6 ms·

As libertarian, I couldn't disagree more. The fundamental difference between us is that you would gladly have your opinions and preferences imposed upon your ne

by cubix 16y ago

As libertarian, I couldn't disagree more. The fundamental difference between us is that you would gladly have your opinions and preferences imposed upon your neighbours with the threat of force, and I believe that all human interaction ought to be voluntary. I want discussion, reason, and persuasion to be used to solve society's ills; you want the gun. Yours is the mature position?

caffeine 16y ago
It's the realistic position.
- cubix 16y ago
  So was slavery at one point.
jberryman 16y ago
Your comment reads like breathless Ayn Rand fan fiction.
- dualogy 16y ago
  Yes she made the same points. What's yours?
joeyo 16y ago
> I want discussion, reason, and persuasion to be used to > solve society's ills; you want the gun. What do you do with criminals in your utopia? Discuss their crimes with them and persuade them to pay restitution?
- dualogy 16y ago
  Retaliate by the same natural right to your own person that forbids you to initiate force against others.
  - macrael 16y ago
    So, kill them? How do you decide if that is justified? If you have evidence that a man robbed you, are you allowed to seek him out and steal back what was taken from you? What if he ate it? To kill him? How does the society know that you found the right man? What if you got it wrong? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
    - dualogy 16y ago
      So many books have been written about this. If you are genuinely curious, read The Production of Security (and justice is covered too) and other Rothbard or Hoppe writings. Joe Civilian will likely seek out producers of police services and insurance services (rather than rely on his own daily gang fights), both of which will out of self-interest police each other against abusive behavior, and private courts of law have often worked exceedingly well in the short spans of history where they were permitted by oversight or accident.
- monos 16y ago
  > Discuss their crimes with them and persuade them > to pay restitution? Why restitution? In some cases - violent crimes - any amount of money would not be enough. Punishment has no positive effect for society. Discussing and admitting the crimes would help the victim and be cheaper. In our current law system the victim, who is the one we should pay most attention to, is mostly ignored. For more on this controversial standpoint read up on how Tutsi & Hutu learnt to live together after the genocide. or: When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/0691148643 http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/0691148643
macrael 16y ago
Well, you've done the Ayn Randian thing here, and distilled a very complex issue into two different polarizing viewpoints. Saying that I, or the previous commenter whom I mostly agree with, "would gladly have [our] opinions and preferences imposed [our] neighbours with the threat of force" is wrong, and not very conducive to debate. To say that we "want the gun to solve society's ills" is even more so. Democracy is supposed to be a grand discussion. I can't have my opinions forced on others, we all have to talk and come to an agreement on how things should be done. So, thinks like jury duty and social security were put into place to attempt to solve problems like "how can we best determine if someone is guilty of a crime?" and "what can we do about old people who have worked their whole lives but are reduced to eating cat food because they have no money and no real ability to make more?" Now, ideally, these decisions could be made by consensus. Every single person in the country could agree on the right way to do things. But, having participated in a consensus based community for a number of years, I can tell you that it does not scale. So instead, majority rules (with checks and balances, in the US). My understanding is that your viewpoint would be that, while we can all discuss possible solutions to these problems and work on making our country a better place together, no individual should be coerced into supporting the solutions. I certainly see a lot of merit in this view. It seems fundamentally fair and respectful of personal freedoms in a way that our current democracy perhaps doesn't. However, I see it as less fair than our current system in other, important, ways. Mainly, it is difficult to separate out the ways in which governmental programs benefit you in a useful way that would allow people to not receive some of those benefits. We are all benefited by not having poor people, young and old, dying in our streets. It seems fair to me to say "if you want to be a part of our community, you have to play by our rules" What should be great about democracy as compared to many other forms of government, is that by becoming a part of a community, you are given a path to be a part of shaping those rules. This is long, so I will stop. I'm still very much in the process of working out what I think about all of this, in fact, writing it here was helpful for me. I'd love to hear what you think.
- cubix 16y ago
  We are all benefited by not having poor people, young and old, dying in our streets. I don't want to see people dying on the streets, you don't, presumably, and almost everyone I have had this discussion with has the same concern. Isn't it reasonable to assume that the more educated and productive members of society would be willing to bear this burden without having it squeezed out of them by threat of jail? You hear "I want to make the world a better place" so often it has become cliché. I donate to charities under our current system; I would be more inclined to do so if I weren't deprived of 40 or 50% of my income by the state. Moreover, private charity would be far more accountable than welfare programs since "customers" could take their money elsewhere. Clearly there is a demand for efficient charity services, and it could be readily met on the free market by entrepreneurs. We've seen remarkable generosity this past week on HN. I think it tends to come to the surface when people are interacting in free and voluntary circumstances. A completely free society is not something I expect to see in my life time, but that doesn't mean it is unattainable by future generations. Many Western values we take for granted today would have seemed Utopian just a century or two ago -- the abolition of slavery, women and children's rights, the general decline of racism, and so on. You accuse me of over simplifying, but it's unlikely the abolitionists would have made the progress they did without an unequivocal denunciation of slavery. In response they heard something along the lines of "[you have] distilled a very complex issue into two different polarizing viewpoints".

by cubix 16y ago

caffeine 16y ago

It's the realistic position.

cubix 16y ago
So was slavery at one point.

jberryman 16y ago

Your comment reads like breathless Ayn Rand fan fiction.

dualogy 16y ago
Yes she made the same points. What's yours?

joeyo 16y ago

> I want discussion, reason, and persuasion to be used to > solve society's ills; you want the gun. What do you do with criminals in your utopia? Discuss their crimes with them and persuade them to pay restitution?

dualogy 16y ago
Retaliate by the same natural right to your own person that forbids you to initiate force against others.
- macrael 16y ago
  So, kill them? How do you decide if that is justified? If you have evidence that a man robbed you, are you allowed to seek him out and steal back what was taken from you? What if he ate it? To kill him? How does the society know that you found the right man? What if you got it wrong? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
  - dualogy 16y ago
    So many books have been written about this. If you are genuinely curious, read The Production of Security (and justice is covered too) and other Rothbard or Hoppe writings. Joe Civilian will likely seek out producers of police services and insurance services (rather than rely on his own daily gang fights), both of which will out of self-interest police each other against abusive behavior, and private courts of law have often worked exceedingly well in the short spans of history where they were permitted by oversight or accident.
monos 16y ago
> Discuss their crimes with them and persuade them > to pay restitution? Why restitution? In some cases - violent crimes - any amount of money would not be enough. Punishment has no positive effect for society. Discussing and admitting the crimes would help the victim and be cheaper. In our current law system the victim, who is the one we should pay most attention to, is mostly ignored. For more on this controversial standpoint read up on how Tutsi & Hutu learnt to live together after the genocide. or: When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/0691148643 http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/0691148643

macrael 16y ago

Well, you've done the Ayn Randian thing here, and distilled a very complex issue into two different polarizing viewpoints. Saying that I, or the previous commenter whom I mostly agree with, "would gladly have [our] opinions and preferences imposed [our] neighbours with the threat of force" is wrong, and not very conducive to debate. To say that we "want the gun to solve society's ills" is even more so. Democracy is supposed to be a grand discussion. I can't have my opinions forced on others, we all have to talk and come to an agreement on how things should be done. So, thinks like jury duty and social security were put into place to attempt to solve problems like "how can we best determine if someone is guilty of a crime?" and "what can we do about old people who have worked their whole lives but are reduced to eating cat food because they have no money and no real ability to make more?" Now, ideally, these decisions could be made by consensus. Every single person in the country could agree on the right way to do things. But, having participated in a consensus based community for a number of years, I can tell you that it does not scale. So instead, majority rules (with checks and balances, in the US). My understanding is that your viewpoint would be that, while we can all discuss possible solutions to these problems and work on making our country a better place together, no individual should be coerced into supporting the solutions. I certainly see a lot of merit in this view. It seems fundamentally fair and respectful of personal freedoms in a way that our current democracy perhaps doesn't. However, I see it as less fair than our current system in other, important, ways. Mainly, it is difficult to separate out the ways in which governmental programs benefit you in a useful way that would allow people to not receive some of those benefits. We are all benefited by not having poor people, young and old, dying in our streets. It seems fair to me to say "if you want to be a part of our community, you have to play by our rules" What should be great about democracy as compared to many other forms of government, is that by becoming a part of a community, you are given a path to be a part of shaping those rules. This is long, so I will stop. I'm still very much in the process of working out what I think about all of this, in fact, writing it here was helpful for me. I'd love to hear what you think.

cubix 16y ago
We are all benefited by not having poor people, young and old, dying in our streets. I don't want to see people dying on the streets, you don't, presumably, and almost everyone I have had this discussion with has the same concern. Isn't it reasonable to assume that the more educated and productive members of society would be willing to bear this burden without having it squeezed out of them by threat of jail? You hear "I want to make the world a better place" so often it has become cliché. I donate to charities under our current system; I would be more inclined to do so if I weren't deprived of 40 or 50% of my income by the state. Moreover, private charity would be far more accountable than welfare programs since "customers" could take their money elsewhere. Clearly there is a demand for efficient charity services, and it could be readily met on the free market by entrepreneurs. We've seen remarkable generosity this past week on HN. I think it tends to come to the surface when people are interacting in free and voluntary circumstances. A completely free society is not something I expect to see in my life time, but that doesn't mean it is unattainable by future generations. Many Western values we take for granted today would have seemed Utopian just a century or two ago -- the abolition of slavery, women and children's rights, the general decline of racism, and so on. You accuse me of over simplifying, but it's unlikely the abolitionists would have made the progress they did without an unequivocal denunciation of slavery. In response they heard something along the lines of "[you have] distilled a very complex issue into two different polarizing viewpoints".