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I understand that's the conservative/libertarian position - however the government forces you to pay taxes to support infrastructure and other things. Are you

I understand that's the conservative/libertarian position - however the government forces you to pay taxes to support infrastructure and other things. Are you against that as well?

mindcrime 10y ago
I understand that's the conservative/libertarian position FWIW, conflating conservatism and libertarianism is a mistake. There's some incidental overlap, just like there is between libertarianism and liberalism, but that's pretty much the extent of it. Are you against that as well? Yes, of course. Basically, if the word "force" is involved, it's wrong. Come up with a way to collectively fund infrastructure that's voluntary and I'm all for it. But if your idea needs force / violence to be executed, then, well, maybe it isn't such a good idea after all.
- charles-salvia 10y ago
  Right now, I can't think of a good way to have everyone voluntarily fund infrastructure. No nation-state has ever functioned without the threat of state-imposed force. It's not a pleasant reality, but nobody really knows how to do better at the moment. The only known alternative is scaling back civilization to pre-city-state conditions. But perhaps you have some suggestions on how to actually do this. Regardless, this idea you have - that governmental "force", or any kind of institutional force that suppresses your individual will, is some kind of ultimate evil - seems very misguided. The laws of biology and physics will override your will and force you to degenerate and die. Micro-organisms will force you to cough up blood and die. Wild animals will force you to give up your flesh and die. Collective human institutions are the only things that have successfully imbued individual humans with an order of magnitude more power and more rights than our primitive ancestral conditions would allow. Many of these human institutions are also abusive, however there doesn't seem to be an alternative to forming collective human institutions that require forced large-scale group efforts if we want to actually not die of malaria all the time.

I understand that's the conservative/libertarian position - however the government forces you to pay taxes to support infrastructure and other things. Are you against that as well?

mindcrime 10y ago

I understand that's the conservative/libertarian position FWIW, conflating conservatism and libertarianism is a mistake. There's some incidental overlap, just like there is between libertarianism and liberalism, but that's pretty much the extent of it. Are you against that as well? Yes, of course. Basically, if the word "force" is involved, it's wrong. Come up with a way to collectively fund infrastructure that's voluntary and I'm all for it. But if your idea needs force / violence to be executed, then, well, maybe it isn't such a good idea after all.

charles-salvia 10y ago
Right now, I can't think of a good way to have everyone voluntarily fund infrastructure. No nation-state has ever functioned without the threat of state-imposed force. It's not a pleasant reality, but nobody really knows how to do better at the moment. The only known alternative is scaling back civilization to pre-city-state conditions. But perhaps you have some suggestions on how to actually do this. Regardless, this idea you have - that governmental "force", or any kind of institutional force that suppresses your individual will, is some kind of ultimate evil - seems very misguided. The laws of biology and physics will override your will and force you to degenerate and die. Micro-organisms will force you to cough up blood and die. Wild animals will force you to give up your flesh and die. Collective human institutions are the only things that have successfully imbued individual humans with an order of magnitude more power and more rights than our primitive ancestral conditions would allow. Many of these human institutions are also abusive, however there doesn't seem to be an alternative to forming collective human institutions that require forced large-scale group efforts if we want to actually not die of malaria all the time.