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Somalia has a patchwork of petty warlords exerting arbitrary and unlimited authority within their fiefdoms. This is a far cry from a debate about the limits of
by ch4s3 3y ago
Somalia has a patchwork of petty warlords exerting arbitrary and unlimited authority within their fiefdoms. This is a far cry from a debate about the limits of the proper authority of congress to intervene in employment contracts. You’re engaging in a lazy rhetorical argument that’s basically a straw man.
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoYou ignored the comment I was responding to that referenced Somalia first and are calling me lazy. What does that make you?
- ch4s3 3y agoApologies, I actually intended to reply to the same comment you were replying to.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoNo, I'm engaging in reductio ad absurdum and while I'd cheerfully agree it's lazy rhetoric this forum doesn't lend itself well to long-form arguments which unfortunately the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle indicates is required for a complete deconstruction of the standard anti-government babble that gets traded here and elsewhere.
- ch4s3 3y agoSurely there’s a distinction to be made between a discussion of the proper role of the state and devolution into stateless warlordism. I’m not sure that making a reductive argument against the worst possible interpretation of what small government types advocate really adds to the discourse.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoMaybe not but then the next best thing is an exhaustive examination of what happened to Kansas when the libertarians took over, which takes several paragraphs and you're still left with a hazy picture because federal programs kept the state from collapsing completely. Anyway the entire ethos can be summarized in a single sentence: "I got mine, everyone else can go fuck themselves" which as an ideology ignores our species only strength: cooperation.