hetZaad,

Re-read what you just wrote, but attempt to define the multiple "we"s you used, over and over and over again. When you define the "we" each time, make sure that the people you are collectivizing into your "we" are willing participants.

Tell me if this causes you to find any criticisms or lapses in logic with your own thinking just now. If it doesn't, I will then take the time to go through this response paragraph by paragraph and explain what I do and don't agree with you on and then we can go from there.

I thought the point was crucial, and I addresed it in the thread where I presented an argument for AnCaps and why they should vote. It's pretty much the central issue in defending the action morally. The presence of choice.

Some of you are treating the political situation like you have a choice in the matter, when in reality there is a gun to your head. The consequences aren't as immediate as the metaphor of a bullet would imply, but they are just as deadly, and the ultimatums are just as limited. The wide range of options being put forth here is an illusion when you consider the actual consequences (or lack thereof) of most of the choices.

I argued that no morally relevant choice actually exists because the situation has been forced on you, the existence of that force invalidates judgments based on the premise that no force exists on you.

Once you accept the fact that the situation has been thrust on you, as it has been thrust upon all of us, it follows that no moral judgment can be made using the standard AnCaps apply to it.

pearls to swine

hetZaad,

Where do you think you derived the authority to speak for all "we" humans?

You don't see anything wrong with what you wrote in the context of attempting to speak for all of mankind? You don't see how you sound like every other social engineer who ever traipsed through history chanting the mantra of "I have the Final Solution for solving all of 'our' problems!"

You've "figured out" what "we" need and how to make it work-- constitutional government (apparently you have just woken up from a hibernation sequence which began several thousand years ago and are completely unaware that constitutional government has been tried... repeatedly... and has failed, that constitutional government has created the largest and most violent empire the world has ever known, the American Empire). Meanwhile, here am I, madvillain, just a little old individual in the face of your mighty scheme. What do I want? Meh, I just want to be left alone. But I can't be left alone! You won't leave me alone. You want to include me in your plan, "for my own good" I am sure.

According to your signature quote from Asimov, "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent." Government is violence. You are advocating government, of a constitutional variety, but government nonetheless. Does that make you incompetent? If so, why should I listen to anything you have to say on this subject?

Asimov's sentiments were echoed in a chapter from Allen Thornton's Laws of the Jungle http://erienet.net/~thornton/jlaws.html . In it, he said "When you advocate any government action, you must first believe that violence is the best answer to the question at hand." So, as you advocate government, does this mean you believe that violence is the best answer to the questions at hand?

pearls to swine

pearls to swine

hetZaad,

Your decades of research and scientific inquiry have failed you because you have managed to miss one simple truth above all others which necessitates the continual failure of what you advocate, which, might I remind you once more, has failed continually in the past:

Government is the abrogation and abnegation of law.

Law is something which exists naturally. Legislation is not law, although legislation can recognize existing natural law. Part of natural law is the existence of property rights, including man's right to property in himself and other objects which he either homesteads (initially mixes his labor with) or exchanges for with another on a voluntary basis.

Government, in any form, necessarily denies these rights and thus denies the possibility of the rule of law. It sets out from the beginning to do away with law while making claims of doing the opposite.

You CAN NOT have a lawful government, constitutional or otherwise, because all governments operate via violence and support themselves through taxation.

If you claim that your government will be voluntary, consented to, that taxes will be paid willingly... well then, you've now conceded the point to anarchy, for that is the "system" you are describing.

Anything else is violence, chaos and the absence of law.

pearls to swine

hetZaad,

Let's practice utilizing definitions here...

Government: an institution with a monopoly on violence within a defined geographical region.

There is NO LAW where there is government. Government is reflective of the absence of law. For a government to exist, individual rights MUST be compromised. This is necessary due to the nature of government-- it enforces its decrees through arbitrary acts of violence, it sustains itself through coercive tax-collection (which is a violation of an individual's right to property, part of Natural Law).

"Lawful government" is an oxymoron and doesn't and furthermore CAN'T exist. This is no utterance of faith, it's an observation of fact and a logical extrapolation made from proper definitions of government and law (natural law).

The only way a government could be lawful is if it were 100% (that is completely) voluntarily financed and voluntarily recognized/heeded by the individuals who consented to it's being so, but then you wouldn't have government, you'd have anarchy.


A few other notes:
1. Don't care if spontaneous anarchist organizations support my "human rights" (I think you mean individual rights) or not. I do know that NO government can, due to its nature as previously explained, recognize my individual rights, so I'll take my chances with anarchy. The worst possible outcome is that I get something even LESS respectful of my rights than government, at which point it will be entirely my problem to deal with. More likely, I'll get an outcome that is either as bad as government, or better, in terms of respecting my rights, in which case I'd prefer a system that is as bad as government when it comes to violating my rights but which at least doesn't sit around lecturing me about what a great system it is and how it does such a swell job of recognizing my rights.

2. Cease psychoanalyzing me immediately. You're not my friend and you do not know me in real life. You have no idea how violent or non-violent I am in person and I haven't given you enough information here with my various thoughts for you to ever come close to a correct diagnosis so BACK OFF.

3. However, along the lines of what the relative level of/tolerance for violence in a "society" says about the power-structures available to it (government vs. anarchy), you do see yet more problems with your proposed solution of constitutional government (which has been tried and failed, might I repeatedly add), don't you? If humans are as diseased and dangerous as you claim when it comes to violence, you'd have to be a pretty sick puppy yourself to recommend that a few of these barbaric creatures have the legitimate, legal authority to wield violence without fear of retribution against all the others in the form of a constitutional government. You might also realize that if people are as deeply violent as you say they are, it doesn't matter how soundly or smartly you write your constitution and implement your constitutional government, it WILL be undermined by the pervasive acceptance of violent means and measures inhabiting the minds of the body politic.

This is yet another reason why RP, if he somehow managed to get elected, would be the most ineffectual champion of liberty. If he somehow got into power, while a large majority of the country, including ALL the elected representatives in the government besides RP, still had violent socialism in their hearts, he would accomplish jack diddly-squat on his list of "Parts of government to downsize/abolish." This was something SM mentioned in one of his podcasts (which many of you seem to hateful or spiteful to bother listening to "critically," rather than "hypercritically" as evidenced by some of your responses), in which he suggested a metaphor of someone trying to infiltrate a Hispanic-interest group and then convince the group to not only renounce their goals but to actively work against the interests of Hispanics (whatever that might be). The equivalence he was trying for was in viewing RP as that person, a man who is trying to infiltrate the heart of socialism, which is designed and supported by violent socialists to promote further socialism, and somehow convincing all those violent socialists to not only not be violent socialists anymore, but to bring all the other violent socialists who got them into power on messages of violent socialism their freedom through the violent socialism of the government.

4. hetZaad, I read that article you linked to on your site where you made the outlandish claim of solving the minarchism vs. anarchism debate and deciding a win for minarchism in the form of a constitutional government to solve all the world's problems, and I have to be completely honest with you... your command of written English just isn't good enough to be writing something like that. Grammar and spelling errors abounded, to the point that I had an incredibly difficult time gleaning your message or following your thought process. It came off a lot of the time as the rantings and ravings of a deranged lunatic. Then again, maybe you are one, in which case you're communicating much more clearly than I initially realized...

seriously though, your written English is undoubtedly 500x better than my written whatever language is your native one (Dutch?), but that doesn't change the fact that you haven't really mastered English enough to be attempting intense philosophical/political debates without expecting your partners to be a tad bit confused every now and then.

6. Try to give me a heads up when you get to the point where you're ready to implement your "Constitutional Government Plan For World Peace, Benevolence and Human Prosperity" and if you can, also, try to give me a rough idea over which geographical territory YOU will arbitrarily claim as your domain where you can exercise your illegitimate and unlawful claim to unlimited violence. That way I can do my best to go find a sandy cave somewhere far away from that area and bury my head in the sand while I wait for your plan to inevitably implode violently on itself (violent means lead to violent ends), which may take several centuries, leaving me without an opportunity to laugh hysterically and shout "Told ya so! Told ya so!" but which will, nevertheless, fail as it must for all the reasons I mentioned.

And hopefully you don't find my cave in the meantime and proclaim it as your sovereign territory, because that'd really screw things up for poor old me who just wants to be left alone and wants no part in your grand social plans. I just want to be left alone, including be left to deal with the consequences of wanting to be left alone, on my own.

So sorry to hear you've been spending decades on what turns out to be a very simple problem with a very simple answer: leave people the hell alone to sort their problems out on their own. Wish there were a few more sound economists in here to back me up on this, feeling mighty lonely right about now.

Ah, but that's the life of the individual sometimes, and it's the life I've proudly chosen as my own!

pearls to swine

hetZaad,

Can you explain to me how your "lawful government" would work without resorting to violence? And if it works without resorting to violence, can you explain how this is materially different than the conditions which might exist amongst free individuals under anarchy? And if your "lawful government" must resort to violence to exist/operate, can you explain to me how it's use of violence is, in fact, lawful?

I imagine there are quite a few people here besides just me who would like these several questions explained. I thought I understood your position on each of these questions but apparently I don't, because everytime I provide what I think to be the explanation, you start accusing me of being a religious person. Or maybe I am mistaken in thinking that anyone but you (like me, perhaps) is capable of scientific inquiry and the use of logic to figure things out, in which case anything I say that is in disagreement with your points is, by definition, religious bantering?

You're welcome to share with me and others some of your empirical research, but in the meantime please just answer the questions I asked above, which I will re-type now in numerical order which you're welcome to respond to by numeral in your response:

1. How would your "lawful government" exist/operate without resorting to violence?
2. If your "lawful government" would, in fact exist/operate by resorting to violence, please explain how this would be "lawful" violence.
3. If your "lawful government" exists/operates without resorting to violence, please explain how this is different from the conditions which would exist under anarchy, in which every individual is free to voluntarily interact with every other individual (which includes the possibility of some kind of completely-voluntarily supported and adhered-to political organization such as a government)?

Thanks very much, looking forward to your replies, as right now I feel like I am missing quite a few pieces of the puzzle.