so that other rights may be preserved by the State or that society as a whole is improved. This “no victim, no crime” BS is one such example. Being against Anti-Discrimination laws and being for open borders would be two others.

Just because the NAP predates what we today call libertarianism doesn't mean that you aren't still using that ideology. You will notice that I didn't say libertarianism *created* the concept of the NAP. It only codified it as the central political principle of its ideology

Where did you learn about the social contract? Have you considered what the logical implications of a doctrine like that are? Or are you just taking it on faith from Rousseau or one of those others terrible people from the past, or *shudder* a college professor?

 

[Kyle M]

I am pretty sure that was not the point you were trying to make. As I recall you were making the argument that economic laws cannot be defied by the elite, economics is a real science, and that the elite are not implementing real versions of economics theories such as free trade so you cant blame the theory. Nobody disagreed with that.

That was my initial point, but I have been responding to two arguments. One is that economics isn't real cuz "muh illuminati." The other is that the NAP isn't real because people can break it. That above argument was for the latter, I feel I have sufficiently defended economics already. Again, if the elites didn't need to follow economic laws, why bother printing money? Why not just snap their fingers and have whatever they want? Because of scarcity and the physical realities codified in economic laws, that's why. Again, an airplane doesn't defy gravity by flying, it has to work within physical laws like gravity to achieve sufficient lift to fly. The elites do not defy economics, they use force and fraud within the laws of economics to achieve their ends.

 

[Queequeg]

Just because the NAP predates what we today call libertarianism doesn't mean that you aren't still using that ideology. You will notice that I didn't say libertarianism *created* the concept of the NAP. It only codified it as the central political principle of its ideology

Where did you learn about the social contract? Have you considered what the logical implications of a doctrine like that are? Or are you just taking it on faith from Rousseau or one of those others terrible people from the past, or *shudder* a college professor?

Actually if you are going to use that logic, then you are espousing a classical liberal ideology. Not everyone who drinks milk is following Ray Peat.

And yes I learned economics in undergrad and grad school plus through self-study and work experience. I think you are demonstrating the dangers of autodidacticism. Since there is no one to challenge your beliefs, I think you have wandered off into the fantasy lands of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.

 

[Queequeg]

That was my initial point, but I have been responding to two arguments. One is that economics isn't real cuz "muh illuminati." The other is that the NAP isn't real because people can break it. That above argument was for the latter, I feel I have sufficiently defended economics already. Again, if the elites didn't need to follow economic laws, why bother printing money? Why not just snap their fingers and have whatever they want? Because of scarcity and the physical realities codified in economic laws, that's why. Again, an airplane doesn't defy gravity by flying, it has to work within physical laws like gravity to achieve sufficient lift to fly. The elites do not defy economics, they use force and fraud within the laws of economics to achieve their ends.

You are still making arguments against things that nobody has ever said. Maybe it would be helpful if you reread the thread to see what @goodandevil originally said and what I then tried to explain. Its nothing like what you imagine it to be.

 

[Kyle M]

You are still making arguments against things that nobody has ever said. Maybe it would be helpful if you reread the thread to see what @goodandevil originally said and what I then tried to explain. Its nothing like what you imagine it to be.

Did you read what he wrote? It was insane, and his further slips into demented ad hominem provide further evidence for his paranoid, self-reverent view of the entire history of the world.

 

[Kyle M]

Actually if you are going to use that logic, then you are espousing a classical liberal ideology. Not everyone who drinks milk is following Ray Peat.

And yes I learned economics in undergrad and grad school plus through self-study and work experience. I think you are demonstrating the dangers of autodidacticism. Since there is no one to challenge your beliefs, I think you have wandered off into the fantasy lands of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.

What economics did you learn that disprove things like subjective value theory or action axiom? I'm so tired of people saying ancap/libertarianism is dumb without actually taking one of the core concepts, like the NAP, and arguing against it. It's like if I just said that you, personally, are stupid, without actually responding to what you're writing.

Ray Peat would be a great example of the "dangers" of autodidactism. Dangers to the mainstream state line on subjects.

It's funny within the course of 24 hours I've been accused of being too "book learned" or not being able to change my mind due to too much schooling, and then from you called a dangerous autodidact. This contradiction is probably the greatest endorsement of what I'm saying I could ask for, you guys are grasping at ad hominem straws regardless of the length or material.

P.S. - you didn't follow my logic vis a vis the NAP and classical liberalism and libertarianism. It would be like if the paleo diet people talked about eating organs first, then Ray Peat said it, saying he is paleo. Obviously you can take from previous belief systems, and cut out what is wrong, and when you codify the new combination it is a new system. The fact that someone previously followed one of its tenets doesn't say anything about the new or old system per se, only that that particular tenet was implicitly believed by followers of that previous sytem.

 

[Queequeg]

Did you read what he wrote? It was insane, and his further slips into demented ad hominem provide further evidence for his paranoid, self-reverent view of the entire history of the world.

Yes and I agree with his first post that I tried to explain. Which is only that the ruling elite use economic theory against us, not that they don't understand economics or are immune from it's laws. I think you must agree with that because its not a very controversial idea if you subscribe to the idea of a ruling elite.

 

[Queequeg]

What economics did you learn that disprove things like subjective value theory or action axiom? I'm so tired of people saying ancap/libertarianism is dumb without actually taking one of the core concepts, like the NAP, and arguing against it. It's like if I just said that you, personally, are stupid, without actually responding to what you're writing.

Ray Peat would be a great example of the "dangers" of autodidactism. Dangers to the mainstream state line on subjects.

It's funny within the course of 24 hours I've been accused of being too "book learned" or not being able to change my mind due to too much schooling, and then from you called a dangerous autodidact. This contradiction is probably the greatest endorsement of what I'm saying I could ask for, you guys are grasping at ad hominem straws regardless of the length or material.

P.S. - you didn't follow my logic vis a vis the NAP and classical liberalism and libertarianism. It would be like if the paleo diet people talked about eating organs first, then Ray Peat said it, saying he is paleo. Obviously you can take from previous belief systems, and cut out what is wrong, and when you codify the new combination it is a new system. The fact that someone previously followed one of its tenets doesn't say anything about the new or old system per se, only that that particular tenet was implicitly believed by followers of that previous sytem.

I think had already mentioned that I agree with several ideas from Liberalism/Libertarianism. My issues isn't with any of the issues you mention but rather the extremes to which these ideas are taken. I mentioned three specific examples that I disagreed with. What are your thoughts on those?

 

[Kyle M]

Yes and I agree with his first post that I tried to explain. Which is only that the ruling elite use economic theory against us, not that they don't understand economics or are immune from it's laws. I think you must agree with that because its not a very controversial idea if you subscribe to the idea of a ruling elite.

Agreed. Imo you soften his statements which were not as measured and reasonable as the exact thing you just said, but w/e

 

[Kyle M]

I think had already mentioned that I agree with several ideas from Liberalism/Libertarianism. My issues isn't with any of the issues you mention but rather the extremes to which these ideas are taken. I mentioned three specific examples that I disagreed with. What are your thoughts on those?

I don't have the time to look at them again, just about to get up and throw something in the spec, but I'll look at it. In short though I believe in reductio arguments, so if something is dumb at the very large or very small it's *likely* not philosophically sound at all.

 

[Kyle M]

IMO Libertarians make a fetish out of the idea of individual rights. They seem to ignore the concept of the Social Contract where we agree to give up some rights so that other rights may be preserved by the State or that society as a whole is improved. This “no victim, no crime” BS is one such example. Being against Anti-Discrimination laws and being for open borders would be two others.

These are the 3 examples?

1) no victim, no crime - so how is crime decided and/or prosecuted without a victim? What does crime mean, what do rights mean? This isn't much of a question. Victimless crimes, like thought crimes ("hate" crimes, that it's worse to shoot someone in the face thinking you hate blacks then thinking about cookies), drug use (people on this thread should thoroughly appreciate the problem with these laws), prostitution, gambling, practicing medicine or any other profession without a state license. Which one of those should be punished, by whom, and in what way? And from whence derives the source of justice to do so?

Are you aware of the distinction between positive and negative rights?

2) anti-discrimination laws - so you're saying that you should not be allowed to interact with who you choose, and not with who you do not choose? Should you be forced to date someone you don't want to? How is that different than being forced to give a massage (as a massage therapist) to someone you don't want to? What about customer discrimination? If a black man walks into a donut shop, sees it's owned by a Korean, and says "I was going to buy a donut here, but I hate yellow bastards" and walks out, should he be forced back in to the shop to buy the donut? If not, why? Why should the shop owner have a different set of laws than the patron? Is their property (their own bodies, their money, and their worldly goods) in a different legal category because one of them calls himself a shop owner while the other does not?

3) open borders - without the state, all property would be owned, so there would be property rights issues where someone would "move" from one place to another by simply making housing arrangements. If you wanted to live in a community that didn't let in Jews or Germans or Hulus, you can choose that. If you want to live in a community that allows anyone in, you can do that. State-controlled borders are a control mechanism that takes property rights away from the individuals. As Judge Andrew Napolitano said in an interview with Nick Gillespie, "if I want to invite my cousins from Italy over to live in my house, that is not the government's concern." Now, in a welfare state, it does become the government's concern in a sense, but obviously a libertarian social order would not have welfare enforced by state violence.

So look, there are a lot of really good books and lectures that answer these questions 12092350985 times better than I just did, and I just know you and everyone else that attacks libertarianism using the same "muh social contract" type arguments haven't even tried to get into them. That's fine. But stop pretending like you have a question I can't answer, when you haven't even looked it up. These questions have been answered a million times, very eloquently. If you just read tweets or whatever then I can understand thinking these are such hard questions, but they are about as difficult as someone in 1820 asking how we will get the cotton without slavery. Small minded questions.

 

[Queequeg]

I don't have the time to look at them again, just about to get up and throw something in the spec, but I'll look at it. In short though I believe in reductio arguments, so if something is dumb at the very large or very small it's *likely* not philosophically sound at all.

that's actually a logical fallacy whose full name is reductio absurdum. You have to evaluate an argument as it is given and not at its unrealistic extremes.

 

[Kyle M]

that's actually a logical fallacy whose full name is reductio absurdum. You have to evaluate an argument as it is given and not at its unrealistic extremes.

I don't agree with that being a fallacy. For example, if you said it's wrong that someone murdered 10 people, but didn't believe murdering one person is wrong, that's illogical. Murder is wrong whether it's 1, 10, or 100 people. That principle works for most things, but people don't have the precision of thought to realize it. The social contract explodes under this scrutiny.

 

[Queequeg]

These are the 3 examples?

1) no victim, no crime - so how is crime decided and/or prosecuted without a victim? What does crime mean, what do rights mean? This isn't much of a question. Victimless crimes, like thought crimes ("hate" crimes, that it's worse to shoot someone in the face thinking you hate blacks then thinking about cookies), drug use (people on this thread should thoroughly appreciate the problem with these laws), prostitution, gambling, practicing medicine or any other profession without a state license. Which one of those should be punished, by whom, and in what way? And from whence derives the source of justice to do so?

Are you aware of the distinction between positive and negative rights?

2) anti-discrimination laws - so you're saying that you should not be allowed to interact with who you choose, and not with who you do not choose? Should you be forced to date someone you don't want to? How is that different than being forced to give a massage (as a massage therapist) to someone you don't want to? What about customer discrimination? If a black man walks into a donut shop, sees it's owned by a Korean, and says "I was going to buy a donut here, but I hate yellow bastards" and walks out, should he be forced back in to the shop to buy the donut? If not, why? Why should the shop owner have a different set of laws than the patron? Is their property (their own bodies, their money, and their worldly goods) in a different legal category because one of them calls himself a shop owner while the other does not?

3) open borders - without the state, all property would be owned, so there would be property rights issues where someone would "move" from one place to another by simply making housing arrangements. If you wanted to live in a community that didn't let in Jews or Germans or Hulus, you can choose that. If you want to live in a community that allows anyone in, you can do that. State-controlled borders are a control mechanism that takes property rights away from the individuals. As Judge Andrew Napolitano said in an interview with Nick Gillespie, "if I want to invite my cousins from Italy over to live in my house, that is not the government's concern." Now, in a welfare state, it does become the government's concern in a sense, but obviously a libertarian social order would not have welfare enforced by state violence.

So look, there are a lot of really good books and lectures that answer these questions 12092350985 times better than I just did, and I just know you and everyone else that attacks libertarianism using the same "muh social contract" type arguments haven't even tried to get into them. That's fine. But stop pretending like you have a question I can't answer, when you haven't even looked it up. These questions have been answered a million times, very eloquently. If you just read tweets or whatever then I can understand thinking these are such hard questions, but they are about as difficult as someone in 1820 asking how we will get the cotton without slavery. Small minded questions.

I had no illusion that you wouldn’t be able to answer those questions. I just wanted to see how bad your answers would be. And you didn’t disappoint. There are no good answers to them because Libertarianism is a flawed concept that doesn’t work in the real world. It is based on individuality taken to a ridiculous extreme just as communism is based on social responsibilities taken to a ridiculous extreme. As the Buddha said, the truth doesn't lie at the extremes but along the middle path.

1) No victim no crime. This belief holds until it doesn’t. Going 100 miles down the highway doesn’t have a specific victim but it is in everyone’s collective interest to enforce speeding tickets to reduce car fatalities involving innocent fellow drivers. Keeping beauticians from performing cosmetic surgery with silicone caulking as has happened in Miami is in Society's interest. The societal cost to require everyone to personally research the competency of every professional would be a huge waste of resources and an impossible task. Just because there are many examples of Government overreach doesnt mean that all such laws should be removed.

2) Anti discrimination laws – here are some good examples of reductio absurdum, not one of your examples is very realistic. How about one from history should Jackie Robinson be forced to sleep on the bus and go without dinner because the only hotel in town doesn’t allow black people to sleep or eat there? Or that major corporation can refuse to hire women because they might get pregnant? Individual rights cannot be divorced from societal obligations.

3) Open borders- ah the great Fox news philosopher and Libertarian sock puppet. The fact is we do have a social safety net and that is not going anywhere. Judge Napolitano’s cousin doesn’t cause much of a problem but collectively 14-30 million illegal aliens do. They greatly affect the quality of life on the lowest rungs of society by dramatically lowering wages as well as causing a huge drain on State and Local governments. Getting back to @goodandevil’s point, this is just one way that the elite’s will use Libertarian thinking to push through more open immigration laws while doing nothing about reducing the welfare state.

 

[Queequeg]

I don't agree with that being a fallacy. For example, if you said it's wrong that someone murdered 10 people, but didn't believe murdering one person is wrong, that's illogical. Murder is wrong whether it's 1, 10, or 100 people. That principle works for most things, but people don't have the precision of thought to realize it. The social contract explodes under this scrutiny.

I am not getting the sense of great precision of anything and no, the social contract doesn't go anywhere. None of your examples have been very realistic and therefore not very meaningful. It is quite ironic though how you use reductio ad absurdum to defend against the charge of reductio ad absurdum.

 

[signalguy]

I'm embarrassed that I ever called myself a conservative and wasted good money on the National Review when I was in college.

 

[Kyle M]

ah the great Fox news philosopher and Libertarian sock puppet

Have you ever read a Napolitano book? You are full of prejudice and ignorance. Oh well.

 

[Queequeg]

Have you ever read a Napolitano book? You are full of prejudice and ignorance. Oh well.

I have seen him on TV and admit that he is a very smart man but he, like everyone on TV, is playing a role. The comment above about the Pied Piper and how the elite uses ideologies against us comes to mind. He usually has much better arguments than that one about his cousin coming over for dinner. It seems Libertarians have a need for false analogies and other assorted logical fallacies. I wonder why.

Your use of personal attacks after just complaining about being personally attacked and calling someone prejudiced after defending the concept of segregated stores is a little sad.

The fact that you completely ignored my entire post must mean that you agree with it. I am glad.