# Stuff and Things > The Pub >  Standing Debate Challange

## Maximatic

I want someone to debate me on the necessity of the state. If the state is necessary, and obviously so, it should be easy to show the same to be true, right? If you believe that, you have a clear advantage, and there should be no good reason to decline the opportunity to show everyone how stupid the voluntarist is for believing the state to be unnecessary.

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## Gerrard Winstanley

The state is an absolute necessity. We need it as a tool with which to suppress the gays and the ******s and the liberals when we get into power.  :Thumbsup20:

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BleedingHeadKen (04-23-2014)

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## hoytmonger

For the minarchists...




> After more than two centuries of "constitutionally limited government," the results are clear and incontrovertible. At the outset of the American "experiment," the tax burden imposed on Americans was light, indeed almost negligible. Money consisted of fixed quantities of gold and silver. The definition of private property was clear and seemingly immutable, and the right to self-defense was regarded as sacrosanct. No standing army existed, and, as expressed in George Washington's Farewell Address, a firm commitment to free trade and a noninterventionist foreign policy appeared to be in place. Two hundred years later, matters have changed dramatically.
> 
> Now, year in and year out, the American government expropriates more than 40 percent of the incomes of private producers, making even the economic burden imposed on slaves and serfs seem moderate in comparison. Gold and silver have been replaced by government-manufactured paper money, and Americans are being robbed continually through money inflation. The meaning of private property, once seemingly clear and fixed, has become obscure, flexible, and fluid. In fact, every detail of private life, property, trade, and contract is regulated and re-regulated by ever-higher mountains of paper laws (legislation). With increasing legislation, ever more legal uncertainty and moral hazards have been created, and lawlessness has replaced law and order.
> 
> 
> "The meaning of private property, once seemingly clear and fixed, has become obscure, flexible, and fluid. In fact, every detail of private life, property, trade, and contract is regulated and re-regulated by ever-higher mountains of paper laws."
> Last but not least, the commitment to free trade and noninterventionism has given way to a policy of protectionism, militarism, and imperialism. In fact, almost since its beginnings the US government has engaged in relentless aggressive expansionism and, starting with the Spanish-American War and continuing past World War I and World War II to the present, the United States has become entangled in hundreds of foreign conflicts and risen to the rank of the world's foremost warmonger and imperialist power. In addition, while American citizens have become increasingly more defenseless, insecure, and impoverished, and foreigners all over the globe have become ever more threatened and bullied by US military power, American presidents, members of Congress, and Supreme Court judges have become ever more arrogant, morally corrupt, and dangerous.
> 
> 
> What can possibly be done about this state of affairs? First, the American Constitution must be recognized for what it is — an error.


Read more... http://mises.org/daily/2874

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## Trinnity

> The state is an absolute necessity. We need it as a tool with which to suppress the gays and the ******s and the liberals when we get into power.


*Stop the trolling.*

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michaelr (04-23-2014)

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## Maximatic

> Now, year in and year out, the American government expropriates more  than 40 percent of the incomes of private producers, making even the  economic burden imposed on slaves and serfs seem moderate in comparison.  Gold and silver have been replaced by government-manufactured paper  money, and Americans are being robbed continually through money  inflation.


At least 20% of the retail sale price of all consumer goods sold in the US is imbedded taxes, which means everyone in the top income tax bracket keeps no more than 40% of what they earn, and everyone in the bottom bracket keeps no more than 65%.

That's right, poor people, the government takes almost half of even your income! And high earners, two thirds of the work you do is done to pay your masters. You're a comfortable slave, but there's no doubt that you're a slave.

And this is the best system in the entire world, right? It's the best system in all of history, right? No better system of governance is possible, right? LOfuckinL If you believe that, you don't need to be debating me, you need to be checking yourself in somewhere. It would be nice if someone would rise to the challenge, though. It shouldn't be too hard. After all, it's obvious, right?

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## Sentinel

> The state is an absolute necessity. We need it as a tool with which to suppress the* gays and the ******s* and the liberals when we get into power.


You mean sexual predators and criminals?

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## Sentinel

> That's right, poor people, the government takes almost half of even your income!


The government takes most of the income of the middle-class.  The poor don't pay taxes but not nearly as much to the government as they get from the government.




> And this is the best system in the entire world, right? It's the best system in all of history, right?


The USA has been far more prosperous than the rest of the world, but we're slowing up as we become more like the rest of the world.

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## JustPassinThru

No government, no law enforcement.

No law.

No protection of private property.

No private property - just booty stolen from the weak by the stronger, and then from the stronger by the still-stronger.

A nation, region, area without stable law and private property...does NOT experience prosperity.  Poverty doesn't cause crime; crime causes POVERTY.

And the Big, Bad Government, when it's doing what governments must do, stamps out crime and allows honest enterprises, like honest people, to prosper.

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## Maximatic

> No government, no law enforcement.
> 
> No law.
> 
> No protection of private property.
> 
> No private property - just booty stolen from the weak by the stronger, and then from the stronger by the still-stronger.
> 
> A nation, region, area without stable law and private property...does NOT experience prosperity.  Poverty doesn't cause crime; crime causes POVERTY.
> ...


This is not the thread where you come to announce your beliefs. 

That's what all the other threads are for. 

This one is for negotiating the resolution you will defend in a debate, and the terms of that debate.

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## DonGlock26

> I want someone to debate me on the necessity of the state. If the state is necessary, and obviously so, it should be easy to show the same to be true, right? If you believe that, you have a clear advantage, and there should be no good reason to decline the opportunity to show everyone how stupid the voluntarist is for believing the state to be unnecessary.


Ok, what's your question?

@*Axiomatic*

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## BleedingHeadKen

> I want someone to debate me on the necessity of the state. If the state is necessary, and obviously so, it should be easy to show the same to be true, right? If you believe that, you have a clear advantage, and there should be no good reason to decline the opportunity to show everyone how stupid the voluntarist is for believing the state to be unnecessary.


The Trotskyites here don't find a need to debate. The truth shifts according to what they need it to be.

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## BleedingHeadKen

> *Stop the trolling.*


And,yet, that's what it is usually about. Controlling some group of undesirables. It's never the ruling class, and those who support the current regime who need to be controlled. It's those "other guys."

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## BleedingHeadKen

> No government, no law enforcement.
> 
> No law.


If there's no law, how can government be lawfully formed?   :Thinking:  I guess it's whichever mob takes over.





> And the Big, Bad Government, when it's doing what governments must do, stamps out crime and allows honest enterprises, like honest people, to prosper.


When has government ever stamped out crime? It is not in the interest of government to be rid of crime. Then it wouldn't be needed. It gains more power and influence by declaring more things to be crimes, thereby getting more of your money and your devotion when it protects you from some new class of criminal.

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## usfan

I've debated this ad nauseum, but will go again.  The 'state' can be many things.. totalitarian, pure collective, & an experimental one by the people.  In it's rawest form, it is just a collective activity to accomplish a goal.  If some tribes band together to defeat a common foe, that is a collective action.  If some towns pool their resources to build a  bridge so commerce & transportation is easier, that is a collective action.

In the american experiment, the state is a servant of the people, restrained by law, & charged with  securing everyone's rights.  It is equipped for the common defense, providing justice, & regulating interstate & international commerce.  That is the traditional american view.  It has become perverted, & the mission statement has been set aside for state centered, micromanaging, nanny state control.

But the bigger question that many anarchist/libertarian/voluntarists ignore is the IMPOSSIBILITY of human existence without collective actions.  Someone will always form an alliance or cartel & take charge.  We cannot live in a power vacuum.  So it is best for THE PEOPLE to take control, rather than trust benevolent despots to care for us.

There is not a choice of 'state or no state', but only 'what level of collective activity can we the people control'?  It has gotten out of hand, & has grown.  We need to limit it, & retake the reins of govt.  It will likely not be a pretty action, as wresting power from power mongers never is.  But if we are to remain a govt of, by, & for the people, that is our only option, & it requires constant vigilance.

But if we passively hope for benign rulers, all we have to look forward to is despotism.. whether they carry a collectivist flag, or an anarchist one.  Your anarchist proponents would seize the power & use it for selfish reasons as much as any socialist dreamer.

_Liberty and power are in eternal enmity. Liberty is defensive and power is offensive. Power is an armed aggressor. Liberty stands empty-handed, in need of unselfish champions at all times. Power is alluring and inspires both fear and worldly reverence... Those who rise to power, and in power ride rough-shod over the rights of men, seem always to stand in marble on our public squares while those who carry the torch of liberty rest in unmarked graves. ~R. Carter Pittman_

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Dos Equis (04-23-2014)

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## Maximatic

Alright, how about this?



Three turns for each side

A turn is one post limited by the per-post character limit.

Each response is due within 24 hours of the posting time of the opposition's last post.

I'll PM you each time before I post, so you know when my response coming up. You do the same before you post each time.



The resolution is:

A society is better off with a centralized government with a monopoly on law and the legal use of force than without one.


The one affirming the resolution goes first.

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## BleedingHeadKen

> I've debated this ad nauseum, but will go again.  The 'state' can be many things.. totalitarian, pure collective, & an experimental one by the people.  In it's rawest form, it is just a collective activity to accomplish a goal.  If some tribes band together to defeat a common foe, that is a collective action.  If some towns pool their resources to build a  bridge so commerce & transportation is easier, that is a collective action.


A state is an organization with a monopoly on the legal use of force. A homeowners association is a collective and a governing body, but it is not a state.




> But the bigger question that many anarchist/libertarian/voluntarists ignore is the IMPOSSIBILITY of human existence without collective actions.  Someone will always form an alliance or cartel & take charge.  We cannot live in a power vacuum.  So it is best for THE PEOPLE to take control, rather than trust benevolent despots to care for us.


You may feel that you debate this ad nauseum, but all you debate is a strawman of your own creation. No one here has ever suggested that "collective action" must go away. In fact, quite the opposition, as the very nature of voluntary cooperation is collective action.

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## DonGlock26

> Alright, how about this?
> 
> 
> 
> Three turns for each side
> 
> A turn is one post limited by the per-post character limit.
> 
> Each response is due within 24 hours of the posting time of the opposition's last post.
> ...


That is way too restrictive and short for a good internet debate. Now, that you've posted a resolution, we can make our arguments and you can post your counter-arguments/rebuttals with both sides questioning each others points and asking for specific proof of said points.   The best way to cut through the chaff of the voluntarist's abstract Utopia is to question how it would work in the real world, since it is nothing more than fantasy.

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## JustPassinThru

> Alright, how about this?
> 
> 
> ...
> 
> The resolution is:
> 
> A society is better off with a centralized government with a monopoly on law and the legal use of force than without one.
> 
> ...


Yup.

Only one side is a valid viewpoint.

The "other side" is just reasserting its beliefs.

Have fun...

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## Dos Equis

> I've debated this ad nauseum, but will go again.  The 'state' can be many things.. totalitarian, pure collective, & an experimental one by the people.  In it's rawest form, it is just a collective activity to accomplish a goal.  If some tribes band together to defeat a common foe, that is a collective action.  If some towns pool their resources to build a  bridge so commerce & transportation is easier, that is a collective action.
> 
> In the american experiment, the state is a servant of the people, restrained by law, & charged with  securing everyone's rights.  It is equipped for the common defense, providing justice, & regulating interstate & international commerce.  That is the traditional american view.  It has become perverted, & the mission statement has been set aside for state centered, micromanaging, nanny state control.
> 
> But the bigger question that many anarchist/libertarian/voluntarists ignore is the IMPOSSIBILITY of human existence without collective actions.  Someone will always form an alliance or cartel & take charge.  We cannot live in a power vacuum.  So it is best for THE PEOPLE to take control, rather than trust benevolent despots to care for us.
> 
> There is not a choice of 'state or no state', but only 'what level of collective activity can we the people control'?  It has gotten out of hand, & has grown.  We need to limit it, & retake the reins of govt.  It will likely not be a pretty action, as wresting power from power mongers never is.  But if we are to remain a govt of, by, & for the people, that is our only option, & it requires constant vigilance.
> 
> But if we passively hope for benign rulers, all we have to look forward to is despotism.. whether they carry a collectivist flag, or an anarchist one.  Your anarchist proponents would seize the power & use it for selfish reasons as much as any socialist dreamer.
> ...


Well said, but I would argue that such control is but an illusion.  I think that the power we think we have over our leaders and the power they think they have over us is both an illusion.  After all, Obama is correctly identified as an empty suit.  

The main battle is within each of us to choose right from wrong.  As morality wanes or increases within society, powers beyond our comprehension grab hold of us and mold and shape us according to our morality.

Therefore, I would argue that the wrong question is being asked.  Government is not the disease, it is merely the symptom of a greater flaw within us all.

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DonGlock26 (04-23-2014),usfan (04-23-2014)

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## Dos Equis

> A state is an organization with a monopoly on the legal use of force. A homeowners association is a collective and a governing body, but it is not a state.
> 
> 
> 
> You may feel that you debate this ad nauseum, but all you debate is a strawman of your own creation. No one here has ever suggested that "collective action" must go away. In fact, quite the opposition, as the very nature of voluntary cooperation is collective action.


So who is to enforce a limit on collective action?  Does it not take collective action to enforce others to be prohibited from collective action?

Clearly looking at history mankind gravitates to seeking collective action as a means of power to achieve his end.  Who will raise an army to stop them?

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## BleedingHeadKen

> So who is to enforce a limit on collective action?  Does it not take collective action to enforce others to be prohibited from collective action?


That depends on who is initiating aggression. The return of aggression, in appropriate to response to the initiation of it, may require collective action. That does not imply that a state is required.




> Clearly looking at history mankind gravitates to seeking collective action as a means of power to achieve his end.  Who will raise an army to stop them?


Does the fact that some seek to dominate others justify dominating others? That seems to be what you, and others like Don, imply.

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## Maximatic

> That is way too restrictive and short for a good internet debate. Now, that you've posted a resolution, we can make our arguments and you can post your counter-arguments/rebuttals with both sides questioning each others points and asking for specific proof of said points.   The best way to cut through the chaff of the voluntarist's abstract Utopia is to question how it would work in the real world, since it is nothing more than fantasy.


How is it too restrictive? Each side has the same opportunity to make his case. Do you need more than 20,000 characters for an opening statement? Is that not enough for each reply?

There can only be a dispute over an abstract truth claim if each side makes a positive claim. A case must be made to defend a positive claim. The best way to find out which claim is on better footing is to compare the cases that can be made to support each claim. The best way to do that is with a debate. The best way to have a debate is to give each side the same opportunity to make his case.

If three posts of up to 20,000 characters each is not enough to ask, and get answers to, whatever questions you think will help you make a case, then we can incorporate an additional question and answers session into the debate.

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## Maximatic

> Well said, but I would argue that such control is but an illusion.  I think that the power we think we have over our leaders and the power they think they have over us is both an illusion.  After all, Obama is correctly identified as an empty suit.  
> 
> The main battle is within each of us to choose right from wrong.  As morality wanes or increases within society, powers beyond our comprehension grab hold of us and mold and shape us according to our morality.
> 
> Therefore, I would argue that the wrong question is being asked.  Government is not the disease, it is merely the symptom of a greater flaw within us all.


If that is true, and we don't have the power to cure human nature of an inherent flaw, then the the most reasonable question to ask is how we can best cope with such a flaw.

Governance is something we have been doing intentionally for at least 5000 years. There is no good reason to think we are limited to the methods that have already been tried.

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## squidward

> Yup.
> 
> Only one side is a valid viewpoint.
> 
> The "other side" is just reasserting its beliefs.
> 
> Have fun...


Here's a novel idea @JustPassinThru, supporting evidence.

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## squidward

> If that is true, and we don't have the power to cure human nature of an inherent flaw, then the the most reasonable question to ask is how we can best cope with such a flaw.


give authority to a group of people, to control the rest of the people, because you can't trust people. 
It makes perfect sense. What's wrong with you people ?

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## Maximatic

> Here's a novel idea @JustPassinThru, supporting evidence.


I'd even settle for argumentation, but I can't seem to get him to grasp the whole premise→inference thing.

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## DonGlock26

> How is it too restrictive? Each side has the same opportunity to make his case. Do you need more than 20,000 characters for an opening statement? Is that not enough for each reply?
> 
> There can only be a dispute over an abstract truth claim if each side makes a positive claim. A case must be made to defend a positive claim. The best way to find out which claim is on better footing is to compare the cases that can be made to support each claim. The best way to do that is with a debate. The best way to have a debate is to give each side the same opportunity to make his case.
> 
> If three posts of up to 20,000 characters each is not enough to ask, and get answers to, whatever questions you think will help you make a case, then we can incorporate an additional question and answers session into the debate.


Basically, you want to post up to 5-7 MS Word pages of your philosophical garbage three times. 

You've posted your long-winded voluntaryist positive claims on this forum ad nauseam. It's meaningless drivel. You avoid my "question and answers sessions" already. 

You are avoiding these questions currently:

http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...l=1#post285593

When you are ready to have a "question and answers session" where you will actual answer questions and not try to jump to yet another thread, you let me know.

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## JustPassinThru

> Here's a novel idea @JustPassinThru, supporting evidence.


All of history is supporting evidence.

You reject it.  Which means, you don't want debate - only affirmation and reinforcement.

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## usfan

> A state is an organization with a monopoly on the legal use of force. A homeowners association is a collective and a governing body, but it is not a state.


I do not accept your narrow definition of 'state'.  Many are not organized, NO state has a monopoly on force, & 'legal' is irrelevant, when dealing with human force & aggression.  The only difference between a homeowner's association & a state is definitions, and the range of authority recognized by those affected.




> You may feel that you debate this ad nauseum, but all you debate is a strawman of your own creation. No one here has ever suggested that "collective action" must go away. In fact, quite the opposition, as the very nature of voluntary cooperation is collective action.


I have repeatedly pointed out that *any collective action is a form of govt*.  It is people joining together to meet a goal.  It matters little whether it is a large, continent sized venture, or a neighborhood.  The 'governing body' has authority only if the people submit to that authority.  By itself, a state has no power.. only what the people give it.

NO govt has absolute power. It is ALWAYS subject to the submission of the people, even if it is benign govt. Oppressive ones can get by on intimidation for a while, but those generally don't last long. I am talking about the entire history of mankind, not just the brief period of the american experiment.

Sometimes, we work within the system. Sometimes, we don't. Throughout the history of man, force has always been used to bring change. That is still the case now. Even the ussr was dissolved by force, or the threat of it. I see these factors as being the driving force for any change in a governing system:

1. Outside overthrow. A force from the outside conquers the nation.
2. Revolt by radical ideologues. This was the way of the french revolution, the russian revolution, & even the american revolution.
3. Reform from threats of violence. The magna carta, british bill of rights, british india, modern ussr, china, & many other 'peaceful' ways of reform from within, but the threat of violence was the driving force that provoked the change.

I know of no events in history where a ruler voluntarily relinquished power.. it was always under duress. Someone with equal or more power forced a parley.

This is no strawman.  This is cutting to the bare bones of what human governance is.  It is a collective action, that is all.  Now, it can be done 'by, & for' the people, or the ruling power can be seized by aggressive individuals or groups.  American is unique in that we have established a govt of, by, & for the people.  All other ruling bodies rely on either deception, intimidation, or the passive acceptance of the people.  But no governing body lasts long.  They always break down, are overthrown, or are revised to placate the people.  We *could* do the same, now.. we could tweak the american experiment so that the excesses & problems we face are managed better.  We could impose a balanced budget on our representatives, so they are not tempted to spend recklessly, & obligate future generations.  We could put in term limits to discourage a ruling class, & encourage true citizen representation.

But anarchist don't give us the option of reform.  You demand destruction of the american experiment.  You have no workable solution for a replacement, which dooms us to despotism, as that always follows a destructive revolution.  You are working for the same thing as the leftists, for all practical purposes.  Either way, the end of america is the result.  If we do not fight for the concept of self governance & citizen rule, then the govt of, by, & for the people will perish from the earth.

But your anti state rhetoric is empty.. it has no substance, because you still advocate a state.  You redefine it, or put pretty flowers around it, but it is still human power & aggression.  No amount of legal or moral appeals can deter aggression.  Only the power of the people, collectively behind their chosen authority, can.

Notice the text of the declaration of independence:
_We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed._ 

It seems pretty straightforward.. the 'self evident' truths are:
1. that men are created equal
2. they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, which are:
a. Life
b. Liberty
c. Pursuit of happiness.

This is the premise. The logical conclusion:
1. The purpose of govt. is to secure these rights.

Think of it like computer programming.. This is an 'if/then/else' routine.

IF = Men are granted rights by their creator: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness
THEN = Govts are instituted to secure these rights and get their power from the people
ELSE = When govts don't do their job, the people can alter or abolish it & make one that does

I still find this one of the most simple yet revolutionary concepts in human history. It is the basis for America.

Also, notice this line:  _all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 
_The tendency of humans is to tolerate *some* suffering.  But in any generation, there can come a time when the evils of an oppressor become insufferable.  They 'declare the causes', & they revolt.  For most of human history, the old boss was merely replaced by an equally oppressive new boss.  Last century, russia went from monarchy to communism.. both totalitarian, oppressive systems.  France went from monarchy to anarchy to napoleon, but there was never accountability to the people.  It was never a govt *of* the people.  We have that, here, but now we have anarchists & socialists wanting to destroy the only experiment in self governance.  The left, for some dream of collectivist utopia, which has NEVER happened, & never will.  Anarchists dream of voluntary cooperation & a similar 'new man' utopia, where everyone is loving & non aggressive.  The collectivists rule by authoritarian control, & the people have little input.  Anarchy only precedes despotism, when a charismatic ruler can promise law & order in the chaotic structure they think will work.

Well, i've gotten too long, as usual, & probably have just diluted my earlier points.  But i will repeat what i said in the last post.  The question is not, 'state or no state', but 'what level of collective action do we want'?  A stateless society is impossible, as something or someone will always fill the void left by anarchy.  So the more WE the people can control our governing process, the more freedom we can have, & the less likely we will become dominated by aggressive power mongers.

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## usfan

> Well said, but I would argue that such control is but an illusion.  I think that the power we think we have over our leaders and the power they think they have over us is both an illusion.  After all, Obama is correctly identified as an empty suit.


Ultimately, it is not an illusion.  The PEOPLE always have the final say, & the real control.  It may not seem like it at times, & usurpers do come in & plunder the treasury & bully the people.  But those times are very limited, as the people WILL rise up & overthrow them.  They always do.




> The main battle is within each of us to choose right from wrong.  As morality wanes or increases within society, powers beyond our comprehension grab hold of us and mold and shape us according to our morality.
> Therefore, I would argue that the wrong question is being asked.  Government is not the disease, it is merely the symptom of a greater flaw within us all.


I agree that a govt 'of, by, & for' the people will tend to reflect the values of the collective whole.  If a culture breaks down, morally, despotism is the next step.  Freedom cannot live in an environment of immorality & lawlessness.  That WAS a strength of america.  We were a moral people, who valued truth & justice.  But those values have eroded, & relativism & immorality have become rampant.  The structure of america cannot survive if lawlessness & injustice reign.  A moral or religious revival is probably the only thing than can set this ship straight.  We can tweak some fine points, like a balanced budget to restrain corruption, or term limits to encourage citizen representatives, but with a greedy, corrupt people, we will only get greedy, corrupt representatives.  We are basically in a historical pattern.. and like all hegemonies before us, will suffer the same fate.

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## Maximatic

> Basically, you want to post up to 5-7 MS Word pages of your philosophical garbage three times. 
> 
> You've posted your long-winded voluntaryist positive claims on this forum ad nauseam. It's meaningless drivel. You avoid my "question and answers sessions" already. 
> 
> You are avoiding these questions currently:
> 
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...l=1#post285593
> 
> When you are ready to have a "question and answers session" where you will actual answer questions and not try to jump to yet another thread, you let me know.


It takes a lot of words to have a debate. If you think your pithy little three-sentence exchanges do the subject any justice at all, if you think those ridiculous little questions that you say I'm avoiding mean anything at all, you really are just an idiot. I don't mean idiot as in a guy who misses some common sense notion from time to time. I mean idiot as in a guy who doesn't have a clue how to reason, hasn't accumulated very much knowledge in his lifetime, and has a very low IQ.

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BleedingHeadKen (04-24-2014)

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## Maximatic

> All of history is supporting evidence.
> 
> You reject it.  Which means, you don't want debate - only affirmation and reinforcement.


Then explain it. Have you ever witnessed a debate in your life? Maybe you've watched a movie or some tv shows involving court cases. Have you ever seen a lawyer, even in pretend, fiction land submit evidence without explaining how it helps his case? Imagine doing what you're doing here, in court. "You have the evidence right there in that bag! It's called exhibit "A"! If you don't get it, then fuck you!"

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## Maximatic

> I do not accept your narrow definition of 'state'.  Many are not organized, NO state has a monopoly on force, & 'legal' is irrelevant, when dealing with human force & aggression.  The only difference between a homeowner's association & a state is definitions, and the range of authority recognized by those affected.
> 
> 
> 
> I have repeatedly pointed out that *any collective action is a form of govt*.  It is people joining together to meet a goal.  It matters little whether it is a large, continent sized venture, or a neighborhood.  The 'governing body' has authority only if the people submit to that authority.  By itself, a state has no power.. only what the people give it.
> 
> NO govt has absolute power. It is ALWAYS subject to the submission of the people, even if it is benign govt. Oppressive ones can get by on intimidation for a while, but those generally don't last long. I am talking about the entire history of mankind, not just the brief period of the american experiment.
> 
> Sometimes, we work within the system. Sometimes, we don't. Throughout the history of man, force has always been used to bring change. That is still the case now. Even the ussr was dissolved by force, or the threat of it. I see these factors as being the driving force for any change in a governing system:
> ...


 @usfan, why don't you just agree to a structured debate, with a resolution, so we can know what question we're trying to address and have framework in which to do it? It's always much more productive that way.

----------


## DonGlock26

> It takes a lot of words to have a debate. If you think your pithy little three-sentence exchanges do the subject any justice at all, if you think those ridiculous little questions that you say I'm avoiding mean anything at all, you really are just an idiot. I don't mean idiot as in a guy who misses some common sense notion from time to time. I mean idiot as in a guy who doesn't have a clue how to reason, hasn't accumulated very much knowledge in his lifetime, and has a very low IQ.


It takes a lot of words for you to speculate about your fantasy world (Tolkien used a lot more words to describe Middle Earth-BTW) and then say that you can't really say how it would work in the real world. 

You can rant about the state all that you want. Regardless, it is how civilizations organize and manage themselves. Western civilization has been the most successful because it has found the best balance between governance and personal liberty. Sadly, the West has moved away from liberty towards secular humanist socialism. 

The state provides protection, justice, and order that allows civilization. Without it, conquest, slavery, tribal warfare and the blood feud is the natural state of man. You literally want to throw away around 7,000 years of societal evolution for an abstract political philosophy. That's why you can't handle its critical examination via questions.

If my questions are so idiotic, why do they expose the weakness of your fantasy world? Why are you unable to answer them?

 :Smiley ROFLMAO:

----------


## usfan

> @usfan, why don't you just agree to a structured debate, with a resolution, so we can know what question we're trying to address and have framework in which to do it? It's always much more productive that way.


i was just replying to ken.. it was not a structured debate.  I did ramble a bit, and i shouldn't have.

I don't see a 'structured' debate being any more productive.  We will get bogged down in definitions.. you will insist we use your definitions of state, & i will reject it.  So the only real debate is to define 'state'.  It is your buzzword, your root of evil, that your entire argument hinges on.  If i can call it 'any collective action', you cannot debate the evils of the state, because you support some collective actions.  None of us live in a vacuum, & we are all interconnected.  The trick for us is to rescue as much individual liberty from those who manage the collective actions.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Maximatic

> i was just replying to ken.. it was not a structured debate.  I did ramble a bit, and i shouldn't have.
> 
> I don't see a 'structured' debate being any more productive.  We will get bogged down in definitions.. you will insist we use your definitions of state, & i will reject it.  So the only real debate is to define 'state'.  It is your buzzword, your root of evil, that your entire argument hinges on.  If i can call it 'any collective action', you cannot debate the evils of the state, because you support some collective actions.  None of us live in a vacuum, & we are all interconnected.  The trick for us is to rescue as much individual liberty from those who manage the collective actions.


Well, defining terms is very important, and I don't know what you mean by "collective action". I could swear I've defined what I mean by "state" which is an institution having a monopoly on law and the legal use of force in a given territory.

A resolution is essential. I don't think it's possible to have a debate without one. It's how we know what the dispute is about. It's the only way I know what to argue to. Without it, I rarely even know what the other side is trying to show, and, most of the time, I have trouble getting the other person to tell me what that is, even when I ask, explicitly.

Agreeing to a structure, beforehand, helps us to plan and build a coherent and cohesive case. It doesn't really need to take any particular form, just _some_ form. I find three exchanges to be enough, usually, but it can be just about anything. The limit per exchange can be whatever you want to set it to. When we're speaking, a time limit is good. But on the internet, a short time limit turns it into a typing contest, which ends up looking not very much different from typical forum posts. 

It focuses the debate and cuts out a lot of the unnecessary and frustrating confusion and vagueness, that usually go with internet exchanges. It can still be frustrating, of course, especially if you're not used to it. But It's always more productive.

----------


## Dos Equis

> That depends on who is initiating aggression. The return of aggression, in appropriate to response to the initiation of it, may require collective action. That does not imply that a state is required.
> 
> 
> 
> Does the fact that some seek to dominate others justify dominating others? That seems to be what you, and others like Don, imply.


When did I mention anything about the justification of aggression?  When did I say that the formation of the state was needed to create collective aggression?

I would merely say that looking at history the most effective forms of aggression seem to derive from the state.  There are a myriad of examples of this throughout history.

Just look at history in America.  There was an Indian named Techumsa who tried to unite the various tribes of Indians against the European intruders, but he failed.  It was perhaps the last possible hope of Indians gaining their land back.  Without collective centralized warfare, they were very much ill equipped to fight off those that were.

Then I look back to the time of the Revolutionary war.  Could independent militias have fought off the British?  I say that they could not have done so.  It was not just the simple act of fighting, it was also trying to convince collectivist powers such as France to come and finance the revolt and send arms and men to fight.  They would not have done so unless they were convinced that there was a government in place and a possible chance at victory.  It took all Ben Franklin had to convince them that it was not a lost cause.

The turn of the 20th century was the nail in the coffin for those who despise collectivism.  Here the US had next to no military, but was then faced with going to war against collectivist war machines in Europe both in World War 1 and 2.  Both Wilson and FDR used these wars to advance the cause of collectivism by creating world class conquering war machines.  Collectivism has been proven as the ONLY means to create world conquering war machines.

The frightening thing is, that it seems as though you need to become more like what you are fighting against in order to fight your adversary off.  Then at the end of the day you have become what it was that you were trying to save yourself from.

----------

usfan (04-24-2014)

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## Longshot

To be honest, I think it would be better to start with the branches rather than the root, such as the Federal Reserve, the war on drugs, military adventurism, minimum wages, Obamacare, social security, socialized roads, socialized schools, the BATF, and the department of fish and hogs. 

There's a crap-ton of stuff to be eliminated before the State itself is eliminated.

----------


## Maximatic

> Just look at history in America.  There was an Indian named Techumsa who tried to unite the various tribes of Indians against the European intruders, but he failed.  It was perhaps the last possible hope of Indians gaining their land back.  Without collective centralized warfare, they were very much ill equipped to fight off those that were.


Yes, they were not equipped, what if they had been? What if they'd had guns, and factories with which to make more guns? What if they'd had ships, and cannons?

Why do you immediately and only attribute their disadvantage to lack of collectivism?




> Could  independent militias have fought off the British?  I say that they could  not have done so.  It was not just the simple act of fighting, it was  also trying to convince collectivist powers such as France to come and  finance the revolt and send arms and men to fight.  They would not have  done so unless they were convinced that there was a government in place  and a possible chance at victory.  It took all Ben Franklin had to  convince them that it was not a lost cause.


But they DID, and they didn't do it AS a union. Various societies just DID consolidate their efforts and emerged victorious, achieving _independence_. What you're saying can't be done by small societies is _exactly_ what happened!

----------


## Maximatic

> To be honest, I think it would be better to start with the branches rather than the root, such as the Federal Reserve, the war on drugs, military adventurism, minimum wages, Obamacare, social security, socialized roads, socialized schools, the BATF, and the department of fish and hogs. 
> 
> There's a crap-ton of stuff to be eliminated before the State itself is eliminated.


I don't think it's possible to reduce the scope of power or the size of government.

----------


## usfan

> Well, defining terms is very important, and I don't know what you mean by "collective action". I could swear I've defined what I mean by "state" which is an institution having a monopoly on law and the legal use of force in a given territory.


Ok, we can start with that.  I think that is too narrow of a definition.  There have been 'states' & govts, & tribes, & nations for all of human history, & many were not 'institutions' nor had a monopoly on law, nor were they the only legal use of force.  That is more of a recent construct, following the monarchies of the last centuries.  The evolution of LAW, from the reformation on, was to put the written law above the edict of men.  that was the central issue in the reformation.  The written scriptures had the final authority, not the pope or the institution.  That resonated with the english, especially, with the magna carta still written in their canon of law.  The state & LAW were intertwined.. JUSTICE came from the higher Law, & was only enforced by the state.  There was usually a higher power being appealed to in any enforcement of law.. it was NOT democratic, but divine.  The role of the church as law enforcement often blurred with the monarchy's enforcement of the royal law.  It was a confusing time, & one of the great reasons for the american tenet of separation of church & state.

The Power of a state was dependent on the people they served (or ruled).  Without the assistance of the people, invading armies would plunder & kill people.  So there was no 'power' apart from the collective whole, & even now, it is the same.  Corruption might mask that reality, & greedy, aggressive, self serving people weasel their way into power, but ultimately, every nation relies on their people to support & defend themselves.  It is harder to see in a huge hegemony like the us, and easier to see in a small nation like switzerland, or s. korea.

So i ascribe to the american ideal, that of govt being a reflection & servant of the people.. to preserve our rights, provide justice, & provide a common defense.  Those are all 'collective' actions, & need the assent & agreement of the people to provide a lasting, functional govt.  And if any govt becomes 'destructive of these ends', it is our right.. no, duty, to alter or abolish it.  The PEOPLE have the power, here.. not an institution.  Not a ruling elite.

To the anarchist, the state is an entity of it's own.. an evil, demon possessed monster, that lives on it's own power & ability.  But every state is dependent on the people, even if the leaders plunder & oppress them.

So, here is my broader definition of 'state'.
*A collection of people working together to defend themselves, provide justice, & allow freedom to live & grow in prosperity.

*Just about any collective gathering of humans would give assent to this definition, even if they were ruled by despots.. this is the goal, & the aspirations of humankind.. a fair, just, liberating govt.  Sure, some have believed the lie.. the great fiction that bastiat spoke of.  But that is an illusion of govt.  That illusion & con may destroy the american experiment, & take the reigns of power from the people & give it to the ruling elite.  We are already in that process, & will only barely escape destruction if we act quickly.

----------


## DonGlock26

> To be honest, I think it would be better to start with the branches rather than the root, such as the Federal Reserve, the war on drugs, military adventurism, minimum wages, Obamacare, social security, socialized roads, socialized schools, the BATF, and the department of fish and hogs. 
> 
> There's a crap-ton of stuff to be eliminated before the State itself is eliminated.


Reform makes sense and is much needed. Eliminating the state is anarchist philosophical self-pleasuring.

----------


## DonGlock26

> I don't think it's possible to reduce the scope of power or the size of government.


Is that right? Didn't the American colonies go from a monarchy to a republic with a tiny federal gov't?

@Axiomatic

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Sheldonna (04-26-2014),usfan (04-24-2014)

----------


## Dos Equis

> Yes, they were not equipped, what if they had been? What if they'd had guns, and factories with which to make more guns? What if they'd had ships, and cannons?
> 
> Why do you immediately and only attribute their disadvantage to lack of collectivism?
> 
> 
> 
> But they DID, and they didn't do it AS a union. Various societies just DID consolidate their efforts and emerged victorious, achieving _independence_. What you're saying can't be done by small societies is _exactly_ what happened!


Could the Nazi war machine have been fought off without another government opposing it?  No.

That leaves the notion that government is not needed to fight off such collectivist war machines to rest.  The only question becomes, how much does a government need to become like their adversary in terms of collectivism, in order to fight them off?

Just look at war time in the US under FDR.  Food and supplies were rationed, black outs were ordered for the populace to help protect them from attack, Japanese Americans were imprisoned because of their race etc.  In short, the state seizes all power over the individual during war time with the justification that it needs to do so in order to survive.  Power is then centralized in the name of efficiency and effectiveness.  Energy is focused on producing goods and men to fight for the cause of the survival of the government in question.

This is how collectivists operate.  They use a crisis of some sort in order to grab power in the name of being able to handle the given crisis.  This is power no one would agree give them unless the other choices seem much more grim.  Naturally, once the crisis is over, some of the power usurped from the people returned, such as rationing food and supplies.  However, what is left behind is the reworking of power with a collectivist government at the helm, along with a myriad of precedents where the laws were trampled under foot in the time of crisis, like Japanese Americans being jailed without just cause.

What is left is a shell of a nation that once held freedom more important than death.  Now it is a nation that is more concerned about safety than freedom, and a nation that has been conditioned to look to one man, the President, for all their hopes and needs.  The problem is, there is no going back much like a mutated fish in a polluted water has no hope of ever becoming normal again.  The mutated fish has simply adapted best as it can in the polluted water, all in the name of survival.

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DonGlock26 (04-24-2014)

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## squidward

> All of history is supporting evidence.
> You reject it.


which facts specifically ?

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## Longshot

> Reform makes sense and is much needed. Eliminating the state is anarchist philosophical self-pleasuring.


Yes, I would start with the Federal Reserve, the war on drugs, military adventurism, minimum wages, Obamacare, social security, socialized roads, socialized schools, the BATF, and the department of fish and hogs.

----------


## Dos Equis

> To be honest, I think it would be better to start with the branches rather than the root, such as the Federal Reserve, the war on drugs, military adventurism, minimum wages, Obamacare, social security, socialized roads, socialized schools, the BATF, and the department of fish and hogs. 
> 
> There's a crap-ton of stuff to be eliminated before the State itself is eliminated.


You have to understand how the federal government functions.  Essentially, it borrows or prints as much money as it needs in order to throw it around the globe to influence people to do their bidding.  They throw it at the poor, the rich, and every country no matter how much they may hate the US.

You might say that over $17 trillion buys you the best planet you can buy.  The only way to stop it is to cut off the money supply.  This will come either by economic collapse or laws to restrict spending.  Since the federal government has become dependent upon such power via debt, there is no reform within the federal government.  It would be like telling an alcoholic that they are a drunk and they need to stop drinking.  They typical reply is, "No I'm not and no I won't".  The alcoholic is powerless over his own condition.  Without a direct intervention he has no hope.

This is why I support a convention of the states to take back the power of the purse.   Progressives took the power of the purse at the turn of the 20th century and have become progressively worse ever since, much like an alcoholic progressively becomes worse and worse over time.  In fact, every time I hear the word progressive, this is the example I think about which just makes me snicker.

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DonGlock26 (04-24-2014),Sheldonna (04-26-2014)

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## DonGlock26

> You have to understand how the federal government functions.  Essentially, it borrows or prints as much money as it needs in order to throw it around the globe to influence people to do their bidding.  They throw it at the poor, the rich, and every country no matter how much they may hate the US.
> 
> You might say that over $17 trillion buys you the best planet you can buy.  The only way to stop it is to cut off the money supply.  This will come either by economic collapse or laws to restrict spending.  Since the federal government has become dependent upon such power via debt, there is no reform within the federal government.  It would be like telling an alcoholic that they are a drunk and they need to stop drinking.  They typical reply is, "No I'm not and no I won't".  The alcoholic is powerless over his own condition.  Without a direct intervention he has no hope.
> 
> *This is why I support a convention of the states to take back the power of the purse.*   Progressives took the power of the purse at the turn of the 20th century and have become progressively worse ever since, much like an alcoholic progressively becomes worse and worse over time.  In fact, every time I hear the word progressive, this is the example I think about which just makes me snicker.


This!!!!!!!!!!!  It is probably the only way to stop the beast on the Potomac short of a horrible civil war or economic collapse.

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## DonGlock26

> Yes, I would start with the Federal Reserve, the war on drugs, military adventurism, minimum wages, Obamacare, social security, socialized roads, socialized schools, the BATF, and the department of fish and hogs.


I agree with most of that. Wouldn't most of what you said being agreed upon by a majority and put into effect be preferable to what we have now with only your dreams that a comic book philosophy named voluntaryism will someday come true?

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## Dos Equis

> This!!!!!!!!!!!  It is probably the only way to stop the beast on the Potomac short of a horrible civil war or economic collapse.


It's like trying to tell an alcoholic that they need to stop drinking before it kills them.  They just don't want to listen and delude themselves that they have it all under control.

There are but one of two outcomes, premature death or an intervention.  I prefer the later.

No one likes to be the kill joy and take the bottle away, but some times you have to do what you have to do.  The thing that troubles me is, what if the alcoholic starts sharing the booze with those that try to preform the intervention?  No doubt, the federal government will just fling its money around to the various state delegates to try and stop it in various ways.  If it works out that way, then the entire country will go down in a drunken orgy of debt.

Then again, I suppose there are worse ways to die.

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DonGlock26 (04-24-2014)

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## Longshot

> I agree with most of that. Wouldn't most of what you said being agreed upon by a majority and put into effect be preferable to what we have now with only your dreams that a comic book philosophy named voluntaryism will someday come true?


Yes, I think it would be preferable to what we have now.

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## Dan40

Voluntarism and anarchism are exactly like liberalism in every way.

Wonderful SOUNDING, illogical pipe dreams.

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DonGlock26 (04-24-2014)

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## JustPassinThru

> The thing that troubles me is, what if the alcoholic starts sharing the booze with those that try to preform the intervention?  No doubt, the federal government will just fling its money around to the various state delegates to try and stop it in various ways.  If it works out that way, then the entire country will go down in a drunken orgy of debt.
> 
> Then again, I suppose there are worse ways to die.


If that happens and our alleged leaders go for it...we deserve what we get.

There is no answer to immorality and corruption.  Such a people cannot be governed as the Constitution allows.  Recall, Franklin predicted it would come to this - that the Constitution would last for a score of years, until the People become so corrupt as to require despotic government.  His exact words.

And here we are.  It's sad; it's frightening; but it is what it is.

----------


## Maximatic

> Could the Nazi war machine have been fought off without another government opposing it?  No.
> 
> That leaves the notion that government is not needed to fight off such collectivist war machines to rest.


Really? The word "No" puts the whole issue to rest? How do you get such certainty such certainty about a counterfactual knowledge claim, especially one so weakly defined and open-ended as that one? And then you just declare that it puts the entire issue to rest? The issue has not been put to rest. It has barely been explored. Most people haven't even given it a second thought.




> The problem is,  there is no going back much like a mutated fish in a polluted water has  no hope of ever becoming normal again.  The mutated fish has simply  adapted best as it can in the polluted water, all in the name of  survival.


I don't know that, and you don't either. 200 years ago, the majority of the world didn't employ representative government. Now, it could be said that it does.

People can establish whatever system of governance they want to establish. We see people consolidating their efforts all the time. Why should we think that people of stateless societies would not do that?

----------


## hoytmonger

> Voluntarism and anarchism are exactly like liberalism in every way.
> 
> Wonderful SOUNDING, illogical pipe dreams.


Except in the fact that they're polar opposites. Modern liberalism and conservatism are almost exactly alike... in that they're both authoritarian. Voluntarism and anarchy are alike in that they're libertarian... the opposite of authoritarianism.

So, from your post, a person can deduce that you believe liberty to be a wonderful sounding, illogical pipe dream. And by using the science of reason, one can also deduce that you favor authoritarianism... not that I had any doubts previously.

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## Calypso Jones

I really wish that we could all just deal with the actual words of posters rather than assign beliefs and thinking and actions.   It would be less frustrating for everyone concerned.

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## Dan40

> Except in the fact that they're polar opposites. Modern liberalism and conservatism are almost exactly alike... in that they're both authoritarian. Voluntarism and anarchy are alike in that they're libertarian... the opposite of authoritarianism.
> 
> So, from your post, a person can deduce that you believe liberty to be a wonderful sounding, illogical pipe dream. And by using the science of reason, one can also deduce that you favor authoritarianism... not that I had any doubts previously.


Add that to an ever lengthening list of erroneous deductions.

And illogical pipe dreams are just that.  The label doesn't matter.  Dreams that CANNOT come true are dreams that CANNOT come true.

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DonGlock26 (04-24-2014)

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## Maximatic

> Ok, we can start with that.  I think that is too narrow of a definition.  There have been 'states' & govts, & tribes, & nations for all of human history, & many were not 'institutions' nor had a monopoly on law, nor were they the only legal use of force.  That is more of a recent construct, following the monarchies of the last centuries.  The evolution of LAW, from the reformation on, was to put the written law above the edict of men.  that was the central issue in the reformation.  The written scriptures had the final authority, not the pope or the institution.  That resonated with the english, especially, with the magna carta still written in their canon of law.  The state & LAW were intertwined.. JUSTICE came from the higher Law, & was only enforced by the state.  There was usually a higher power being appealed to in any enforcement of law.. it was NOT democratic, but divine.  The role of the church as law enforcement often blurred with the monarchy's enforcement of the royal law.  It was a confusing time, & one of the great reasons for the american tenet of separation of church & state.
> 
> The Power of a state was dependent on the people they served (or ruled).  Without the assistance of the people, invading armies would plunder & kill people.  So there was no 'power' apart from the collective whole, & even now, it is the same.  Corruption might mask that reality, & greedy, aggressive, self serving people weasel their way into power, but ultimately, every nation relies on their people to support & defend themselves.  It is harder to see in a huge hegemony like the us, and easier to see in a small nation like switzerland, or s. korea.
> 
> So i ascribe to the american ideal, that of govt being a reflection & servant of the people.. to preserve our rights, provide justice, & provide a common defense.  Those are all 'collective' actions, & need the assent & agreement of the people to provide a lasting, functional govt.  And if any govt becomes 'destructive of these ends', it is our right.. no, duty, to alter or abolish it.  The PEOPLE have the power, here.. not an institution.  Not a ruling elite.
> 
> To the anarchist, the state is an entity of it's own.. an evil, demon possessed monster, that lives on it's own power & ability.  But every state is dependent on the people, even if the leaders plunder & oppress them.
> 
> So, here is my broader definition of 'state'.
> ...


Alright, so, when I say "state", should I expect you to understand it as meaning what I mean by it, or what you mean by it? If you will read your definition into what I say when I use the word, what word should I use to refer to what I mean by "state"?

Also, should I expect you to ever address what I mean by state, as the government proper, distinct from the collective? If so, what word will you use?

----------


## DonGlock26

> Yes, I think it would be preferable to what we have now.


I would prefer that to come about rather than to cling to a unicorn-like dream called Voluntaryism.

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## DonGlock26

> Really? The word "No" puts the whole issue to rest? How do you get such certainty such certainty about a counterfactual knowledge claim, especially one so weakly defined and open-ended as that one? And then you just declare that it puts the entire issue to rest? The issue has not been put to rest. It has barely been explored. Most people haven't even given it a second thought.


If the issue of dealing with a Nazi war machine hasn't been put to rest, are you going to get around to actually addressing it? 

How would a stateless voluntaryist society deal with Nazi aggression?

@Axiomatic

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## BleedingHeadKen

> I do not accept your narrow definition of 'state'.  Many are not organized, NO state has a monopoly on force, & 'legal' is irrelevant, when dealing with human force & aggression.  The only difference between a homeowner's association & a state is definitions, and the range of authority recognized by those affected.


That's a "narrow" view? Well, we can look in the dictionary:

"of or pertaining to the central civil government or authority."

I'm not sure that there's any published or official definition which includes your rather ridiculously broad take on the word "state" to include any collective activity. I doubt that anyone would see a Homeowners Association as a "central civil government or authority" except when being facetious. It's an organization that exists by charter and is subject only to that charter and/or to the legislation of the central civil government which claims jurisdiction over it.

An HOA is a governing body, not a state by any definition that I can find. if you wish to redefine words, please go ahead, but don't expect me to know those definitions unless you are forthcoming with what you believe them to be. Since you've completely bastardized the term "state" to the point of meaninglessness, I'll refer to an organization with the monopoly on the legal user of force as a "ruling state." Will that work for you? Or maybe you'll redefine "rule" to "telling people what to do regardless of authority." That would be in line with your definition of state.




> I have repeatedly pointed out that *any collective action is a form of govt*.


So, now you are redefining the term "government." Can you please just publish usfan's political dictionary? Otherwise, you are going to continue to find that people don't understand you, because you have made up your own language.

Next you'll tell us that "collective" can be just one person who is arguing with himself.




> It is people joining together to meet a goal.  It matters little whether it is a large, continent sized venture, or a neighborhood.  The 'governing body' has authority only if the people submit to that authority.  By itself, a state has no power.. only what the people give it.


Granted, a "state" is not a thing that exists in reality. It is, like "society", a rhetorical term. Not sure what you mean by "only what the people give it." I don't think that many people have much choice, and human beings, despite the ability to work together in groups, don't engage in collective thinking. So it's either what each person gives it, or there are some people who protect the state, even if there are others who oppose it. "The people" is also a rhetorical device.




> NO govt has absolute power. It is ALWAYS subject to the submission of the people, even if it is benign govt. Oppressive ones can get by on intimidation for a while, but those generally don't last long. I am talking about the entire history of mankind, not just the brief period of the american experiment.


Even if a short time is, say, 80 years, that's a long time to those who have to live through it. Human history is long; the duration of a life is miniscule.




> Sometimes, we work within the system. Sometimes, we don't. Throughout the history of man, force has always been used to bring change. That is still the case now. Even the ussr was dissolved by force, or the threat of it. I see these factors as being the driving force for any change in a governing system:


Are you arguing that change can only be brought about by force, or just that sometimes change is brought about by force? I can never tell if you are waxing rhetorical or making an actual statement.

Throughout human history there has been slavery. I don't think there's ever been a time when there wasn't slavery in all corners of the world (like that rhetoric?) Since slavery has been around for ever, can we also say that slavery was necessary to change?




> I know of no events in history where a ruler voluntarily relinquished power.. it was always under duress. Someone with equal or more power forced a parley.


And, yet, you often claim that if we just vote for the right people, those would-be rulers will relinquish power. Why would those currently in power voluntarily relinquish power to those they know will reduce it?




> American is unique in that we have established a govt of, by, & for the people.


Who is this "we"? I didn't establish the government. Unless you are extremely old, and among the extremely privileged, I doubt that you had anything to do with it either. "We" is just another one of your rhetorical devices to attempt to win an argument by including your opponents in you agenda.




> But anarchist don't give us the option of reform.  You demand destruction of the american experiment.


Got news for you. The "American Experiment" has been over for a very long time. And, anyway, that's just more rhetoric.





> You have no workable solution for a replacement, which dooms us to despotism, as that always follows a destructive revolution.  You are working for the same thing as the leftists, for all practical purposes.  Either way, the end of america is the result.  If we do not fight for the concept of self governance & citizen rule, then the govt of, by, & for the people will perish from the earth.


Considering that you have contradicted your own solution by declaring it impossible to implement (no ruling power will relinquish that power), I don't think you have much ground to stand on here. Perhaps you love being on the hamster wheel, always hoping for change and insisting that if you just run faster you'll actually get somewhere.




> Notice the text of the declaration of independence:
> _We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed._


And? Is the DOI the Bible and the infallible writings of God-like men?

No government has ever been "instituted" among men that recognizes rights as inalienable. Not even the US one. You, yourself, demand that rights be aliened to the collective.



> It seems pretty straightforward.. the 'self evident' truths are:
> 1. that men are created equal
> 2. they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, which are:
> a. Life
> b. Liberty
> c. Pursuit of happiness.
> 
> This is the premise. The logical conclusion:
> 1. The purpose of govt. is to secure these rights.


That's a declaration. If you believe it is the logical conclusion, please carefully draw the logic. 

I could just as easily declared "therefore all organizations with a monopoly on the legal use of force are unjust." And, in fact, I can draw that logical conclusion, since a monopoly on the legal use of force *denies* the unalienable right of self defense, and to decide what one does with one's body, time, and justly acquired property. By the way, the Constitution also undermines unalienable rights.

The United States Government or the so-called "American Experiment" has only been tangentially in line with the rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence, and only for a little while. That notion was completely destroyed with the Civil War, which denied freedom of association and murdered a whole lot of people in the process (not to mention all those "unalienable rights" that were "protected" by the US military during the genocide of the Plains Indians.)




> Think of it like computer programming.. This is an 'if/then/else' routine.
> 
> IF = Men are granted rights by their creator: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness
> THEN = Govts are instituted to secure these rights and get their power from the people
> ELSE = When govts don't do their job, the people can alter or abolish it & make one that does


An if/then/else statement creates a logical sequence; that does not mean that that what follows the if statement is necessarily the logical conclusion. 




> Well, i've gotten too long, as usual, & probably have just diluted my earlier points.  But i will repeat what i said in the last post.  The question is not, 'state or no state', but 'what level of collective action do we want'?  A stateless society is impossible, as something or someone will always fill the void left by anarchy.  So the more WE the people can control our governing process, the more freedom we can have, & the less likely we will become dominated by aggressive power mongers.


Why not just phrase it as the "how much collective action do *I* want'? You can only speak for yourself, though you often seem to believe that you think for everyone else. Some people want far more government force than you want, and you really have no moral argument against it, other than some words bandied about by long dead members of the ruling elite. 

There's only one logical conclusion: Either it's wrong, all of the time, to initiate aggression, or it's right whenever the ruling authority says it's right. The former presupposes inalienable rights and is the only logical conclusion of those (natural) rights. The latter presupposes that might is right, and one can just hope that either the ruling power will not be too brutal, or one can do the truly logical thing, and become the most powerful within it.

----------



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## hoytmonger

> Add that to an ever lengthening list of erroneous deductions.
> 
> And illogical pipe dreams are just that.  The label doesn't matter.  Dreams that CANNOT come true are dreams that CANNOT come true.


The deduction I've made in response to your post are just that, a logical deduction from the information given.

You stated... 

"Voluntarism and anarchism are exactly like liberalism in every way.

Wonderful SOUNDING, illogical pipe dreams." 

So, it can be deduced that you believe that 'liberalism' is the equivalent of voluntarism and anarchism. If I were to presume that you understood the concept and ideology of voluntarism and anarchism I could come to the conclusion that you don't understand the concept or ideology of 'liberalism.'
If you were to understand the concept and ideology of voluntarism and anarchism, you would also understand these ideologies are based on the concept of individual sovereignty and personal property rights.
On the other hand, modern 'liberalism'... as opposed to classical liberalism, which is individual liberty by limiting the power of the state... is social liberalism... or socialism, which is a statist political philosophy. 

You equated 'liberalism' or rather 'socialism' with voluntarism and anarchism, which are polar opposites... my deduction was correct.

Voluntarism and anarchism are also the natural state of man, in that the individual is a sovereign being and not subject to the whims of a collective. If you consider these to be dreams than you're in error. 

You seem to insist on conforming to the indoctrination you've accepted as an 'education'... and you'll likely end your life believing in that nonsense.

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BleedingHeadKen (04-25-2014)

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## Dos Equis

> Really? The word "No" puts the whole issue to rest? How do you get such certainty such certainty about a counterfactual knowledge claim, especially one so weakly defined and open-ended as that one? And then you just declare that it puts the entire issue to rest? The issue has not been put to rest. It has barely been explored. Most people haven't even given it a second thought.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know that, and you don't either. 200 years ago, the majority of the world didn't employ representative government. Now, it could be said that it does.
> 
> People can establish whatever system of governance they want to establish. We see people consolidating their efforts all the time. Why should we think that people of stateless societies would not do that?


I really don't have a house in the race here.  Historically, I'm sure you can come up with historical examples of "stateless societies" that you support your position.  You then have to ask yourself, why did they fail and why were they so obscure?

It's like an athlete.  Sure, you can try and train the honest way, or you can take short cuts with various sports enhancing drugs like Lance Armstrong.  In the end, the "winners" lie, cheat, steal, their way to dominating others.  I view collectivism as the drug of choice historically speaking.

Just look at human history.  The vast majority of men have only known slavery and collectivism is the tool of their scourge.

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## Longshot

> I would prefer that to come about rather than to cling to a unicorn-like dream called Voluntaryism.


It's not a dream. It's a philosophy. Voluntaryism is simply the position that people ought to respect the property rights of others and that it is wrong to initiate violations against the person or property of others.

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## DonGlock26

> I really don't have a house in the race here.  Historically, I'm sure you can come up with historical examples of "stateless societies" that you support your position.  You then have to ask yourself, why did they fail and why were they so obscure?



That's an obvious criticism of his pet political philosophy and he will avoid it like the plague, create a strawman argument, attack you or the idea of the state, or weave a smoke screen of 20,000 characters to escape the question in.

The avoidance act is easy to see through.

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## DonGlock26

> It's not a dream. It's a philosophy. Voluntaryism is simply the position that people ought to respect the property rights of others and that it is wrong to initiate violations against the person or property of others.


It's more than those two individual principals. It is anti-state and that will not work with large civilized societies. That's why it is a fantasy. 

We explored this question in the private road thread. Ultimately, you had to expand "aggression" to include public order crimes. Society using force to enforce public order crime laws is not what voluntaryists claim would have to happen. So, voluntaryism like communism is unworkable. The closest that commnists can come to communism is totalitarian socialism. Likewise, the closest voluntaryist libertarians could come to voluntaryism would be anarchy or minarchism.

I'll give you credit in that you were reluctantly willing to answer questions as voluntaryism was picked apart and shown to be unworkable. Axis just avoids critical questions and hurls insults about the critics of his pet political philosophy.

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## hoytmonger

> I really don't have a house in the race here.  Historically, I'm sure you can come up with historical examples of "stateless societies" that you support your position.  You then have to ask yourself, *why did they fail and why were they so obscure*?
> 
> It's like an athlete.  Sure, you can try and train the honest way, or you can take short cuts with various sports enhancing drugs like Lance Armstrong.  In the end, the "winners" lie, cheat, steal, their way to dominating others.  I view collectivism as the drug of choice historically speaking.
> 
> Just look at human history.  The vast majority of men have only known slavery and collectivism is the tool of their scourge.


Obscurity comes from the lack of bureaucracy taking notes and writing everything down. Failure of the Icelandic Commonwealth after 600 years or so is largely due to the advent of Christianity and the tithe... until then there were no taxes. The failure of Celtic Ireland after a millennium is due to Oliver Cromwell's counter revolutionary genocide of the Catholics to restore the Instrument of Government. It was the political and philosophical cleansing of libertarian ideology in Europe that gave the movement added seriousness in the colonies... where it led to an experiment in limited government that ultimately failed.

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## DonGlock26

> Obscurity comes from the lack of bureaucracy taking notes and writing everything down. Failure of the Icelandic Commonwealth after 600 years or so is largely due to the advent of Christianity and the tithe... until then there were no taxes. The failure of Celtic Ireland after a millennium is due to Oliver Cromwell's counter revolutionary genocide of the Catholics to restore the Instrument of Government. It was the political and philosophical cleansing of libertarian ideology in Europe that gave the movement added seriousness in the colonies... where it led to an experiment in limited government that ultimately failed.


Are you suggesting that Iceland or Ireland were stateless during the historical periods that you mentioned?

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## hoytmonger

> It's more than those two individual principals. It is anti-state and that will not work with large civilized societies. That's why it is a fantasy. 
> 
> We explored this question in the private road thread. Ultimately, you had to expand "aggression" to include public order crimes. Society using force to enforce public order crime laws is not what voluntaryists claim would have to happen. So, voluntaryism like communism is unworkable. The closest that commnists can come to communism is totalitarian socialism. Likewise, the closest voluntaryist libertarians could come to voluntaryism would be anarchy or minarchism.
> 
> I'll give you credit in that you were reluctantly willing to answer questions as voluntaryism was picked apart and shown to be unworkable. Axis just avoids critical questions and hurls insults about the critics of his pet political philosophy.


The only fantasy evident is the belief that a state works in any sized society... which has been proven false throughout history. 

I've yet to see a post that shows where voluntarism has been shown to be 'unworkable.' It's more likely that your misinterpretation of the concept of anarchism leads you to believe a state is ultimately necessary.
What is true, though, is that the state, like communism and all authoritarian societal and economic philosophies, are unworkable in a civil human society and have throughout history proven just that.

Libertarianism is the philosophy of individualism, it begins with, and logically builds upon, the concept of self ownership. A large 'civilized' society is irrelevant to a stateless society. Voluntarism is indeed workable due to the fact that it's not constrained by the coercive force of a state... people interact voluntarily, of their own free will and to their personal benefit. Civilization is the result of acting from free will... what benefits one person, also benefits others... and so on. Civilization is built upon economics... not strength or force.

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## hoytmonger

> Are you suggesting that Iceland or Ireland were stateless during the historical periods that you mentioned?


Not suggesting, it's a fact.

http://mises.org/daily/1121

https://mises.org/journals/lf/1971/1971_04.pdf

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## usfan

> Alright, so, when I say "state", should I expect you to understand it as meaning what I mean by it, or what you mean by it? If you will read your definition into what I say when I use the word, what word should I use to refer to what I mean by "state"?
> Also, should I expect you to ever address what I mean by state, as the government proper, distinct from the collective? If so, what word will you use?


I gave a lengthy definition of state, with the reasons for them.  You can rebut my points, or show any flaws, or you can provide your definition, & support it with explanations & reasons.  That is where we started, according to you.  We are defining 'state'.  I have provided my definition & explanation.  Now you rebut it, & provide your own.  I will try to organize my thoughts in a more orderly fashion for ease of rebuttal.

And though it doesn't fit nicely on a bumper sticker, for now i'll go with this definition:

*A collection of people working together to defend themselves, provide justice, & allow freedom to live & grow in prosperity.

*1. There have been 'states' & govts, & tribes, & nations for all of human history, many were not 'institutions' nor had a monopoly on law, nor were they the only legal use of force.
2. The Power of a state is dependent on the people they serve (or rule).
3. The evolution of LAW,was to put the written law above the edict of men.
4. People have organized a 'state' for the common defense, justice, & other ventures for the collective.
5. Any organization of 'state' exists by the people's pleasure.  
6. The managers of the state are dependents of the producers in the nation.

These are either rebuttals to your definition, or supporting statements to mine.  If we continue with this debate i'll organize them better.

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## Maximatic

> I gave a lengthy definition of state, with the reasons for them.  You can rebut my points, or show any flaws, or you can provide your definition, & support it with explanations & reasons.  That is where we started, according to you.  We are defining 'state'.  I have provided my definition & explanation.  Now you rebut it, & provide your own.  I will try to organize my thoughts in a more orderly fashion for ease of rebuttal.
> 
> And though it doesn't fit nicely on a bumper sticker, for now i'll go with this definition:
> 
> *A collection of people working together to defend themselves, provide justice, & allow freedom to live & grow in prosperity.
> 
> *1. There have been 'states' & govts, & tribes, & nations for all of human history, many were not 'institutions' nor had a monopoly on law, nor were they the only legal use of force.
> 2. The Power of a state is dependent on the people they serve (or rule).
> 3. The evolution of LAW,was to put the written law above the edict of men.
> ...


I don't want to debate a definition. I just want to use words and be able to trust that they will be understood. I want to argue that an institution with a monopoly on law and the use of force in a given geographic area is not necessary to a prosperous, civil society. In order to do that, I need to be able to make references to such an institution. If you insist that I not use the word "state" to do that, then fine, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. 

What word can I use to refer to such an institution?

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BleedingHeadKen (04-25-2014)

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## Maximatic

> If the issue of dealing with a Nazi war machine hasn't been put to rest, are you going to get around to actually addressing it? 
> 
> How would a stateless voluntaryist society deal with Nazi aggression?
> 
> @Axiomatic


Is that what you want to debate? If so, you need to agree to the terms of a debate. What terms would you like?

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## DonGlock26

> Not suggesting, it's a fact.
> 
> http://mises.org/daily/1121
> 
> https://mises.org/journals/lf/1971/1971_04.pdf



Both instances were examples of governance by chiefs and legislative bodies or kings. Either way, there was a government. Iceland's sounds very limited, but it was government none the less.

What should be sobering to the voluntaryist crowd is how these tiny states fell apart.




> When one truly looks at Iceland's history objectively, one can see what the real causes of Iceland's collapse was. The lack of competition and the monopolistic qualities that eventually came about when five families cornered the chieftaincy market was one reason. These five families bought the majority of chieftaincies. They controlled the court and legal system to a significant extent. This meant that there were not as many chieftains to choose from. This led to less competition, creating opportunities for increased exploitation over the free farmers, eventually leading to a revolt against the 5 families.
> 
> http://mises.org/daily/1121






> The flight into exile in 1607 of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell following their defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 and the suppression of their rebellion in Ulster in 1603 is seen as the watershed of Gaelic Ireland. It marked the destruction of Ireland's ancient Gaelic nobility following the Tudor conquest and cleared the way for the Plantation of Ulster. After this point, the English authorities in Dublin established real control over Ireland for the first time, bringing a centralised government to the entire island, and successfully disarmed the Gaelic lordships
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_...Tudor_conquest



I don't want to live under an oligarchy of the rich or be conquered by a strong state, which are two things that would like happen to a "stateless" society.

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## DonGlock26

> Is that what you want to debate? If so, you need to agree to the terms of a debate. What terms would you like?


I'd like to see you leave the safety of pages and pages of nonsensical prose and simply answer the man's question and my own. Surely, you can show how superior voluntaryism is.

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## BleedingHeadKen

> I'd like to see you leave the safety of pages and pages of nonsensical prose and simply answer the man's question and my own. Surely, you can show how superior voluntaryism is.


It all makes perfect sense. It's your brain-washed progressive mind that considers it non-sensical and refuses even to attempt to refute any of the points, as it would be too dangerous to actually have to think, rather than engage in your usual belligerent tirades about Obama and liberals.

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Longshot (04-25-2014)

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## Maximatic

> I'd like to see you leave the safety of pages and pages of nonsensical prose and simply answer the man's question and my own. Surely, you can show how superior voluntaryism is.


I'd like to see you engage in a substantive exchange of adequately described ideas.

I'd like to see you read and respond to the answers I've already given.

I'd like to see evidence that you are capable of understanding a concept that requires more than 140 characters to express.

I'd like to see you make a sound argument.

I'd like to see you offer a coherent rebuttal to a sound argument.

I'd to see evidence that you can tell the difference between a sound argument and a campaign slogan.

But we don't always get what we want.

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BleedingHeadKen (04-25-2014)

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## usfan

> I don't want to debate a definition. I just want to use words and be able to trust that they will be understood. I want to argue that an institution with a monopoly on law and the use of force in a given geographic area is not necessary to a prosperous, civil society. In order to do that, I need to be able to make references to such an institution. If you insist that I not use the word "state" to do that, then fine, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. 
> 
> What word can I use to refer to such an institution?


Ok, fair enough.  I'll join in with that.  I like to find agreement with people, anyway!   :Big Grin: 

I agree.. a totalitarian system where an elite control everyone by force & intimidation is a bad thing for the people being oppressed.  And i agree that this is the direction that the US nanny state is taking us.  Our liberties are dwindling, & the power, influence, & control by the PC elite grows.  Some of it is cultural.. the academic institutions are complicit with the progressives in indoctrinating everyone, preparing fit tools for subservience.  Mindless, thoughtless lemmings are spit out every year, with NO sense of history, NO awareness of philosophy, & NO concept of Law or governance.  They are merely told to submit & obey the govt.





Yep.. that was america.. not liberty.. not throwing off tyranny, but 'learning respect for authority & rules'..   :Shakeshead: 

..and they pound that drum repeatedly in the same short section!  This is an institution at war with truth, the people, & individual freedom.  They claim a monopoly on truth & power, & oppress anyone who presents alternate views.  They are ramping up the propaganda as their cronies have weaseled their way into positions of influence, & fleece the producers to pay for it.

This is intellectual aggression!  This is domestic terrorism!  We should not stand by idly while new generations are programmed with lies & anti human, anti american, statist drivel.

So i will do you one better.  Not only are such institutions 'not necessary', but they are downright damaging & harmful to a prosperous, civil society.

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## Dan40

> The deduction I've made in response to your post are just that, a logical deduction from the information given.
> 
> You stated... 
> 
> "Voluntarism and anarchism are exactly like liberalism in every way.
> 
> Wonderful SOUNDING, illogical pipe dreams." 
> 
> So, it can be deduced that you believe that 'liberalism' is the equivalent of voluntarism and anarchism. If I were to presume that you understood the concept and ideology of voluntarism and anarchism I could come to the conclusion that you don't understand the concept or ideology of 'liberalism.'
> ...


Perhaps this will help you correct your erroneous deduction:

*"Voluntarism and anarchism are exactly like liberalism in every way.  Wonderful SOUNDING, illogical pipe dreams."* 

Perhaps it was the spacing that allowed you to be confused.  They are useless STUPID dreams that cannot ever be realities.  You are talking about liberalism power brokers and their acquisition and lust for power.  I'm talking about the warm fuzzy  compassionate idiocy of liberalism that cannot ever exist.  And why anarchism cannot ever exist either.

Not in tiny cult like groups of identical peoples.  Society in its total. A small group can be warm fuzzy liberals.  Or a small group can be anarchists.  But both exist inside of and at the pleasure of overall society.

You are a proponent of no government.  An imaginary anarchistic society without a govt.  Meaning without laws.  As long as people are involved, that is impossible.  And without people, who, or what, is it that would care?

No govt, no laws.  A no law society.  More clearly stated, a LAWLESS society.
Well it would instantly eliminate CRIME.  No laws, no crimes.  Last year there were 313 MILLION crimes committed in just the USA.  Murders, robberies, swindles, beatings, etc. etc.  In your lawless society, there would be no crimes, but those 313 ACTS would still take place.  And no laws, no law enforcement officers, so would those 313 acts of man's inhumanity to man increase or decrease.

And you wallow naively about liberty.  Whose liberty?  Yours or mine?  Because MY liberty is extremely important.  Yours doesn't matter.  And someone else thinks THEIR liberty is most important and mine doesn't matter.  They don't even know yours exists.

The idea that man develops to the point of universal harmony is science fiction and the true brainwashed indoctrination you assigned to me.  FYI, my formal education was completed long before you were born and before schools and universities were liberal union indoctrination factories.  and the bulk of my education has been experiencing, researching and learning reality all over the globe.

This is MAN, the human animal:

On earth for 40,000 years or more.  About 100 billion of man has ever lived.  6% to 7% of them now living.  0.75% to 1% of the total of mankind has been ruthlessly slaughtered IN my lifetime.  How's that for enlightened development?

Just like children NEED parental guidance, MAN needs government.  Parental guidance can be firm but light.  Government can be the same, firm but light.  There is danger.  Always, in everything.    It cannot be eliminated.  The danger of an overbearing government as we have now will always be with us.  Just as there are overbearing parents.  The overbearing govt is easier to fix than the bad parent.

No govt is simply chaos.

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DonGlock26 (04-25-2014),usfan (04-25-2014)

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## Longshot

> It's more than those two individual principals. It is anti-state


Yes, it is anti-state, because states initiate aggression and violates other people's property.




> and that will not work with large civilized societies. That's why it is a fantasy.


I understand that is your position, but I don't share it. 




> We explored this question in the private road thread. Ultimately, you had to expand "aggression" to include public order crimes. Society using force to enforce public order crime laws is not what voluntaryists claim would have to happen. So, voluntaryism like communism is unworkable. The closest that commnists can come to communism is totalitarian socialism. Likewise, the closest voluntaryist libertarians could come to voluntaryism would be anarchy or minarchism.


I did not expand aggression to include public order crimes. Aggression is defined as a violation of the person or property of others. Blasting loud music is a violation of another individual's body, which means that it violates the non-aggression principle. 




> I'll give you credit in that you were reluctantly willing to answer questions as voluntaryism was picked apart and shown to be unworkable. Axis just avoids critical questions and hurls insults about the critics of his pet political philosophy.


I don't agree that voluntaryism was picked apart or shown to be unworkable.

----------


## Dan40

> I don't agree that voluntaryism was picked apart or shown to be unworkable.


If 2 or 12 people JUST on this forum will not agree to it.

HOW do you make it workable?

If 25 million of the USA population disagree with you, HOW do you make them OBEY?

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DonGlock26 (04-25-2014)

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## Longshot

> If 2 or 12 people JUST on this forum will not agree to it.
> 
> HOW do you make it workable?
> 
> If 25 million of the USA population disagree with you, HOW do you make them OBEY?


Are you asking how the vast majority of people would prevent the minority from violating the body and property of their fellow man? I imagine that they would employ judges and police.

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## Maximatic

> Ok, fair enough.  I'll join in with that.  I like to find agreement with people, anyway!


Join in to what? You want to remove the word "state" from my vocabulary, and I asked you what word I should replace it with.

Instead of giving me an alternative word, you gave me this:




> I agree.. a totalitarian system where an elite control everyone by force  & intimidation is a bad thing for the people being oppressed.  And i  agree that this is the direction that the US nanny state is taking us.   Our liberties are dwindling, & the power, influence, & control  by the PC elite grows.  Some of it is cultural.. the academic  institutions are complicit with the progressives in indoctrinating  everyone, preparing fit tools for subservience.  Mindless, thoughtless  lemmings are spit out every year, with NO sense of history, NO awareness  of philosophy, & NO concept of Law or governance.  They are merely  told to submit & obey the govt.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yep.. that was america.. not liberty.. not throwing off tyranny, but 'learning respect for authority & rules'..  
> 
> ..and they pound that drum repeatedly in the same short section!  This  is an institution at war with truth, the people, & individual  freedom.  They claim a monopoly on truth & power, & oppress  anyone who presents alternate views.  They are ramping up the propaganda  as their cronies have weaseled their way into positions of influence,  & fleece the producers to pay for it.
> ...


An alternate definition of my initial definition of the word "state" does not help me. I'm not interested in distinguishing between more intrusive and less intrusive monopolies on law and the legal use of force in a given territory. I don't think any of them are necessary.

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## Maximatic

This thread is an invitation to debate. There is no such thing as a debate that has no resolution. If you're not in interested in debate, what are you doing here?

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## DonGlock26

> It all makes perfect sense. It's your brain-washed progressive mind that considers it non-sensical and refuses even to attempt to refute any of the points, as it would be too dangerous to actually have to think, rather than engage in your usual belligerent tirades about Obama and liberals.


Kenneth, you are ad hom attack one trick pony.

----------


## DonGlock26

> I'd like to see you engage in a substantive exchange of adequately described ideas.
> 
> I'd like to see you read and respond to the answers I've already given.
> 
> I'd like to see evidence that you are capable of understanding a concept that requires more than 140 characters to express.
> 
> I'd like to see you make a sound argument.
> 
> I'd like to see you offer a coherent rebuttal to a sound argument.
> ...


All those characters typed and you STILL haven't answered Dos Equis' simple question about how a stateless voluntaryist society would handle a Nazi-like aggressive state. Why? Why are you so terrified of defending your pet philosophy in a succinct manner? I think it is because you CAN'T.


I have been. You refuse to participate. Longbow and I have been having a discussion for a number of days now. You pouted in that thread and refused to answer questions there too!

I've read enough of your diatribes. It's total garbage. That's why you can't really handle critical examinations of voluntaryism. 

Obviously, I can, since I've helped make voluntaryism the laughing stock of this forum. 

I have been. Voluntaryism is an unworkable fantasy. 

I have. You just clam up and flee my follow up questions.

The evidence is that you can't offer effective answers to my critical questions about how voluntaryism would work in practice. 

You don't want to defend voluntaryism from a critical examination. That much is certain.

----------


## DonGlock26

> This thread is an invitation to debate. There is no such thing as a debate that has no resolution. If you're not in interested in debate, what are you doing here?


You stated one. Myself and others replied and have been defending our position. 





> The state provides protection, justice, and order that allows civilization. Without it, conquest, slavery, tribal warfare and the blood feud is the natural state of man.



Now, defend yours and answer the Nazi war machine problem. 

_

@Axiomatic

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## Maximatic

> You stated one. Myself and others replied and have been defending our position. 
> 
> Now, defend yours and answer the Nazi war machine problem. 
> 
> _


I never agreed to the terms of any such debate, neither did anyone else. It sounds fine to me as subject for debate.

So how would you like such a debate to be structured? What would you like the resolution to be? Who will participate?

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## DonGlock26

> I never agreed to the terms of any such debate, neither did anyone else. It sounds fine to me as subject for debate.
> 
> So how would you like such a debate to be structured? What would you like the resolution to be? Who will participate?


Structured just like the informal debate that everyone but you is having in this thread right now. In fact, jump in and defend your pet theory.

----------


## Maximatic

> Structured just like the informal debate that everyone but you is having in this thread right now. In fact, jump in and defend your pet theory.


Oh, you mean completely unstructured and undefined so that you never have to commit to defend any particular proposition, so that you can forever conceal from yourself and, in your imagination, from everyone else, that you've never proven anything.

----------


## usfan

This thread is a perfect example of the flaw of voluntarism.  You can't even get everyone to agree to the terms of a discussion!!     :Laughing7: 

Now, like dan said, multiply that a few million times, & you have the wonderful rainbows & unicorns stateless society.  Everyone bickering & squabbling about minutia, until someone gets pissed & says, 'the hell with non aggression!' & punches you in the nose.   :Smiley ROFLMAO: 

So each person, or multiple cartels or coalitions will form, acquiring the necessary force to push their agenda, or make THEIR definitions & terms for the debate.  It won't work, Ax..  the whole notion of humanity is flawed.. people are NOT mellow, peace loving, & reasonable.  They are mean, ornery, & irrational... like we demonstrate in these forums on a daily basis.   When you can't even get people to 'voluntarily' agree to terms of a discussion, how on earth can you get them to agree in the other multitudes of interactions & conflicts in real life???

You are demanding a binary way of viewing the state & govt, as though it were some kind of voodoo entity, with its own life & power.  But any state or govt or collective institution is just a collection of people, & will reflect their combined character.  You cannot kill the state, unless you kill all the people, too!  People will not live together in anarchy.. it is impossible.. any vacuum is filled, & usually with despotism, promising law & order, after the chaos of anarchy.

THAT is the path you propose to lead us down, & most of us see it, & don't want to go there.  The leftists would bawl over the loss of their nanny state, & limited govt constitutionalists will bawl over the loss of our freedoms, as the despot solidifies his power over our dead bodies.

----------

DonGlock26 (04-25-2014),Sheldonna (04-26-2014)

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## Maximatic

I think this thread is yet another demonstration that there is no rational opposition to voluntarism.

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BleedingHeadKen (04-26-2014)

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## usfan

> I think this thread is yet another demonstration that there is no rational opposition to voluntarism.


Opposition does not have to be rational.  Humans are not rational.  They do the same stupid things over & over, expecting different results.  They NEVER learn from history, but repeat it over & over...

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## Dan40

> Are you asking how the vast majority of people would prevent the minority from violating the body and property of their fellow man? I imagine that they would employ judges and police.


Judges and police?  Where do you get judges and police in your all liberty society.  And what about the liberty of the 25 million that want a different liberty than you?  And when the population is 400 million and 201 million want liberty AS THEY SEE LIBERTY, and 199 million want liberty as they see it.  How do you make IT work?

What you want,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,is what we got!

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DonGlock26 (04-26-2014)

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## hoytmonger

> Both instances were examples of governance by chiefs and legislative bodies or kings. Either way, there was a government. Iceland's sounds very limited, but it was government none the less.
> 
> What should be sobering to the voluntaryist crowd is how these tiny states fell apart.
> 
> I don't want to live under an oligarchy of the rich or be conquered by a strong state, which are two things that would like happen to a "stateless" society.


There was no state... a state being an institutionalized monopoly of coercion. The Celts had the most sophisticated system of jurisprudence in the ancient world...




> These ancient Irish laws have come to be called The Brehon Laws from the Irish term "Brehon" which was applied to the official lawgiver. They were transmitted orally and with extreme accuracy from generation to generation by a special class of professional jurists called Brithem (judge in early Gaelic). These laws are of great antiquity and may antedate the coming of the Celts to Ireland. St. Patrick is credited with codifying these laws in the 5th Century. His efforts fill five volumes and are known as the Senchus Mor. its ordinances are named C'ain Padraic after St. Patrick. These five volumes which have come down to us, however, are only a small portion of the old Irish laws which covered almost every relationship and every fine shade of relationship, social and moral, between man and man.
> 
> While the Brehon, or lawgiver, administered the law, the aggregate wisdom of nine leading representatives was necessary to originate a law or to abolish it. The nine needed for the making of a law were the chief, poet, historian, landowner, bishop, professor of literature, professor of law, a noble, and a lay vicar. Impartiality is the salient characteristic of all the laws for all the ranks. The king himself was bound by law to do justice to his meanest subject. The king's rights are acknowledged but his duties are also enumerated. The democracy of these laws is shown in dozens of ways. For example, a king carrying building material to his castle had the same and only the same claim for right of way as the miller carrying material to build his mill; the poorest man in the land could compel payment of a debt from a noble or could levy a distress upon the king himself; the man who stole the needle of a poor embroidery woman was compelled to pay a far higher fine than the man who stole the queen's needle.
> 
> 
> The Brehon Law was based on an individual's identity, defined in terms of clan and personal wealth. Honor was evaluated in terms of personal wealth and each person's wealth or honor price reflected his legal status in the community. In the sight of the law, the bishop, king, chief poet, and public hospitaller (person who owned and operated guest houses for no fee) were in the same rank and a like fine or honor price was payable for the killing of any of the four. The Irish law expected most from those who had received the most from God. For example, a member of the clergy might be fined double that of a lay person for the same offense. For certain offenses, lay people of rank were deprived of half their honor price for the first offense and all their honor price for the third offense. Clerics, on the other hand, would not only lose all their honor price for the first offense, but would be degraded as well. An ordinary cleric could, by doing penance and suffering punishment, win back his grade; a cleric of higher rank, such as a bishop, however, not only lost his honor price and was degraded for the first offense, but he could never again regain his position.
> 
> 
> The Brehon Law applied to all areas of life and reflects the values of the people. In education, the rule was "instruction without reservation, correctness without harshness are due from the master to the pupil." The master was also expected to feed and clothe his student. The student, in turn, was indebted to his instructor whom he was expected to support in his old age if the instructor was incapacitated or had no clan to care for him. Under the law, anyone who insulted or assaulted a student was guilty of insult or assault to the teacher. It was, therefore, to the teacher that a fine was paid. It was also the law that a student pay to his teacher the first fee earned by him when he graduated into a profession. Even though the mass of the people was not educated, all, including women, who desired an education could get one under the law.
> ...


http://www.irish-society.org/home/he...he-brehon-laws

What should be sobering to the statist crowd is the length of time these stateless societies lasted.

You also fail to realize that you currently live under the rule of rich oligarchs and have been conquered by a militarized state for your entire life.

----------



----------


## Dan40

Utopian naive nonsense.  You might as well be liberals with their Utopian naive nonsense.

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DonGlock26 (04-25-2014)

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## Maximatic

> What should be sobering to the voluntaryist crowd is how these tiny states fell apart.





> What should be sobering to the statist crowd is the length of time these stateless societies lasted.


As usual, the statement of the voluntarist is factual, while the statement of the statist is based on an assumption that is patently false. Neither of them fell apart. They were both destroyed by external forces. 

The one with the governance structure that most resembled a state, Iceland, where judicial services were provided by the same party that provided security, was destroyed by subversion involving kidnapping extortion and murder. The process took over 200 years.

The one that most resembled a voluntary society, Ireland, persisted in the same system of governance for, by all accounts, *no less than a thousand years*, and, by some accounts, _for as long as 2000 years, or even as long as recorded history_. It was finally destroyed, by British armies, by violent direct assaults which went on for no less than *480 years*!

It has taken less than 100 years for a subversive process to reduce your precious representative republic, from the kind of government the conservative statist imagines it to be, to something most resembling a fascist oligarchy.

The destruction of what you call a weak, defenseless society took longer than twice the entire lifetime of the nation governed by what you believe to be the best system of governance possible.

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BleedingHeadKen (04-26-2014)

----------


## hoytmonger

> This thread is a perfect example of the flaw of voluntarism.  You can't even get everyone to agree to the terms of a discussion!!    
> 
> Now, like dan said, multiply that a few million times, & you have the wonderful rainbows & unicorns stateless society.  Everyone bickering & squabbling about minutia, until someone gets pissed & says, 'the hell with non aggression!' & punches you in the nose.  
> 
> So each person, or multiple cartels or coalitions will form, acquiring the necessary force to push their agenda, or make THEIR definitions & terms for the debate.  It won't work, Ax..  the whole notion of humanity is flawed.. people are NOT mellow, peace loving, & reasonable.  They are mean, ornery, & irrational... like we demonstrate in these forums on a daily basis.   When you can't even get people to 'voluntarily' agree to terms of a discussion, how on earth can you get them to agree in the other multitudes of interactions & conflicts in real life???
> 
> You are demanding a binary way of viewing the state & govt, as though it were some kind of voodoo entity, with its own life & power.  But any state or govt or collective institution is just a collection of people, & will reflect their combined character.  You cannot kill the state, unless you kill all the people, too!  People will not live together in anarchy.. it is impossible.. any vacuum is filled, & usually with despotism, promising law & order, after the chaos of anarchy.
> 
> THAT is the path you propose to lead us down, & most of us see it, & don't want to go there.  The leftists would bawl over the loss of their nanny state, & limited govt constitutionalists will bawl over the loss of our freedoms, as the despot solidifies his power over our dead bodies.


Your post indicates that you fear being self reliant in a society where voluntary associations form the economy that's the very basis for the society. Human beings are, for the most part, reasonable and wish to avoid conflict. You seem to believe it's the state that maintains the peaceful equilibrium in society when, in fact, it's simply human nature. 
Civilians far outnumber the state and the state's muscle, but civilians choose not to eradicate them... except when those that rule push too far. The fact is that human civilization is already, by and large, an anarchist society. Without the state run 'news' media constantly reminding civilians that they have no authority over their lives, people will simply do what they want... people will respect others according to the moral standards by which they were raised. 
The state does nothing that's beneficial to human society and is responsible for the majority of what's wrong in human society. Those fearful of liberty will assign boogeymen like warlords, tyranny of the rich, hoards of outlaws and chaos to justify the state's existence but this justification is dystopian fantasy. 
Economics is the basis of a civilized society, not force. Using force is expensive, voluntary exchange is cost effective and mutually beneficial. The perceived inevitability of the state, as well as the perceived unviability of a stateless society, are founded on faulty economic reasoning and irrational fear.

----------


## DonGlock26

> Oh, you mean completely unstructured and undefined so that you never have to commit to defend any particular proposition, so that you can forever conceal from yourself and, in your imagination, from everyone else, that you've never proven anything.


The voluntaryist wants control. That's what he wants. Well, no one wants your rules. Are you going to pout, or are you going to defend your philosophy here?

----------


## DonGlock26

> Opposition does not have to be rational.  Humans are not rational.  They do the same stupid things over & over, expecting different results.  They NEVER learn from history, but repeat it over & over...


There are plenty of rational people here laughing at this voluntaryist claptrap. The voluntaryist is doing everything BUT defending his position by answering on topic questions about his philosophy. To think, he expected everyone to pour over his three 5-7 page essays about his  Shangri-la. Hilarious!

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JustPassinThru (04-26-2014)

----------


## JustPassinThru

There is nothing here but fantasy and stubborn insistence, against all history, knowledge of human behavior...and against his OWN inability to persuade others.

Somehow it will just be so.  Why?  Because it's LOGICAL.  I SAID SO!

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## DonGlock26

> There was no state... a state being an institutionalized monopoly of coercion. The Celts had the most sophisticated system of jurisprudence in the ancient world...
> 
> http://www.irish-society.org/home/he...he-brehon-laws
> 
> What should be sobering to the statist crowd is the length of time these stateless societies lasted.
> 
> You also fail to realize that you currently live under the rule of rich oligarchs and have been conquered by a militarized state for your entire life.


Um..... do you realize that you posted an article about an Irish legislature and kings? That is a state. 

They weren't stateless. That's why they lasted until a stronger, better organized state conquered them. 

It's becoming an oligarchy, but that is the fault of the American voters.

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usfan (04-26-2014)

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## DonGlock26

> As usual, the statement of the voluntarist is factual, while the statement of the statist is based on an assumption that is patently false. Neither of them fell apart. They were both destroyed by external forces. 
> 
> The one with the governance structure that most resembled a state, Iceland, where judicial services were provided by the same party that provided security, was destroyed by subversion involving kidnapping extortion and murder. The process took over 200 years.
> 
> The one that most resembled a voluntary society, Ireland, persisted in the same system of governance for, by all accounts, *no less than a thousand years*, and, by some accounts, _for as long as 2000 years, or even as long as recorded history_. It was finally destroyed, by British armies, by violent direct assaults which went on for no less than *480 years*!
> 
> It has taken less than 100 years for a subversive process to reduce your precious representative republic, from the kind of government the conservative statist imagines it to be, to something most resembling a fascist oligarchy.
> 
> The destruction of what you call a weak, defenseless society took longer than twice the entire lifetime of the nation governed by what you believe to be the best system of governance possible.


They both had governments. They were not voluntaryist. They couldn't ignore the laws or judicial edits either.

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## DonGlock26

> There is nothing here but fantasy and stubborn insistence, against all history, knowledge of human behavior...and against his OWN inability to persuade others.
> 
> Somehow it will just be so.  Why?  Because it's LOGICAL.  I SAID SO!


It is amusing, isn't it? The most perfect political system ever invented undone by a few questions. Tsk, tsk, tsk....

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## Longshot

Voluntaryism isn't a political system. It is a political philosophy which holds that all forms of human association should be voluntary. It is based on the position that it is unjust to initiate aggression against the person or property of one's fellow man.

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## usfan

> Your post indicates that you fear being self reliant in a society where voluntary associations form the economy that's the very basis for the society. Human beings are, for the most part, reasonable and wish to avoid conflict. You seem to believe it's the state that maintains the peaceful equilibrium in society when, in fact, it's simply human nature. 
> Civilians far outnumber the state and the state's muscle, but civilians choose not to eradicate them... except when those that rule push too far. The fact is that human civilization is already, by and large, an anarchist society. Without the state run 'news' media constantly reminding civilians that they have no authority over their lives, people will simply do what they want... people will respect others according to the moral standards by which they were raised. 
> The state does nothing that's beneficial to human society and is responsible for the majority of what's wrong in human society. Those fearful of liberty will assign boogeymen like warlords, tyranny of the rich, hoards of outlaws and chaos to justify the state's existence but this justification is dystopian fantasy. 
> Economics is the basis of a civilized society, not force. Using force is expensive, voluntary exchange is cost effective and mutually beneficial. The perceived inevitability of the state, as well as the perceived unviability of a stateless society, are founded on faulty economic reasoning and irrational fear.


My post indicates fear?    :Smiley ROFLMAO:   I am laughing with you at the absurdity of thinking that you can 'reason' everyone into a state of altruistic harmony.  The state IS civilians.. except the hired & VOLUNTEER soldiers who agree to fight for national causes.

The state, in america, does both good & evil.  Justice, law & order is good.  Protecting the citizens from foreign invaders, thieves, & enemies is good.  But you have heard plenty of criticism from me & other constitutional conservatives about the evils of our current govt, & the direction they are taking us.  The difference is, some of us think it can be changed for the good.. .to bring us back to our mission statement outlined in the declaration of independence.  It is an ideal, but is at least possible, unlike utopian anarchy.

Yes, prosperous economic is a good basis  for society.  But NO society can be prosperous if thieves steal from them every time they produce something.  That is why we have banded together to provide a force that deters aggressors.  Without that deterrence, thieves & aggressors will kill & steal, as they have done for millennia.




> Voluntaryism isn't a political system. It is a political philosophy which holds that all forms of human association should be voluntary. It is based on the position that it is unjust to initiate aggression against the person or property of one's fellow man.


Yes, i agree.  It is like a religion.  It requires an enlightened 'new man' to function.  If you could mandate everyone to become a practicing, sincere christian, who is filled with love for his fellow man, & has overcome any tendency to sin (not even christians claim that!), then perhaps your voluntarist society could work.. or if the almighty comes & sets up a system of pure justice & perfect truth.. THEN we could all live together in harmony.. disputes would be few, as love would rule the day.  People would be generous, giving, forgiving, & sacrificial for their fellow man.

Yes, this 'new man' would be wonderful.  Unfortunately, he is a fantasy.. he does not exist.  We are stuck with the old man.

http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...as-the-Old-Man

----------


## Longshot

> Yes, i agree.  It is like a religion.  It requires an enlightened 'new man' to function.


No, I don't think it requires a 'new man'. Society can, and does, act in ways that conform with the philosophy of voluntaryism, or it can act in ways that violate the principles of voluntaryism. For example, the institution of slavery violated voluntaryist principles, whereas emancipation was in accord with them. Prohibition violated voluntaryist principles, while repeal was in accord with them. Any society can be more or less in accord with voluntaryist principles. As a voluntaryist, I favor a political system that is as close as possible to the voluntaryist principles of non-aggression and respect for property rights.

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## usfan

> No, I don't think it requires a 'new man'. Society can, and does, act in ways that conform with the philosophy of voluntaryism, or it can act in ways that violate the principles of voluntaryism. For example, the institution of slavery violated voluntaryist principles, whereas emancipation was in accord with them. Prohibition violated voluntaryist principles, while repeal was in accord with them. Any society can be more or less in accord with voluntaryist principles. As a voluntaryist, I favor a political system that is as close as possible to the voluntaryist principles of non-aggression and respect for property rights.


One of the great successes of america was because of the ethics of the general population.  They did not have to spend a lot of their increase on law enforcement, as people were generally moral & ethical.  But as our culture has declined, & morals have become lax, lawlessness has also increased, & crime, corruption, lies, & other moral indicators drain our resources & cripple us as a nation.  That is a pattern in other societies throughout history.  Moral decline precedes lawlessness, corruption, & cultural collapse.  So i agree that a moral people have little need of Law.. they keep their inner law, & very little enforcement & deterrence is needed.  But as a nation declines in corruption, so does Law & order, until despotism is the only solution.  That is the direction we are headed, now.

_I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other. ~Benjamin Franklin_

I'm all for rights.. that is the basic function of govt, for the american.. to secure our basic rights.  And i see 'life & property' as the most basic of human rights.  IF any govt becomes destructive of the goal of securing these basic rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, & make one that does.  A minimal govt that provides to the collective the security to work, live, & prosper is the ideal for humanity.  Evil exists in the world, so justice & deterrence will always be necessary.  The trick is to keep them (the govt) confined to their basic duties, & not allow them leeway to expand into other areas of our lives.

_Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others ~John Locke

"Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience." ~John Locke_

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DonGlock26 (04-26-2014)

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## Gerrard Winstanley

> Just like children NEED parental guidance, MAN needs government.  Parental guidance can be firm but light.  Government can be the same, firm but light.  There is danger.  Always, in everything.    It cannot be eliminated.  The danger of an overbearing government as we have now will always be with us.  Just as there are overbearing parents.  The overbearing govt is easier to fix than the bad parent.


And here, friends, we see exemplified the statist mindset. They believe government should constitute a nanny, to punish and micromanage the lives of 'undesirables' - and, so long as it's not them getting micromanaged, we're good to go!

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Longshot (04-26-2014)

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## Maximatic

> The trick is to keep them (the govt) confined to  their basic duties, & not allow them leeway to expand into other  areas of our lives.





> It is like a religion.  It requires an enlightened 'new man' to function.
> 
> Yes, this 'new man' would be wonderful.  Unfortunately, he is a fantasy.. he does not exist.  We are stuck with the old man.


I hear ya.

----------


## Sheldonna

> The state is an absolute necessity. We need it as a tool with which to suppress the gays and the ******s and the liberals when we get into power.


Let me guess.  Phoenix, Arizona.  Right?

----------


## Sheldonna

> I want someone to debate me on the necessity of the state. If the state is necessary, and obviously so, it should be easy to show the same to be true, right? If you believe that, you have a clear advantage, and there should be no good reason to decline the opportunity to show everyone how stupid the voluntarist is for believing the state to be unnecessary.



I guess I missed something somewhere along the way in your question/post.  Where, exactly, do voluntarists believe the state to be unnecessary?  I'm confused here.

----------


## Sheldonna

> Voluntaryism isn't a political system. It is a political philosophy which holds that all forms of human association should be voluntary. It is based on the position that it is unjust to initiate aggression against the person or property of one's fellow man.


Which does NOT equate to voluntarists believing that the state is unnecessary, as the thread author has stated.  

For instance...in the issue of eminent domain and 'the state' taking over/stealing someone's property to build condos and raise more tax money...a voluntarist would be correct to accuse 'the state' of acting in an unjust manner.  But that does not mean that voluntarists think 'the state' per se is ""unnecessary"".  I guess I don't get the point the thread author is trying to make here.  Anybody?

----------


## Longshot

> Which does NOT equate to voluntarists believing that the state is unnecessary, as the thread author has stated.  
> 
> For instance...in the issue of eminent domain and 'the state' taking over/stealing someone's property to build condos and raise more tax money...a voluntarist would be correct to accuse 'the state' of acting in an unjust manner.  But that does not mean that voluntarists think 'the state' per se is ""unnecessary"".  I guess I don't get the point the thread author is trying to make here.  Anybody?


Voluntaryists consider the state to be unjust and illegitimate because it violates the NAP.

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## Sheldonna

> Voluntaryists consider the state to be unjust and illegitimate because it violates the NAP.


I had no idea.  You got a link showing/illustrating that?

----------


## Longshot

> I had no idea.  You got a link showing/illustrating that?


Sure: http://voluntaryist.com/

"Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends."

----------


## Maximatic

> I guess I missed something somewhere along the  way in your question/post.  Where, exactly, do voluntarists believe the  state to be unnecessary?  I'm confused here.





> Which does NOT equate to voluntarists believing that the state is unnecessary, as the thread author has stated.  
> 
> For instance...in the issue of eminent domain and 'the state' taking over/stealing someone's property to build condos and raise more tax money...a voluntarist would be correct to accuse 'the state' of acting in an unjust manner.  But that does not mean that voluntarists think 'the state' per se is ""unnecessary"".  I guess I don't get the point the thread author is trying to make here.  Anybody?


The point of the thread is to invite people who like to defend the notion that a state, an institution that holds a monopoly on law and the legal use of force in a given territory, is necessary to a prosperous, civil society to agree to, at least, a resolution so that we can have a coherent debate where I defend the proposition that no such institution is necessary. So far, at 113 posts in, nobody will agree to a resolution. I'm not picky about it. At this point, I'd accept just about anything, as long as it identifies a proposition that that we both understand and disagree on. These guys seem to want to keep it nice and vague, I'm not sure why.

I assure you, though, voluntarists do believe that the state is unnecessary. Trust me, I know about these things :Wink:

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Longshot (04-26-2014)

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## Sheldonna

> Sure: http://voluntaryist.com/
> 
> "Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends."


Yeah.  I already saw that.  But where, exactly, does it explain how and why the state is unnecessary?  I mean....it's one thing to say "We don't believe folks should recognize "the state".....

but it's quite another to prove that "the state" (like mine, for instance, which is the state of Texas and which is proving to be one of the only/last bastions of liberty standing against the TrojanH-In-Chief) is ""unnecessary"".  

Where do voluntarists (everywhere) prove that?

----------


## Sheldonna

> The point of the thread is to invite people who like to defend the notion that a state, an institution that holds a monopoly on law and the legal use of force in a given territory, is necessary to a prosperous, civil society to agree to, at least, a resolution so that we can have a coherent debate where I defend the proposition that no such institution is necessary. So far, at 113 posts in, nobody will agree to a resolution. I'm not picky about it. At this point, I'd accept just about anything, as long as it identifies a proposition that that we both understand and disagree on. These guys seem to want to keep it nice and vague, I'm not sure why.
> 
> I assure you, though, *voluntarists do believe that the state is unnecessary*. Trust me, I know about these things


Yes....and Louis Farakkan believes in the mother ship.  But that does not PROVE a thing.  I guess my question here is....where are these voluntarists arguments (proof) that "the state" is unnecessary?  I mean....state government does a LOT of things that an "all volunteer society" could or would never be able to do.  For one thing....there are too many lazy-ass folks (See:  Obama voting entitlement minded morons) that have never and would never volunteer to get their ass up off the couch and retrieve their own beer out of the fridge unless they HAD to.  I'm just seeing more warm/fuzzy/feelgood/liberal-like Pie (sorry Trin) in the Sky BULLSHIT here.  Convince me (lol).

----------


## Longshot

> Yeah.  I already saw that.  But where, exactly, does it explain how and why the state is unnecessary?  I mean....it's one thing to say "We don't believe folks should recognize "the state".....
> 
> but it's quite another to prove that "the state" (like mine, for instance, which is the state of Texas and which is proving to be one of the only/last bastions of liberty standing against the TrojanH-In-Chief) is ""unnecessary"".  
> 
> Where do voluntarists (everywhere) prove that?


This link might help: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22the+state+is+not+necessary%22

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## Sheldonna

> This link might help: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22the+state+is+not+necessary%22


Lol!  Thanks a bunch.  I was hoping someone HERE could splain.

Guess not.

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## Sheldonna

> You have to understand how the federal government functions.  Essentially, it borrows or prints as much money as it needs in order to throw it around the globe to influence people to do their bidding.  They throw it at the poor, the rich, and every country no matter how much they may hate the US.
> 
> You might say that over $17 trillion buys you the best planet you can buy.  The only way to stop it is to cut off the money supply.  This will come either by economic collapse or laws to restrict spending.  Since the federal government has become dependent upon such power via debt, there is no reform within the federal government.  It would be like telling an alcoholic that they are a drunk and they need to stop drinking.  They typical reply is, "No I'm not and no I won't".  The alcoholic is powerless over his own condition.  Without a direct intervention he has no hope.
> 
> This is why I support a convention of the states to take back the power of the purse.   Progressives took the power of the purse at the turn of the 20th century and have become progressively worse ever since, much like an alcoholic progressively becomes worse and worse over time.  In fact, *every time I hear the word progressive, this is the example I think about which just makes me snicker*.


Exactly!  Progressively worse in every way possible under these leftist morons.  And they all sit around patting themselves on the back and applauding and cheering their successes at utter failure.  Unfreakinbelievable.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Sheldonna

> I don't think it's possible to reduce the scope of power or the size of government.


Oh, it's possible.  But it's gonna be extremely "messy".

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## Sheldonna

> This thread is a perfect example of the flaw of voluntarism.  You can't even get everyone to agree to the terms of a discussion!!    
> 
> Now, like dan said, multiply that a few million times, & you have the wonderful rainbows & unicorns stateless society.  *Everyone bickering & squabbling about minutia, until someone gets pissed & says, 'the hell with non aggression!' & punches you in the nose*.  
> 
> So each person, or multiple cartels or coalitions will form, acquiring the necessary force to push their agenda, or make THEIR definitions & terms for the debate.  It won't work, Ax..  the whole notion of humanity is flawed.. people are NOT mellow, peace loving, & reasonable.  They are mean, ornery, & irrational... like we demonstrate in these forums on a daily basis.   When you can't even get people to 'voluntarily' agree to terms of a discussion, how on earth can you get them to agree in the other multitudes of interactions & conflicts in real life???
> 
> You are demanding a binary way of viewing the state & govt, as though it were some kind of voodoo entity, with its own life & power.  But any state or govt or collective institution is just a collection of people, & will reflect their combined character.  You cannot kill the state, unless you kill all the people, too!  People will not live together in anarchy.. it is impossible.. any vacuum is filled, & usually with despotism, promising law & order, after the chaos of anarchy.
> 
> THAT is the path you propose to lead us down, & most of us see it, & don't want to go there.  The leftists would bawl over the loss of their nanny state, & limited govt constitutionalists will bawl over the loss of our freedoms, as the despot solidifies his power over our dead bodies.


Hehehe.....well stated (and hilariously so, I might add).

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## Maximatic

> Yes....and Louis Farakkan believes in the mother ship.  But that does not PROVE a thing.  I guess my question here is....where are these voluntarists arguments (proof) that "the state" is unnecessary?  I mean....state government does a LOT of things that an "all volunteer society" could or would never be able to do.  For one thing....there are too many lazy-ass folks (See:  Obama voting entitlement minded morons) that have never and would never volunteer to get their ass up off the couch and retrieve their own beer out of the fridge unless they HAD to.  I'm just seeing more warm/fuzzy/feelgood/liberal-like Pie (sorry Trin) in the Sky BULLSHIT here.  Convince me (lol).


Volunteer is not the right word. The assumptions I make are these:

That the law of a society is that which the people of the society believe the law to be.

Take the settlement of the colonies of America as an example. On wagon trains, most of them agreed to a set of bi-laws before they set out. There was no courthouse or police station that went with them to make it all "official". They lived by and, when necessary, enforce the laws they agreed on because they all believed that it was what they should do. Each settlement continued in the same way. They weren't all the same, but the basics, don't attack people or take their stuff, are universal. Those things are not just universal to European settlers. They are universal to all people in the whole world, throughout all of history. People have established different forms of government, and however tragic the system they establish turns out to be for them, they still make it work, for whatever reason. Whatever procedures the constitution, or whatever founding document they use, lays out for setting up and maintaining the government, that's what people do. Since we can write whatever kind of constitution we want to write, and make it work, that's what we should do; we should write a constitution that makes fraud and the initiation of force, any direct action that harms another person or the property of another person, illegal.

Any service that can be provided, for which there is a demand, can be provided on a free market.

This includes law enforcement and dispute resolution. If someone has broken the law and harmed you, and it can be proven, to the satisfaction of a reputable judge (so that your neighbors don't get the idea that you made the whole thing up), you are within your legal rights to extract a remedy from that person, even if you have to pay a group of stronger, better armed men to force it out of him. Since he is the one who caused all the trouble and expense, he will be made to pay for the expense of taking him to task as well. If he doesn't have the money, he will have to work it off. If he did something really bad, like kill or rape someone, he will probably be paying for it for the rest of his short, miserable life.

Other arguments, and more thorough versions of these arguments can be found here:
http://voluntarycompact.com/the-viab...societies.html

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## Maximatic

> Oh, it's possible.  But it's gonna be extremely "messy".


I don't think anyone understood what I meant there. A government can be removed and replaced by revolution or coup, but it will never be reduced in size or power by the same processes that are established by which its law is to be legally altered.

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## Maximatic

> Hehehe.....well stated (and hilariously so, I might add).


Yeah, the only problem with it is that it's false. If it were true, no government could ever have formed.

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## Ghost of Lunchboxxy

Don't be so afraid of 'the state'. 

It's never going away, so learn to USE it to advance your agenda instead. 

It's POWER, and NOTHING gets done without POWER.

POWER is ALL! Even if you want to shrink the state's presence in everyday life, you need a LOT of POWER to do so. 

So paradoxically, state power is required to shrink the state.

That's life. Life with it.

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## Ghost of Lunchboxxy

THIS is where anarchism, socialism and marxism--in fact, all the utopian nightmares humanity has had the misfortune to dream up--falls apart, THIS statement of yours:

*The assumptions I make are these:

That the law of a society is that which the people of the society believe the law to be.*

Subjective desires and declarations always collide with and are steamrolled by objective human characteristics like greed and ego and hatred and power-hunger.

That's why you are wasting your time.

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DonGlock26 (04-26-2014)

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## Maximatic

> Don't be so afraid of 'the state'. 
> 
> It's never going away, so learn to USE it to advance your agenda instead.


Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me.




> It's POWER, and NOTHING gets done without POWER.
> 
> POWER is ALL! Even if you want to shrink the state's presence in everyday life, you need a LOT of POWER to do so. 
> 
> So paradoxically, state power is required to shrink the state.
> 
> That's life. Life with it.

----------


## Maximatic

> THIS is where anarchism, socialism and marxism--in fact, all the utopian nightmares humanity has had the misfortune to dream up--falls apart, THIS statement of yours:
> 
> *The assumptions I make are these:
> 
> That the law of a society is that which the people of the society believe the law to be.*
> 
> Subjective desires and declarations always collide with and are steamrolled by objective human characteristics like greed and ego and hatred and power-hunger.
> 
> That's why you are wasting your time.


Sorry, I've read real reasons to believe communism will yield a very low standard of living and an overwhelming government without having to test it, reasons described using actual deductive reasoning. I know what sound arguments look like. When you make one, I'll let you know.

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## Ghost of Lunchboxxy

The invention of the state represents an ADVANCE of human civilization, your anarchism represents a giant backward step, by not centuries, but millennia.

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DonGlock26 (04-26-2014),usfan (04-26-2014)

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## Ghost of Lunchboxxy

> Sorry, I've read real reasons to believe communism will yield a very low standard of living and an overwhelming government without having to test it, reasons described using actual deductive reasoning. I know what sound arguments look like. When you make one, I'll let you know.


Cleverly manipulating the machinery of Aristotelian logic will not get you even half a step closer to the realization of anarchism if all your premises are wrong.

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DonGlock26 (04-26-2014)

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## Maximatic

> The invention of the state represents an ADVANCE of human civilization, your anarchism represents a giant backward step, by not centuries, but millennia.


You mean, like, back to this?

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## Ghost of Lunchboxxy

> You mean, like, back to this?


Hammurabi was an absolute monarch and had a considerable state machinery for his time that he used to enforce these laws.

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## Maximatic

> Cleverly manipulating the machinery of Aristotelian logic will not get you even half a step closer to the realization of anarchism if all your premises are wrong.


Well that's what a freakin debate is for. Gat damit, you guys! If you think a premise is wrong, tell me which one, and why, and I'll tell you why it's not wrong.

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## Maximatic

> Hammurabi was an absolute monarch and had a considerable state machinery for his time that he used to enforce these laws.


I know. And it was toward the beginning of written history.

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## Dan40

> There was no state... a state being an institutionalized monopoly of coercion. The Celts had the most sophisticated system of jurisprudence in the ancient world...
> 
> http://www.irish-society.org/home/he...he-brehon-laws
> 
> What should be sobering to the statist crowd is the length of time these stateless societies lasted.
> 
> You also fail to realize that you currently live under the rule of rich oligarchs and have been conquered by a militarized state for your entire life.


The answer is to fix our broken government.  The non-answer is to stupidly attempt to replace our government with a steaming pile of utter nonsense that will not and has never worked with a large diverse society.

James Madison,

"Father of the Constitution"

Author 0f "The Bill of Rights,"

Said:

*"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
*

And it should be obvious to everyone even approaching the first glimmer of maturity, that men ARE NOT angels.

And perhaps, not so obvious, but just as accurate, they never will be angels.

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JustPassinThru (04-26-2014),usfan (04-26-2014)

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## DonGlock26

> Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me.


You call that a reply?

----------



----------


## Maximatic

> You call that a reply?


Would you just get the fuck out of my thread? You never say anything worth reading, ever.

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## Dan40

> Would you just get the fuck out of my thread? You never say anything worth reading, ever.


What debate style is the above?

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DonGlock26 (04-26-2014),JustPassinThru (04-26-2014)

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## DonGlock26

> You mean, like, back to this?


Actually, that was an advancement because it limited punishments. Prior to that, punishments could be out of all proportion to the offense. It is better than the powerful in a stateless society doing as they please to the weak. The state, with all of its faults, is better than the human predation that would happen under wide spread anarchy. In fact, people would quickly organize themselves into small states for mutual protection. Man truly is a political animal. Alone, he is vulnerable to human predators.

----------



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## Ghost of Lunchboxxy

You DO understand that the Law Code of Hammurabi represented a GIANT step forward for the rule of law and the enterprise of human civilization generally, right Ax?

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DonGlock26 (04-26-2014),JustPassinThru (04-26-2014)

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## DonGlock26

> Would you just get the fuck out of my thread? You never say anything worth reading, ever.


I'm not going anywhere. You are very critical of my questions and yet there you are making replies like that. 

Your voluntaryist philosophy is being pulled apart brick by brick, and you are unable to summon the intellectual wherewithal to defend it. That's why you are down to this low point.

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## hoytmonger

> Um..... do you realize that you posted an article about an Irish legislature and kings? That is a state. 
> 
> They weren't stateless. That's why they lasted until a stronger, better organized state conquered them. 
> 
> It's becoming an oligarchy, but that is the fault of the American voters.


No, it was not a state. Their system of law and justice was not political. The king was a title, not a head of state. The 'legislature' were people of all walks of life, not just nobles. It was a voluntary system, not institutionalized coercion. Maybe you should try actually reading the article before you make false assertions.

 The Celts were an economically based society of productive people that treated each other, including women, as equals. Those that eventually conquered the Celts... Oliver Cromwell through wholesale genocide... were a less civilized political class and were largely responsible for the libertarian movement's rise in the American colonies by driving them out of Europe.

You don't understand what the state is...




> With the rise of democracy, the identification of the State with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense such as, "we are the government." The useful collective term "we" has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If "we are the government," then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that "we owe it to ourselves"; if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is "doing it to himself" and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have "committed suicide," since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and, therefore, anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part. One would not think it necessary to belabor this point, and yet the overwhelming bulk of the people hold this fallacy to a greater or lesser degree.
> 
> We must, therefore, emphasize that "we" are not the government; the government is not "us." The government does not in any accurate sense "represent" the majority of the people.[1] But, even if it did, even if 70 percent of the people decided to murder the remaining 30 percent, this would still be murder and would not be voluntary suicide on the part of the slaughtered minority.[2] No organicist metaphor, no irrelevant bromide that "we are all part of one another," must be permitted to obscure this basic fact.


http://mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp

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## Maximatic

> You DO understand that the Law Code of Hammurabi represented a GIANT step forward for the rule of law and the enterprise of human civilization generally, right Ax?


No, I don't because it doesn't. It doesn't represent much of anything other than the fact that they had written laws at least that long ago. But we already know they had states long before that. Hammurabi's Code is actually quite arbitrary and presumptive of cast, read it. I don't know, and you don't know what the laws of the previous kings were because we don't have comprehensive records of them. You can believe whatever you want. You can believe Hammurabi when he says he brought order to the land, even though all you have is his word. You can even take the word of Ramses the second when he says, about the Battle of Kadesh, that, with the help of his god, he emerged victorious, if you want to, even though we know, from the same account, that his entire army was destroyed.

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## Maximatic

> I'm not going anywhere. You are very critical of my questions and yet there you are making replies like that. 
> 
> Your voluntaryist philosophy is being pulled apart brick by brick, and you are unable to summon the intellectual wherewithal to defend it. That's why you are down to this low point.


You live in your own little world, don't you?

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## Maximatic

> Actually, that was an advancement because it limited punishments. Prior to that, punishments could be out of all proportion to the offense. It is better than the powerful in a stateless society doing as they please to the weak. The state, with all of its faults, is better than the human predation that would happen under wide spread anarchy. In fact, people would quickly organize themselves into small states for mutual protection. Man truly is a political animal. Alone, he is vulnerable to human predators.


I don't think so. Source.

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## Maximatic

> What debate style is the above?


If any of you ever get the balls to agree to a resolution, we can have a debate.

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## JustPassinThru

Another way of looking at his position, is akin to unilateral disarmament.

He and like-minded persons would disarm themselves of the State.  No law; no police/security forces; no military.

OTHERS of course do not have the same mindset.  And like Stalin's Russia ran over Eastern Europe after WWII, when THEY were "liberated" of the State with the collapse of the Nazi terrorist regime...Russians were NOT liberated of State power; they USED State power.  For imperialist ends - that is, to conquer and plunder.  Which they most-assuredly DID do.

That future also lies with any colony of eggheads so stupid-smart as to try such an asinine scheme.  This shouldn't even need to be explained; but either educational failure or pot-use explosions lead us to this.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Maximatic

I've got the same four numbskulls here, refusing to agree to terms of a debate, while pretending that one is going on, and the threads where they can find my actual arguments continue to just sit there, unopposed.

http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...u-need-to-know
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads/12610-Law
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...-Is-and-Is-Not
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads/15195-Order

Pathetic

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## hoytmonger

> My post indicates fear?     I am laughing with you at the absurdity of thinking that you can 'reason' everyone into a state of altruistic harmony.  The state IS civilians.. except the hired & VOLUNTEER soldiers who agree to fight for national causes.
> 
> The state, in america, does both good & evil.  Justice, law & order is good.  Protecting the citizens from foreign invaders, thieves, & enemies is good.  But you have heard plenty of criticism from me & other constitutional conservatives about the evils of our current govt, & the direction they are taking us.  The difference is, some of us think it can be changed for the good.. .to bring us back to our mission statement outlined in the declaration of independence.  It is an ideal, but is at least possible, unlike utopian anarchy.
> 
> Yes, prosperous economic is a good basis  for society.  But NO society can be prosperous if thieves steal from them every time they produce something.  That is why we have banded together to provide a force that deters aggressors.  Without that deterrence, thieves & aggressors will kill & steal, as they have done for millennia.


Yes, you are fearful of that which you don't understand. The state isn't civilians, it's a political bureaucracy, it's the systematization of the predatory process over a given territory. The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property, it renders certain, secure, and relatively "peaceful" the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society. Since production must always precede predation, the free market is anterior to the State. The State has never been created by a 'social contract', it has always been born in conquest and exploitation. The classic paradigm was a conquering tribe pausing in its time-honored method of looting and murdering a conquered tribe, to realize that the time-span of plunder would be longer and more secure, and the situation more pleasant, if the conquered tribe were allowed to live and produce, with the conquerors settling among them as rulers exacting a steady annual tribute. The state doesn't protect productive civilians from theft and murder... the state commits theft and murder on the productive civilians, it holds the monopoly on it... that's how it exists. The state plunders and the productive civilians are it's slaves. Without society, the state cannot exist... without a state, society could flourish.
'We' haven't banded together to provide a force to deter aggressors. The aggressors are the ones you're relying on to protect you. Look at what happened at the Bundy ranch standoff, the state came with machine guns and helicopters ready to shoot and loot, they destroyed private property and were clearly the aggressors. They backed down after civilians made a show of force. It wasn't the civilians that were looking to steal and murder, but they're the ones being portrayed as domestic terrorists. The state is the enemy, they're the ones with unlimited resources to go to war, not civilians. War is expensive and counter productive, which is why economics is the basis of a civil society.

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## Maximatic

> Another way of looking at his position, is akin to unilateral disarmament.
> 
> He and like-minded persons would disarm themselves of the State.  No law; no police/security forces; no military.
> 
> OTHERS of course do not have the same mindset.  And like Stalin's Russia ran over Eastern Europe after WWII, when THEY were "liberated" of the State with the collapse of the Nazi terrorist regime...Russians were NOT liberated of State power; they USED State power.  For imperialist ends - that is, to conquer and plunder.  Which they most-assuredly DID do.
> 
> That future also lies with any colony of eggheads so stupid-smart as to try such an asinine scheme.  This shouldn't even need to be explained; but either educational failure or pot-use explosions lead us to this.


I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have any plans for the US. The US is doomed to be consumed by its government. I can't help you because you think the government hung the moon, and you'll just keep voting for the same people who put you in this predicament.

As for voluntary societies, I don't like the idea of disarmament at all. I think everybody should own all the weapons they want. The more, the merrier. It wouldn't take much to be better armed than this list of countries with no armed forces at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...t_armed_forces

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## Dan40

> I've got the same four numbskulls here, refusing to agree to terms of a debate, while pretending that one is going on, and the threads where they can find my actual arguments continue to just sit there, unopposed.
> 
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...u-need-to-know
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads/12610-Law
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...-Is-and-Is-Not
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads/15195-Order
> 
> Pathetic


The problem is that you are mindlocked into childish nonsense.  Utopia will never exist with people.  Maybe, but doubtful, with "something" else,  but who cares?

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## JustPassinThru

So we have a bad, lawless government.

You think the answer is NO government?

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## JustPassinThru

You want a debate?  Here's a debate.

RESOLVED:  People can levitate, float in the air, if they really, really want to.

Disprove that.

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## Maximatic

> So we have a bad, lawless government.
> 
> You think the answer is NO government?


Yes, I do. The only kind of government that can't grow is no government. But, if you define government as mechanisms by which harmful human action is restrained, then I do like government, only a particular kind. If you define government as an institution with a monopoly on law and the legal use of force in a given territory, then yes, the solution is no government.

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## Maximatic

> You want a debate?  Here's a debate.
> 
> RESOLVED:  People can levitate, float in the air, if they really, really want to.
> 
> Disprove that.


Can they do it without the aid of any devices, external to their own bodies?

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## Dan40

> So we have a bad, lawless government.
> 
> You think the answer is NO government?


Obviously the answer IS total lawlessness and chaos.  THEN all will be fine.  

Who could ever doubt that?  Sure, people with functioning minds, but who else?

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Maximatic

> The problem is that you are mindlocked into childish nonsense.  Utopia will never exist with people.  Maybe, but doubtful, with "something" else,  but who cares?


A whole bunch of people who are sick and tired of governments doing the same predictable detrimental things over and over care.

Nobody believes in utopia. All we're asking for is that you guys stop hallucinating that this magical ruling thing that doesn't really exist has the power to maintain order and safety.

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## Maximatic

> Obviously the answer IS total lawlessness and chaos.  THEN all will be fine.  
> 
> Who could ever doubt that?  Sure, people with functioning minds, but who else?


It's not obvious at all. There was no chaos before the governments were formed. There was no chaos while people were voluntarily convening to establish them. There was no chaos while they were creating them. Why would there be chaos when we intentionally build the same system of governance that already did exist for a thousand fucking years?

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## JustPassinThru

> Can they do it without the aid of any devices, external to their own bodies?


Sure!  They just have to really, really WANT to!

Just because it's never been done, doesn't mean it can't be done.

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## JustPassinThru

> It's not obvious at all. There was no chaos before the governments were formed. There was no chaos while people were voluntarily convening to establish them. There was no chaos while they were creating them. Why would there be chaos when we intentionally build the same system of governance that already did exist for a thousand fucking years?


ARE you out of your FCUKING MIND?

NO CHAOS?  Pre-civilization was nothing BUT chaos!  The strong preying on the weak.  Archeological finds of human skulls stove in.  What do you think they built WALLS for in the first prototype cities?  For the hell of it?

You can't even be taken literally as entertainment - I have never met anyone so ignorant; and it scares me that there are more where you come from.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Maximatic

> Sure!  They just have to really, really WANT to!
> 
> Just because it's never been done, doesn't mean it can't be done.


No, because it's never been done is not a conclusive reason to believe it's impossible.

I don't know of any mechanism, though, by which really really wanting to can cause a person to levitate. Do you?

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## Dan40

> It's not obvious at all. There was no chaos before the governments were formed. There was no chaos while people were voluntarily convening to establish them. There was no chaos while they were creating them. Why would there be chaos when we intentionally build the same system of governance that already did exist for a thousand fucking years?


You are wandering aimlessly in an imaginary dream world.  What your imagination has conjured up has never existed and will never exist.  Doesn't matter how hard you believe it.  Your world will remain for all of mankind's time, imaginary.

You are being completely silly trying to claim a KING, did not RULE.  Such a glaring bogus claim torpedo's every word you post.

Reality.

It never happened and it will never happen.  If you had an open mind instead of dreaming about some Utopia, you'd see that just our DEBATE destroys your argument.,  If 2 mostly conservative, semi intelligent people cannot agree that your imaginary world is possible, HOW are 300+ million , a third or more of them, govt dependent, going to EVER agree?

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Katzndogz

> ARE you out of your FCUKING MIND?
> 
> NO CHAOS?  Pre-civilization was nothing BUT chaos!  The strong preying on the weak.  Archeological finds of human skulls stove in.  What do you think they built WALLS for in the first prototype cities?  For the hell of it?
> 
> You can't even be taken literally as entertainment - I have never met anyone so ignorant; and it scares me that there are more where you come from.


They were all flower children, gathering roots and berries and generously sharing them with those who chose not to gather.   People lived in harmony with nature and with one another. There was no war, or fights over anything as the world was for the common good.

That's the liberal view of history.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Maximatic

> ARE you out of your FCUKING MIND?
> 
> NO CHAOS?  Pre-civilization was nothing BUT chaos!  The strong preying on the weak.  Archeological finds of human skulls stove in.  What do you think they built WALLS for in the first prototype cities?  For the hell of it?
> 
> You can't even be taken literally as entertainment - I have never met anyone so ignorant; and it scares me that there are more where you come from.


I don't know anything about societies before civilization, and you don't either. We do know something about the settlement of this continent, when there were no governments at all, yet there was order, and prosperity. We know something about a society where the system of governance was 100% voluntary for a thousand years, which proves my claim that such a thing is possible. There's really no need to debate it; of course it is possible; _it has happened before._

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## usfan

> I've got the same four numbskulls here, refusing to agree to terms of a debate, while pretending that one is going on, and the threads where they can find my actual arguments continue to just sit there, unopposed.
> 
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...u-need-to-know
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads/12610-Law
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...-Is-and-Is-Not
> http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads/15195-Order
> 
> Pathetic


I had a bunch, too.. here were some of mine, with basically the same debate.. governance, power, Law, etc..

http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...points-between
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...rd-for-mankind
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...nction-of-Govt
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...fun-amp-profit
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...untaryism-Work
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...n-for-the-Ages
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...as-the-Old-Man
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...g-from-history
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...vidual-Freedom
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...eam-of-America
http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...Representative

These are all related to govt, its basis, or directly addressing anarchism, collectivism, & the American experiment.  Most of them went into detail in voluntarism & anarchy.  Some only went a few posts, others several pages.  But the result is clear.  We are no nearer a consensus about governance than we were a few thousand years ago.  If we cannot agree upon something this basic, how on earth do you think you can just mandate everyone to agree upon your non aggression principle?

ok, even this one relates.. plus trinnity posted some naked video in it to accompany..   :Laughing7: 

http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...-Blurred-Lines

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## Maximatic

> You are wandering aimlessly in an imaginary dream world.  What your imagination has conjured up has never existed and will never exist.  Doesn't matter how hard you believe it.  Your world will remain for all of mankind's time, imaginary.
> 
> You are being completely silly trying to claim a KING, did not RULE.  Such a glaring bogus claim torpedo's every word you post.
> 
> Reality.
> 
> It never happened and it will never happen.  If you had an open mind instead of dreaming about some Utopia, you'd see that just our DEBATE destroys your argument.,  If 2 mostly conservative, semi intelligent people cannot agree that your imaginary world is possible, HOW are 300+ million , a third or more of them, govt dependent, going to EVER agree?


Don't you remember what happened the last time we got to this point of the argument, when I told you that it HAS HAPPENED BEFORE?

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## Maximatic

> They were all flower children, gathering roots and berries and generously sharing them with those who chose not to gather.   People lived in harmony with nature and with one another. There was no war, or fights over anything as the world was for the common good.
> 
> That's the liberal view of history.


You might want to find out what the position is from the one who actually holds it. If you bother to take just enough time to find out what my claim actually is, you'll see that what these four guys think they are opposing is not it.

I don't know what you mean by liberal, but I'm further to the right than you are, and the only other things I've ever been were libertarian and conservative.

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## Sheldonna

> I don't think anyone understood what I meant there. A government can be removed and replaced by revolution or coup, but it will never be reduced in size or power by the same processes that are established by which its law is to be legally altered.


Yes, but......who is to say that after a coup or revolution that there would be 'the same processes'?   The point of many revolutions or coups is to do away with or radically change those processes that led up to the coup/revolution.  Of course, that's not always necessarily the case.

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## Dan40

> Don't you remember what happened the last time we got to this point of the argument, when I told you that it HAS HAPPENED BEFORE?


Your imagination ran away from you.  I realize you believe in your dreams so much that actual history means nothing.  Facts mean nothing.  And what happens in tiny cult like groups CANNOT be extrapolated into multi million sized multi cultural, widely diverse groups.  Go ahead and believe it can happen.  and Believe you will grow wings and fly.  You will fly before your imaginary world exists.

I suppose from your question, that you think you "won" something in the past.  But quoting cults that FAILED doesn't do it.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Maximatic

> Your imagination ran away from you.  I realize you believe in your dreams so much that actual history means nothing.  Facts mean nothing.  And what happens in tiny cult like groups CANNOT be extrapolated into multi million sized multi cultural, widely diverse groups.  Go ahead and believe it can happen.  and Believe you will grow wings and fly.  You will fly before your imaginary world exists.
> 
> I suppose from your question, that you think you "won" something in the past.  But quoting cults that FAILED doesn't do it.


Yeah this how you argument circle usually goes. After I point out that it lasted at least five times longer than the US has lasted and took nearly 500 years to finally be beaten by a state, you'll make another false statement, then I'll show it to be false, and, eventually, you''ll get back to the point where you say that it's impossible again, at which point, we'll be back where we are now.

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## JustPassinThru

> I don't know anything about societies before civilization, and you don't either. We do know something about the settlement of this continent, when there were no governments at all, yet there was order, and prosperity. We know something about a society where the system of governance was 100% voluntary for a thousand years, which proves my claim that such a thing is possible. There's really no need to debate it; of course it is possible; _it has happened before._


I don't know anything about the rise of civilization?  The hell I don't.  Anthropology and archeology has found MUCH evidence.

Before cities there were only weapons and seed and bone fragments.  Cities allowed a richer life with division of labor, specialized crafts, early arts, especially music.

Oh, and...cities were fortified with walls to ward out those peaceful Stateless enlightened types.

*From very early history to modern times, walls have been a near necessity for every city. Uruk in ancient Sumer (Mesopotamia) is one of the world's oldest known walled cities. Before that, the city (or rather proto-city) of Jericho in what is now the West Bank had a wall surrounding it as early as the 8th millennium BC.

*
*The Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples and defensive walls.[1]
*
*Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were also fortified. By about 3500 B.C., hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus floodplain. Many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets. The stone and mud brick houses of Kot Diji  were clustered behind massive stone flood dykes and defensive walls,  for neighboring communities quarreled constantly about the control of  prime agricultural land.[2] Mundigak (c. 2500 B.C.) in present day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun dried bricks.[3]

*
*Babylon was one of the most famous cities of the ancient world, especially as a result of the building program of Nebuchadnezzar, who expanded the walls and built the Ishtar Gate.
*
*Exceptions were few  notably, ancient Sparta and ancient Rome  did not have walls for a long time, choosing to rely on their  militaries for defense instead. Initially, these fortifications were  simple constructions of wood and earth, which were later replaced by  mixed constructions of stones piled on top of each other without mortar.

*
*In Central Europe, the Celts built large fortified settlements known as oppida, whose walls seem partially influenced by those built in the Mediterranean. The fortifications were continuously expanded and improved.

*
*In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae (famous for the huge stone blocks of its 'cyclopean' walls). In classical era Greece, the city of Athens built a long set of parallel stone walls called the Long Walls that reached their guarded seaport at Piraeus.

*
*Large tempered earth (i.e. rammed earth) walls were built in ancient China since the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1050 BC), as the capital at ancient Ao had enormous walls built in this fashion (see siege for more info). Although stone walls were built in China during the Warring States (481-221 BC), mass conversion to stone architecture did not begin in earnest until the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). In terms of China's longest and most impressive fortification, the Great Wall sections had been built prior to the Qin Dynasty  (221-207 BC) and subsequently connected and fortified during the Qin  dynasty, although its present form was mostly an engineering feat and  remodeling of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) during the 15th and 16th centuries. The large walls of Pingyao serve as one example. Likewise, the famous walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing were established in the early 15th century by the Yongle Emperor.

*
*The Romans fortified their cities with massive, mortar-bound stone walls. The most famous of these are the largely extant Aurelian Walls of Rome and the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, together with partial remains elsewhere. These are mostly city gates, like the Porta Nigra in Trier or Newport Arch in Lincoln.

*
*Apart from these, the early Middle Ages  also saw the creation of some towns built around castles. These cities  were only rarely protected by simple stone walls and more usually by a  combination of both walls and ditches.  From the 12th century AD hundreds of settlements of all sizes were  founded all across Europe, who very often obtained the right of  fortification soon afterwards.*
*The founding of urban centers was an important means of territorial  expansion and many cities, especially in central and eastern Europe,  were founded precisely for this purpose during the period of Eastern settlement.  These cities are easy to recognise due to their regular layout and  large market spaces. The fortifications of these settlements were  continuously improved to reflect the current level of military  development.

*
*During the Renaissance era, the Venetians raised great walls around  cities threatened by the Ottoman empire. Among the finest examples are  the walled cities of Nicosia and Famagusta in Cyprus and the fortifications of Candia and Chania in Crete, which still stand to this day.*


So let's cut the comedy, okay?

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Sheldonna

> Yeah, the only problem with it is that it's false. If it were true, no government could ever have formed.


Sooo....let me ask.  Is it true that part of the ideology or  platform of  your average voluntarist is to also  eliminate the electoral college?  Thought I saw that somewhere.  If so, do you agree?

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## Maximatic

> I don't know anything about the rise of civilization?  The hell I don't.  Anthropology and archeology has found MUCH evidence.
> 
> Before cities there were only weapons and seed and bone fragments.  Cities allowed a richer life with division of labor, specialized crafts, early arts, especially music.
> 
> Oh, and...cities were fortified with walls to ward out those peaceful Stateless enlightened types.
> 
> *From very early history to modern times, walls have been a near necessity for every city. Uruk in ancient Sumer (Mesopotamia) is one of the world's oldest known walled cities. Before that, the city (or rather proto-city) of Jericho in what is now the West Bank had a wall surrounding it as early as the 8th millennium BC.
> 
> *
> ...


Dude, everything you posted is from the historical period. None of it goes back to before the bronze age, before writing. You said pre-civilization. What are you talking about?

And everybody knows that the walls were to ward off statists :Wink:

----------


## Maximatic

> Sooo....let me ask.  Is it true that part of the ideology or  platform of  your average voluntarist is to also  eliminate the electoral college?  Thought I saw that somewhere.  If so, do you agree?


Yes, but that's quite an understatement. Did you read post 125?

----------


## JustPassinThru

> Dude, everything you posted is from the  historical period. None of it goes back to before the bronze age, before  writing. You said pre-civilization. What are you talking about?
> 
> And everybody knows that the walls were to ward off statists


Dude...that must be really good schitt you scored.  Because you're trippin' so wild, I'm getting high just READING what you posted!

I'm not running an anthropology class.  Especially not for someone uninterested in learning.  There were no great societies before cities.  There was brutality and starvation and might-makes-right; and strong men keeping weak men and women and children as slaves.   And for entertainment.  And probably for food sources in times of famine.

If you would get out of that choom cloud, you'd realize:  Civilization or not, human nature is what it is and hasn't changed much.  Which means, absent rules and those who enforce the rules, humans do what they want, what feels good, what benefits the person doing the doing.  

Brutality.  The Law of Darwin.

*And no, cities didn't put up walls to keep themselves IN.  They put up walls to keep OUT what they LEFT OUT.  The people who were always out there before that nastybad government came to be.  My god, I can't believe I have to explain this!*

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## Dan40

> Yeah this how you argument circle usually goes. After I point out that it lasted at least five times longer than the US has lasted and took nearly 500 years to finally be beaten by a state, you'll make another false statement, then I'll show it to be false, and, eventually, you''ll get back to the point where you say that it's impossible again, at which point, we'll be back where we are now.


Yep.  The USA exists.  Has for over 230 years.  Will it exceed 500?  We don't know.  Anarchists will not have any effect.  And looking up DEAD societies does NOTHING to make your point.  Doesn't hurt mine, but does nothing for yours, dead is dead.

And NONE of your examples are of highly diverse societies.  They were banded together for narrow particular purposes.  And when a different  purpose group came along,,,,,,,WAR.

The chances of the USA, and western society lasting for many hundreds of years longer, look awful.  But times change.  It has looked FAR worse in my lifetime.  In 1941 and 1942, our chances of SURVIVING WWII looked hopeless.  Had it not been for enemy ERRORS, we might have been finished.  Few history books look at it that way now.
So this is a bad time but that could change.  Your failed, dead, examples will remain failed and dead.

----------


## Maximatic

> Dude...that must be really good schitt you scored.  Because you're trippin' so wild, I'm getting high just READING what you posted!
> 
> I'm not running an anthropology class.  Especially not for someone uninterested in learning.  There were no great societies before cities.  There was brutality and starvation and might-makes-right; and strong men keeping weak men and women and children as slaves.   And for entertainment.  And probably for food sources in times of famine.
> 
> If you would get out of that choom cloud, you'd realize:  Civilization or not, human nature is what it is and hasn't changed much.  Which means, absent rules and those who enforce the rules, humans do what they want, what feels good, what benefits the person doing the doing.  
> 
> Brutality.  The Law of Darwin.
> 
> *And no, cities didn't put up walls to keep themselves IN.  They put up walls to keep OUT what they LEFT OUT.  The people who were always out there before that nastybad government came to be.  My god, I can't believe I have to explain this!*


I'm sorry you think you have to explain it, but you've never said anything true that I didn't already know.

You can't know what society was like before about 3,300BC, because nobody wrote any of it down, because nobody knew how to write. Stop pretending to have knowledge that I know to be impossible for you to have.

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## Dan40

> I'm sorry you think you have to explain it, but you've never said anything true that I didn't already know.
> 
> You can't know what society was like before about 3,300BC, because nobody wrote any of it down, because nobody knew how to write. Stop pretending to have knowledge that I know to be impossible for you to have.


Before written history!

Since man IS an animal, we can, intelligently, assume he acted much like animals.

Survival of the fittest.

And YOU cannot make any claims about pre-history either.  check.

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## Sheldonna

> Yes, but that's quite an understatement. Did you read post 125?


Yeah.  I read the post.  Nothing in your post about  the elimination of the electoral college tho.  I find it highly illogical that any self-sufficient Americans, who prefer less government vs. no government at all, would want  the electoral college 'gone'.  It's what protects those people the most...since most of these type are into rural living, away from the big city, and would therefore have no hope of representation AT ALL if the EC was eliminated.  

I dunno.  Many of these ideas seem extremely naive to me.  And that's putting it nicely.  lol

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## Maximatic

> And looking up DEAD societies does NOTHING to make your point.


It does exactly what I need it to do. It refutes your claim that the system of governance I'm talking about has never existed.

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## Maximatic

> Yeah.  I read the post.  Nothing in your post about  the elimination of the electoral college tho.  I find it highly illogical that any self-sufficient Americans, who prefer less government vs. no government at all, would want  the electoral college 'gone'.  It's what protects those people the most...since most of these type are into rural living, away from the big city, and would therefore have no hope of representation AT ALL if the EC was eliminated.  
> 
> I dunno.  Many of these ideas seem extremely naive to me.  And that's putting it nicely.  lol


But we do not want representative governments to continue to exist. For that matter, we don't want socialist, or any kind of communist governments, or fascist governments, or any kind of governments that monopolize law and the legal use of force to exist. Voluntarists don't have an official position of the electoral collage. The only sense in which we would want to do away with it is that in which we would like to see it, and every other aspect of a representative democracy or republic go away.

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## Maximatic

> I dunno.  Many of these ideas seem extremely naive to me.  And that's putting it nicely.  lol


Why do you think they're naive?

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## hoytmonger

> The answer is to fix our broken government.  The non-answer is to stupidly attempt to replace our government with a steaming pile of utter nonsense that will not and has never worked with a large diverse society.
> 
> James Madison,
> 
> "Father of the Constitution"
> 
> Author 0f "The Bill of Rights,"
> 
> Said:
> ...


Why is your government 'broken'? Who broke it? If it were able to be 'fixed', what would it take to 'fix' it? How could you prevent it from being broken again?

James Madison's quote is illogical. 'If men were angels, no government would be necessary'. Assuming that men are not angels, why would having them possess and control a monopoly of coercion have anything but a negative influence on society?

The government of the US became broken when the states ratified the Constitution of the US.

A country of pioneers...




> the English settlers coming to North America were the last example of the glorious achievements of what Adam Smith referred to as "a system of natural liberty": the ability of men to create a free and prosperous commonwealth from scratch. Contrary to the Hobbesian account of human nature  homo homini lupus est  the English settlers demonstrated not just the viability but also the vibrancy and attractiveness of a stateless, anarchocapitalist social order. They demonstrated how, in accordance with the views of John Locke, private property originated naturally through a person's original appropriation  his purposeful use and transformation  of previously unused land (wilderness). Furthermore, they demonstrated that, based on the recognition of private property, division of labor, and contractual exchange, men were capable of protecting themselves effectively against antisocial aggressors  first and foremost by means of self-defense (less crime existed then than exists now), and as society grew increasingly prosperous and complex, by means of specialization, i.e., by institutions and agencies such as property registries, notaries, lawyers, judges, courts, juries, sheriffs, mutual defense associations, and popular militias.


The American revolution...




> the settlers brought something else with them from Europe. There, the development from feudalism to royal absolutism had not only been resisted by the aristocracy but it was also opposed theoretically with recourse to the theory of natural rights as it originated within Scholastic philosophy. According to this doctrine, government was supposed to be contractual, and every government agent, including the king, was subject to the same universal rights and laws as everyone else. While this may have been the case in earlier times, it was certainly no longer true for modern absolute kings. Absolute kings were usurpers of human rights and thus illegitimate. Hence, insurrection was not only permitted but became a duty sanctioned by natural law.
> 
> The American colonists were familiar with the doctrine of natural rights. In fact, in light of their own personal experience with the achievements and effects of natural liberty and as religious dissenters who had left their mother country in disagreement with the king and the Church of England, they were particularly receptive to this doctrine.[5]
> 
> 
> Steeped in the doctrine of natural rights, encouraged by the distance of the English king, and stimulated further by the puritanical censure of royal idleness, luxury, and pomp, the American colonists rose up to free themselves of British rule.
> 
> 
> As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, government was instituted to protect life, property, and the pursuit of happiness. It drew its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. In contrast, the royal British government claimed that it could tax the colonists without their consent. If a government failed to do what it was designed to do, Jefferson declared, "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.


The American Constitution...




> But what was the next step once independence from Britain had been won? This question leads to the third source of national pride  the American Constitution  and the explanation as to why this Constitution, rather than being a legitimate source of pride, represents a fateful error.
> 
> Thanks to the great advances in economic and political theory since the late 1700s, in particular at the hands of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard, we are now able to give a precise answer to this question. According to Mises and Rothbard, once there is no longer free entry into the business of the production of protection and adjudication, the price of protection and justice will rise and their quality will fall. Rather than being a protector and judge, a compulsory monopolist will become a protection racketeer  the destroyer and invader of the people and property that he is supposed to protect, a warmonger, and an imperialist.[6]
> 
> 
> Indeed, the inflated price of protection and the perversion of the ancient law by the English king, both of which had led the American colonists to revolt, were the inevitable result of compulsory monopoly. Having successfully seceded and thrown out the British occupiers, it would only have been necessary for the American colonists to let the existing homegrown institutions of self-defense and private (voluntary and cooperative) protection and adjudication by specialized agents and agencies take care of law and order.
> 
> 
> This did not happen, however. The Americans not only did not let the inherited royal institutions of colonies and colonial governments wither away into oblivion; they reconstituted them within the old political borders in the form of independent states, each equipped with its own coercive (unilateral) taxing and legislative powers.[7] While this would have been bad enough, the new Americans made matters worse by adopting the American Constitution and replacing a loose confederation of independent states with the central (federal) government of the United States.
> ...


http://mises.org/daily/2874

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----------


## Sheldonna

> They were all flower children, gathering roots and berries and generously sharing them with those who chose not to gather.   People lived in harmony with nature and with one another. There was no war, or fights over anything as the world was for the common good.
> 
> That's the liberal view of history.


Don't forget the hand-holding and kumbaya singing.  Gee, I miss those days.  [rolling eyes]

Let's face it.  With no government at all....in these times we're in NOW....the world would look more like an even worse Mad Max flick (I know, I know....hard to even imagine).

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Maximatic

> Before written history!
> 
> Since man IS an animal, we can, intelligently, assume he acted much like animals.
> 
> Survival of the fittest.
> 
> And YOU cannot make any claims about pre-history either.  check.


What? You can't put me in check just be tu quo qui-ing me. I'm not the one making appeals to life before history.

----------


## Maximatic

> Don't forget the hand-holding and kumbaya singing.  Gee, I miss those days.  [rolling eyes]
> 
> Let's face it.  With no government at all....in these times we're in NOW....the world would look more like an even worse Mad Max flick (I know, I know....hard to even imagine).


Ahh you didn't come to hold your worldview by watching movies, did you?

----------


## Dan40

> Why is your government 'broken'? Who broke it? If it were able to be 'fixed', what would it take to 'fix' it? How could you prevent it from being broken again?
> 
> James Madison's quote is illogical. 'If men were angels, no government would be necessary'. Assuming that men are not angels, why would having them possess and control a monopoly of coercion have anything but a negative influence on society?
> 
> The government of the US became broken when the states ratified the Constitution of the US.
> 
> A country of pioneers...
> 
> 
> ...


Let's see,,,,,,,,,,,,,You quote the American Constitution in the same post where you tell me the James Madison, "The Father of the American Constitution," makes illogical statements.

Right so far?

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## Maximatic

> If we cannot agree upon something this basic, how on earth do you think you can just mandate everyone to agree upon your non aggression principle?


The same way they did when they made the governments you live under now.

Tell me something.

How many people do you know who think fraud and the initiation of force should be legal?

Your honest answer is none. Even a psychopath would not admit to such a preference.

In a voluntary society those things are illegal. It's that way because all voluntarists want them to be illegal, just like all the other sane people do, and voluntary society can only be founded by voluntarists.

When a person commits a crime, the only person who is likely to oppose the idea of enforcing the law, at that point, will be the criminal. Do you honestly believe that all the other people in that society are going to side with the criminal and refuse to enforce the law?

When a dispute is pressed as far as it can go, the party who is most in line with what the entire society believes to be the law will win the contest, every single time.

Law is enforced because the people of the society believe it should be. That is the case in every society that has ever existed, and it will be the case in every society that ever will exist. If the people of a society do not believe that a law should be enforce, then that command, however "official" is NOT a law.

That's the beginning and the end of the entire story.

The law of any society is what the people of that society believe it to be.

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## hoytmonger

> Let's see,,,,,,,,,,,,,You quote the American Constitution in the same post where you tell me the James Madison, "The Father of the American Constitution," makes illogical statements.
> 
> Right so far?


 Did I quote the constitution? Did you bother reading the post I made before you posted an emotional, knee-jerk reactionary response to it?

You're an idiot... and just proved it.

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## Sheldonna

> It does exactly what I need it to do. It refutes your claim that the system of governance I'm talking about has never existed.


And never will?  So what's the point?  Contrarian and pointless debate for lack of anything better to do on a gorgeous weekend?  I'm out.

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## Sheldonna

> But we do not want representative governments to continue to exist. For that matter, we don't want socialist, or any kind of communist governments, or fascist governments, or any kind of governments that monopolize law and the legal use of force to exist. Voluntarists don't have an official position of the electoral collage. The only sense in which we would want to do away with it is that in which we would like to see it, and every other aspect of a representative democracy or republic go away.


Ah....so your use of "we" means that you espouse this ideology too, eh?  

It's never gonna happen.   Poor you.  Lucky us (or the rest of us).

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## Sheldonna

> Why do you think they're naive?


Because it will never happen here in _the states_.  Get it?

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## Sheldonna

> Ahh you didn't come to hold your worldview by watching movies, did you?


No.....

but apparently you did.   :Smiley ROFLMAO:

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## Maximatic

> Because it will never happen here in _the states_.  Get it?


I don't know. Is it a joke, or are you suggesting that, because there are states, there can never not be states? Or are you suggesting that it cannot happen anywhere?

I don't expect to ever see it happen in the US, even though there are a few groups of people who are trying to make it happen in New Hampshire, as we type.

Do you understand what _it_ is?

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## Maximatic

> And never will?  So what's the point?  Contrarian and pointless debate for lack of anything better to do on a gorgeous weekend?  I'm out.


Umm Don't you think that something having already been done is proof that that something is possible?

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## BleedingHeadKen

[QUOTE=usfan;287920
Yes, i agree.  It is like a religion.  It requires an enlightened 'new man' to function.  If you could mandate everyone to become a practicing, sincere christian, who is filled with love for his fellow man, & has overcome any tendency to sin (not even christians claim that!), then perhaps your voluntarist society could work.. or if the almighty comes & sets up a system of pure justice & perfect truth.. THEN we could all live together in harmony.. disputes would be few, as love would rule the day.  People would be generous, giving, forgiving, & sacrificial for their fellow man.[/quote]

I feel the same way about Constitutionalism and the worship of a document which is just that: a piece of paper, and the deification of the men who wrote it, as if their words are infallible.




> Yes, this 'new man' would be wonderful.  Unfortunately, he is a fantasy.. he does not exist.  We are stuck with the old man.


And here you often hope for  some man or woman to come along and be voted into office where he can scale back the excesses of big government and lead the United States into a new era, justifying the entire "American Experiment." Apparently, there are people already out there who want to rule over the lives of millions of people and only do so altruistically, who will be incorruptible and will be able to obtain office in an on-rush of public adulation.

You don't even believe that people can engage in self-rule, so I'm not sure why you believe that any person will be capable of restoring America to a Constitutional ideal that never even existed in the first place.

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----------


## BleedingHeadKen

I'm still waiting for one of the people here to explain how, if there is no law without government, government is lawfully established and how can it be lawful? The only possible answer for them is that government is the source of right and wrong, and those with the most power make right. 

The real problem here is that there is a fundamental difference in the way that we look at government. The progressive/collectivist view is that government is the source of law and morality and without it, there is no law or morality. It is the only system upon which society can be fashioned, and it must come before there can be any real society. They hold that the state must be the sole source of justice. Some go further and believe states must also be the sole source of defense, and education, and of health care or rule over what goes into a person's body and whatever other problems they deem worthy of government control. Left/Right are just paradigms for progressive/collectivist thinking. How they view the role of government is largely the same.

The individualist holds that human beings are self-owners and will naturally work together for mutual benefit and voluntary trade. That law is discovered in order to create standards for fair conduct, to punish those who commit force or fraud, and etc. An example of such a system is the Lex Mercatoria, used by Italian merchants in medieval times to set conduct for trade and yet did not have a government to enforce it or impose it on those who did not want to partake. The individualist knows that sometimes government arises from the need for some to control others, and then usurps law for its own end. Even more frequently governments arise out of brute force from competing sources of justice. In either case, they are not the source of morality, of right and wrong, nor even the source of law. They are a source of statute, regulation, plunder, cronyism and protectionism.

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Longshot (04-26-2014)

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## JustPassinThru

Communism, too, was just supposed to flow, by The Will Of The People - and government would just disappear by common consent.

This is not that far off...in fact it's exactly the same but for no OVERT statement of collective ownership.  I would gather it's assumed, since there would be no law to protect private property.

Communism, that wonderful peaceful way of life that would take us to a higher level...had to be enforced at gunpoint at the hands of some of THE most ruthless, bloodthirsty dictatorships ever seen.  Thirty million were killed in Stalin's purges and famines; millions more in Mao's Great Leap Forward.

This is Utopian fantasy; and Utopian fantasy, not based in the realities of nature and of Man's nature, must be edged along.  By pressure.  Then by bayonet pressure.  Then by gunpoint.  Then by "examples" and finally by mass executions.

----------

DonGlock26 (04-27-2014),usfan (04-27-2014)

----------


## Longshot

> Your voluntaryist philosophy is being pulled apart brick by brick, and you are unable to summon the intellectual wherewithal to defend it.


How do you think that you are pulling apart the idea that the initiation of aggression is wrong or that property rights ought to be respected?  You haven't offered a single argument against either of these stances.

----------


## Dan40

> Umm Don't you think that something having already been done is proof that that something is possible?


Your ridiculous Utopia HAS NEVER BEEN DONE, in a large DIVERSE society.  If you want to go off and form another cult that will fail after a few years, go ahead.  You cite ancient groups that had a central overriding focus, life food and shelter.  NO other interest and STILL they had RULERS but you avoid that simple fact.

----------

DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

----------


## Dan40

> Did I quote the constitution? Did you bother reading the post I made before you posted an emotional, knee-jerk reactionary response to it?
> 
> You're an idiot... and just proved it.


No I did not bother to read the drivel that you copied and pasted.  But you did say that James Madison was illogical for stating an *obvious* truth.  Madison is an intellectual giant compared to you, but he could be below average and still be your intellectual superior.  His statement about man is exactly correct.  You WISH to believe otherwise with a religious fervor.  But it still makes your position childish, naive and shallow.

You people should build a cathedral to ridiculous nonsense and avoidance of reality.  Then your cult of the intentionally obtuse would have a place to hide.

You call Madison illogical and me an idiot.  The idiocy here is clear.

----------


## BleedingHeadKen

> Communism, too, was just supposed to flow, by The Will Of The People - and government would just disappear by common consent.
> 
> This is not that far off...in fact it's exactly the same but for no OVERT statement of collective ownership.  I would gather it's assumed, since there would be no law to protect private property.
> 
> Communism, that wonderful peaceful way of life that would take us to a higher level...had to be enforced at gunpoint at the hands of some of THE most ruthless, bloodthirsty dictatorships ever seen.  Thirty million were killed in Stalin's purges and famines; millions more in Mao's Great Leap Forward.
> 
> This is Utopian fantasy; and Utopian fantasy, not based in the realities of nature and of Man's nature, must be edged along.  By pressure.  Then by bayonet pressure.  Then by gunpoint.  Then by "examples" and finally by mass executions.


And, other than an appeal to history, do you know why communism fails?

----------



----------


## Dan40

I'm off this thread.  This is a POLITICS FORUM.  You,,,,,'people' are promoting your religion, not your politics.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014),usfan (04-27-2014)

----------


## JustPassinThru

> And, other than an appeal to history, do you know why communism fails?


It failed because it works at cross purposes to human nature.  It disincentivizes production and productive activity; it incentivises idleness and shirking and freeloading.

Its authoritarian brutality is part of its evil, but not the reason it failed.  Once the Chinese "Communists" jettisoned the collective aspects of their tyrannical society, individual wealth increased tremendously.  They were still living in fear of the political authorities; arrests and executions still continued; but productive work was rewarded in that producers could keep much of their profits.

A tyrannical government need not be collectivist; but a collectivist society MUST have an authoritarian government imposing it.  Likewise, a society without government is a society without property rights - a society where all property is plunder and plunder goes to the strong.

To enforce your dreamy utopia you are going to need force.  You can call it a "committee" or "board" but it's going to eventually be aiming guns at those who resist.

----------


## Maximatic

> It failed because it works at cross purposes to human nature.  It disincentivizes production and productive activity; it incentivises idleness and shirking and freeloading.
> 
> Its authoritarian brutality is part of its evil, but not the reason it failed.  Once the Chinese "Communists" jettisoned the collective aspects of their tyrannical society, individual wealth increased tremendously.  They were still living in fear of the political authorities; arrests and executions still continued; but productive work was rewarded in that producers could keep much of their profits.
> 
> A tyrannical government need not be collectivist; but a collectivist society MUST have an authoritarian government imposing it.  Likewise, a society without government is a society without property rights - a society where all property is plunder and plunder goes to the strong.


Do you really not know the real reason?

There is a reason that, even if communists were successful at getting enough of the population to produce, without oppressing people, it would STILL yield a very low standard of living.

Do you know what that reason is?

Do any of you government apologists know what the reason is?


I've told you what the reason is before. I'll just wait for you to answer.

----------


## JustPassinThru

> Do you really not know the real reason?
> 
> There is a reason that, even if communists were successful at getting enough of the population to produce, without oppressing people, it would STILL yield a very low standard of living.
> 
> Do you know what that reason is?
> 
> Do any of you government apologists know what the reason is?
> 
> 
> I've told you what the reason is before. I'll just wait for you to answer.


You don't know yourself.

You've shown a COMPLETE lack of insight as well as zero knowledge of history.

----------


## Maximatic

> A tyrannical government need not be collectivist; but a collectivist society MUST have an authoritarian government imposing it.  Likewise, a society without government is a society without property rights - a society where all property is plunder and plunder goes to the strong.
> 
> To enforce your dreamy utopia you are going to need force.  You can call it a "committee" or "board" but it's going to eventually be aiming guns at those who resist.


This is exactly why I don't like YOUR political philosophy. It's a problem for YOU because you DO need that "committee" and "board", we don't. And no voluntarist would allow such a committee or board to run anything, if we had our druthers. That's the exact thing that we want to take away. You want to keep it. And you have to, because you want to collectivize part of the economy.

----------


## Maximatic

> You don't know yourself.
> 
> You've shown a COMPLETE lack of insight as well as zero knowledge of history.


Answer the question.

Do you really not know the real reason?

There is a reason that, even if communists were successful at getting  enough of the population to produce, without oppressing people, it would  STILL yield a very low standard of living.

Do you know what that reason is?

Do any of you government apologists know what the reason is?


I've told you what the reason is before. I'll just wait for you to answer.

----------


## hoytmonger

> No I did not bother to read the drivel that you copied and pasted.  But you did say that James Madison was illogical for stating an *obvious* truth.  Madison is an intellectual giant compared to you, but he could be below average and still be your intellectual superior.  His statement about man is exactly correct.  You WISH to believe otherwise with a religious fervor.  But it still makes your position childish, naive and shallow.
> 
> You people should build a cathedral to ridiculous nonsense and avoidance of reality.  Then your cult of the intentionally obtuse would have a place to hide.
> 
> You call Madison illogical and me an idiot.  *The idiocy here is clear.*


Indeed it is. You have nothing but rhetoric, hyperbole, propaganda and lies. You quote illogical statements and believe them to be truth. It's no wonder you have the need to be governed.

----------


## DonGlock26

> I don't think anyone understood what I meant there. A government can be removed and replaced by revolution or coup, but it will never be reduced in size or power by the same processes that are established by which its law is to be legally altered.


You don't think Republican Gov. Scott Walker has reduced the size of state gov't, scope of state gov't regulation, and the state tax burden on the people in the state of Wisconsin?

----------


## DonGlock26

> Take the settlement of the colonies of America as an example. On wagon trains, most of them agreed to a set of bi-laws before they set out. There was no courthouse or police station that went with them to make it all "official". They lived by and, when necessary, enforce the laws they agreed on because they all believed that it was what they should do. Each settlement continued in the same way.


The American colonies had British governors appointed by the King of England. The later migration out west went from the states to federal territories controlled by the federal gov't.

----------


## DonGlock26

> No, it was not a state. Their system of law and justice was not political. The king was a title, not a head of state. The 'legislature' were people of all walks of life, not just nobles. It was a voluntary system, not institutionalized coercion. Maybe you should try actually reading the article before you make false assertions.
> 
>  The Celts were an economically based society of productive people that treated each other, including women, as equals. Those that eventually conquered the Celts... Oliver Cromwell through wholesale genocide... were a less civilized political class and were largely responsible for the libertarian movement's rise in the American colonies by driving them out of Europe.
> 
> You don't understand what the state is...
> 
> 
> 
> http://mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp


A title for what purpose? If he was chosen by the people, that is a political process. 

Our congress is made up of non-royal people. Is the US a state? 

The equality of the Celts or the sins of the English have nothing to do with them both having a gov't.

----------


## Maximatic

> You don't think Republican Gov. Scott Walker has reduced the size of state gov't, scope of state gov't regulation, and the state tax burden on the people in the state of Wisconsin?


I don't know. Maybe, temporarily, but the ultimate trend will be for that state, to accumulate power, not relinquish it. But, at that level, it doesn't matter, because Wisconsin is not sovereign. Its government has incentives to defer responsibility to their government, the Union, which has additional incentives to grow.

----------


## Maximatic

Why does communism fail, guys?

Do you really not know the real reason?

There is a reason that, even if communists were successful at getting   enough of the population to produce, without oppressing people, it would   STILL yield a very low standard of living.

Do you know what that reason is?

Do any of you government apologists know what the reason is?


I've told you what the reason is before. I'll just wait for you to answer.

----------


## DonGlock26

> No, I don't because it doesn't. It doesn't represent much of anything other than the fact that they had written laws at least that long ago. But we already know they had states long before that. Hammurabi's Code is actually quite arbitrary and presumptive of cast, read it. I don't know, and you don't know what the laws of the previous kings were because we don't have comprehensive records of them. You can believe whatever you want. You can believe Hammurabi when he says he brought order to the land, even though all you have is his word. You can even take the word of Ramses the second when he says, about the Battle of Kadesh, that, with the help of his god, he emerged victorious, if you want to, even though we know, from the same account, that his entire army was destroyed.


Written law can be read by many people. Before that the law was what the king or ruling group said it was. Rome had a similar experience and their first written laws allowed the plebs to have laws with a level of permanence. This was a reform that was good for the people.  The Code of Hammurabi stopped punishments above and beyond the law from being administered. That is a far better protection than a judge with absolute power over you or death by lynch mob.

----------


## DonGlock26

> You live in your own little world, don't you?


I believe this debate tactic is called the ad hominem attack.

----------


## Maximatic

> The Code of Hammurabi stopped punishments above and beyond the law from being administered. That is a far better protection than a judge with absolute power over you or death by lynch mob.


Source.

----------


## DonGlock26

> I don't think so. Source.


You don't think so what? 


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_law

----------


## DonGlock26

> I've got the same four numbskulls here,

----------


## DonGlock26

> Yes, I do. The only kind of government that can't grow is no government. But, if you define government as mechanisms by which harmful human action is restrained, then I do like government, only a particular kind. If you define government as an institution with a monopoly on law and the legal use of force in a given territory, then yes, the solution is no government.


Good government is the responsibility of the people. The gov't we have now is ultimately the fault of the voters.

----------


## Maximatic

> Prior to that, punishments could be out of all proportion to the offense.


Give me the source for these claims you're making for which there are no records to substantiate.

I'll be back later. You have several hours to make up a excuse.

----------


## JustPassinThru

> Answer the question.


No.

You're not functioning on a rational level.

----------


## DonGlock26

> A whole bunch of people who are sick and tired of governments doing the same predictable detrimental things over and over care.
> 
> Nobody believes in utopia. All we're asking for is that you guys stop hallucinating that this magical ruling thing that doesn't really exist has the power to maintain order and safety.


Utopians die in the raids of warlords too. They would be swept aside and those who survive would be the ones who form a commonwealth state for a common defense against predatory bands. 

A Neolithic salt mine was recently found in Eastern Europe. What is of interest is that it is heavily fortified. Security has always been a concern, once Man advanced enough to acquire wealth. Voluntaryist Utopians would just be prey for better organized groups.

----------


## DonGlock26

> I don't know anything about societies before civilization, and you don't either.

----------


## DonGlock26

> Dude, *everything you posted is from the historical period*. None of it goes back to before the bronze age, before writing. You said pre-civilization. What are you talking about?
> 
> And everybody knows that the walls were to ward off statists


Wrong.

Jericho existed well before writing and it was walled.




> *Before that, the city (or rather proto-city) of Jericho in what is now the West Bank had a wall surrounding it as early as the 8th millennium BC.*

----------


## DonGlock26

> Yep.  The USA exists.  Has for over 230 years.  Will it exceed 500?  We don't know.  Anarchists will not have any effect.  And looking up DEAD societies does NOTHING to make your point.  Doesn't hurt mine, but does nothing for yours, dead is dead.
> 
> And NONE of your examples are of highly diverse societies.  They were banded together for narrow particular purposes.  And when a different  purpose group came along,,,,,,,WAR.
> 
> The chances of the USA, and western society lasting for many hundreds of years longer, look awful.  But times change.  It has looked FAR worse in my lifetime.  In 1941 and 1942, our chances of SURVIVING WWII looked hopeless.  Had it not been for enemy ERRORS, we might have been finished.  Few history books look at it that way now.
> So this is a bad time but that could change.  Your failed, dead, examples will remain failed and dead.


Anarchists bombed schools around 1900. So, they accomplished something.

----------


## DonGlock26

> I'm sorry you think you have to explain it, but you've never said anything true that I didn't already know.
> 
> You can't know what society was like before about 3,300BC, because nobody wrote any of it down, because nobody knew how to write. Stop pretending to have knowledge that I know to be impossible for you to have.


Have you ever heard of archaeology?

----------


## DonGlock26

> Before written history!
> 
> Since man IS an animal, we can, intelligently, assume he acted much like animals.
> 
> Survival of the fittest.
> 
> And YOU cannot make any claims about pre-history either.  check.


I would add that we have found human remains with signs of butchering and we can observed remote peoples today in the Amazon. They are very dangerous and murder interlopers. They also have their constant tribal wars and blood feuds. The work of anthropologists in this field of study has forever blown away the notion of the "noble savage", which in part forms the Voluntaryist Utopian fantasy.

----------


## DonGlock26

> It refutes your claim that the system of governance I'm talking about has never existed.


Are you speaking of the Celtic kingdoms or Icelandic gov't as being non-states?

----------


## DonGlock26

> But we do not want representative governments to continue to exist. .


Didn't the Celtic or Icelanders pick representatives or rulers?

----------


## DonGlock26

> I'm still waiting for one of the people here to explain how, if there is no law without government, government is lawfully established and how can it be lawful? The only possible answer for them is that government is the source of right and wrong, and those with the most power make right.


There was taboo and religious prohibitions. Of course, there was also tribal leaders and councils. Man organized himself and had rules for living together way before he ever put stylus to clay. Government was created when the people passed the authority of the blood feud to representatives and judges. Tribal law, taboos, and religious rules became the laws of government. The grim fact for anarcho-capitalists is that there has almost always been social rules or regulations. Man is a social animal because he has evolved to the point of sustaining populations larger than an extended family.

To stop violent murders over trivial slights, to make large populations hygienic and orderly, and to protect against the raids of predatory bands, Man has formed government. That basic organizational step in our evolution is never going away no matter how much you wish it to be so. The Western genius was to moderate this basic human need for government with a respect for individual liberty. Those who turn their back on this wonderful system of living are doomed to live under the totalitarian yoke. To put it simply, radical libertarians are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

A basic reality of military science is that organized groups are able to subdue unorganized groups much larger than themselves. If you want to be wiped from the face of the Earth or enslaved, make your society unorganized.

----------


## JustPassinThru

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Our New Breed of Free Thinkers, aided in their thinking with copious amounts of wacky-tobaccy, have made a construct up out of fantasy where they want to pull down all government.

NOT recognizing the brutality that ALWAYS exists whenever social controls are absent or destroyed - whether in prehistoric anthropological studies; or isolated hunter-gatherer tribes; or war zones; or Occupy This! squatters.

They cannot set up a society without government of some sort.  But in pulling down what exists, in destroying Western society and Western values, they CAN, with upheaval, nudge us into a New Feudal Age, a new Dark Ages.

Since there was no, and can be no, industrial-agricultural surpluses of the size that Free-Market Capitalism provides (because there is no codified protection of basic human rights) there WILL be population decimation.  From starvation and then disease.

And in a millenium, historians will wonder what the hell happened to us.  Well...stupidity happened, and ignorance happened, and chemically-altered thought prevailed...and that, as they say, was that.

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usfan (04-27-2014)

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## DonGlock26

> How do you think that you are pulling apart the idea that the initiation of aggression is wrong or that property rights ought to be respected?  You haven't offered a single argument against either of these stances.


Longshot, we went over this in the private road thread, remember? To your credit, you engaged me in a discussion while Axis largely avoided engagement. 

The take away point about the Voluntaryist society is that it would quickly expand the definition of "aggression" to reflect trespassing and public order crimes  because they are necessary rules for social living. Once, that happens, the NA principle loses all meaning. 

Property rights should be respected and they are respected. That is not a right to avoid taxation in a commonwealth/state. A person born into a state enjoys the protection of the state and the taxpayers who come before them. That is a debt for services rendered. Of course, the protection continues. The citizen has no right to be a freeloader and to enjoy protection on the backs of others. 

Any voluntaryist who claims any protection of law, constitution, or emergency public service is a huge hypocrite, since they seek to avoid paying for the very protections that they cling to in times of need.

In fact, I challenge any voluntaryist here to renounce his right of United States of America citizenship  or any nation they happen to be a citizen of. 

Will you renounce sir? 

Axiomatic, will you renounce your citizenship?

----------


## DonGlock26

> Do you really not know the real reason?
> 
> There is a reason that, even if communists were successful at getting enough of the population to produce, without oppressing people, it would STILL yield a very low standard of living.
> 
> Do you know what that reason is?
> 
> Do any of you government apologists know what the reason is?
> 
> 
> I've told you what the reason is before. I'll just wait for you to answer.


You haven't told me. So, what is the answer?

----------


## DonGlock26

> I don't know. Maybe, temporarily, but the ultimate trend will be for that state, to accumulate power, not relinquish it. But, at that level, it doesn't matter, because Wisconsin is not sovereign. Its government has incentives to defer responsibility to their government, the Union, which has additional incentives to grow.


So, your absolute statement was a false one. I have no further questions for you on this particular statement of yours.

----------


## DonGlock26

> Give me the source for these claims you're making for which there are no records to substantiate.
> 
> I'll be back later. You have several hours to make up a excuse.


He was a reformer. What do you mean no written records exist? Do you really think that the code was the first law written down?  :Smiley ROFLMAO: 





> Hammurabi is the best known and most celebrated of all Mesopotamian kings. He ruled the Babylonian Empire from 1792-50 B.C.E. Although he was concerned with keeping order in his kingdom, this was not his only reason for compiling the list of laws. When he began ruling the city-state of Babylon, he had control of no more than 50 square miles of territory. As he conquered other city-states and his empire grew, he saw the need to unify the various groups he controlled.
> *A Need for Justice*Hammurabi keenly understood that, to achieve this goal, he needed one universal set of laws for all of the diverse peoples he conquered. Therefore, he sent legal experts throughout his kingdom to gather existing laws. These laws were reviewed and some were changed or eliminated before compiling his final list of 282 laws. Despite what many people believe, this code of laws was not the first.
> *Oldest Code Known*The oldest known evidence of a law code are tablets from the ancient city Ebla (Tell Mardikh in modern-day Syria). They date to about 2400 B.C.E.  approximately 600 years before Hammurabi put together his famous code.
> 
> The prologue or introduction to the list of laws is very enlightening. Here, Hammurabi states that he wants "to make justice visible in the land, to destroy the wicked person and the evil-doer, that the strong might not injure the weak." The laws themselves support this compassionate claim, and protect widows, orphans and others from being harmed or exploited.
> The phrase "an eye for an eye" represents what many people view as a harsh sense of justice based on revenge. But, the entire code is much more complex than that one phrase. The code distinguishes among punishments for wealthy or noble persons, lower-class persons or commoners, and slaves.
> 
> http://www.ushistory.org/civ/4c.asp



Since, you are a novice when it comes to history and archaeology, I'll explain to you that a picture of lost texts can be assembled because they are often quoted by works that still exist.

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## Ghost of Lunchboxxy

I wish there were a ref to stop this fight, Axiomatic and his allies are getting far too bloodied on this thread for this terrible thrashing to be allowed to go on. :Smiley ROFLMAO:

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## JustPassinThru

> I wish there were a ref to stop this fight, Axiomatic and his allies are getting far too bloodied on this thread for this terrible thrashing to be allowed to go on.


It's like a band of bikers going into a bar - and beating up a helpless drunk.

...or, a POTHEAD.  Same difference; about as impaired; about as easy a target.

----------


## Longshot

> Longshot, we went over this in the private road thread, remember? To your credit, you engaged me in a discussion while Axis largely avoided engagement. 
> 
> The take away point about the Voluntaryist society is that it would quickly expand the definition of "aggression" to reflect trespassing and public order crimes  because they are necessary rules for social living. Once, that happens, the NA principle loses all meaning.


There is no "expansion". Voluntaryists have always included trespass as a violation of the NAP. 




> Property rights should be respected and they are respected. That is not a right to avoid taxation in a commonwealth/state. A person born into a state enjoys the protection of the state and the taxpayers who come before them. That is a debt for services rendered. Of course, the protection continues. The citizen has no right to be a freeloader and to enjoy protection on the backs of others.


The state/taxpayer relationship is not voluntarily entered into, so voluntaryists view it as illegitimate and unjust.




> Any voluntaryist who claims any protection of law, constitution, or emergency public service is a huge hypocrite, since they seek to avoid paying for the very protections that they cling to in times of need.


As I have said many times, I don't seek to avoid paying taxes. I pay my taxes. I seek to eliminate laws that force my fellow Americans to pay taxes. I also seek to eliminate unjust laws that are imposed upon my fellow Americans. 




> In fact, I challenge any voluntaryist here to renounce his right of United States of America citizenship  or any nation they happen to be a citizen of. 
> 
> Will you renounce sir?


Nope, because that would preclude me from political participation, and would make it impossible for me to eliminate unjust laws that are imposed upon my fellow Americans.

----------


## DonGlock26

> There is no "expansion". Voluntaryists have always included trespass as a violation of the NAP. 
> 
> 
> 
> The state/taxpayer relationship is not voluntarily entered into, so voluntaryists view it as illegitimate and unjust.
> 
> 
> 
> As I have said many times, I don't seek to avoid paying taxes. I pay my taxes. I seek to eliminate laws that force my fellow Americans to pay taxes. I also seek to eliminate unjust laws that are imposed upon my fellow Americans. 
> ...



We also talked of public order crimes.


Children do not pay most taxes. They can leave the state, when they become adults. Why didn't you leave the state upon reaching the age of 18?

Then, leave the state. No one is making you a prisoner. 

Then, you remain under what you consider unjust laws, when you are free to leave the injustice by choice.

----------


## DonGlock26

> I wish there were a ref to stop this fight, Axiomatic and his allies are getting far too bloodied on this thread for this terrible thrashing to be allowed to go on.


There are no mercy rules in debate as Axio and Co. are proving.

----------


## Sheldonna

> I don't know. Is it a joke, or are you suggesting that, because there are states, there can never not be states? Or are you suggesting that it cannot happen anywhere?
> 
> I don't expect to ever see it happen in the US, even though there are a few groups of people who are trying to make it happen in New Hampshire, as we type.
> 
> Do you understand what _it_ is?


*L M F A O !!!!
*
Rotsaruck.   

IMO...New Hampshire is part of the problem....

NOT part of the solution.  Letting idiots (lefties) cross over and vote in their opposition's (Republican) primary is one reason why this nation is so fukked up as we speak.  And yeah....that's why NH is a "swing vote state"...lol.  Move there?  I'd rather take my chances in Hell.  At least I'd not be deceived as to what I'd be getting.





> New Hampshire permits voters that have not declared their party affiliation to vote in a party's primary. A voter does have to officially join one party or the other before voting; however the voter can change his or her affiliation back to "Undeclared" immediately after voting, and only has to belong to a party for the few minutes it takes to fill out and cast a ballot.

----------


## Maximatic

> Good government is the responsibility of the people. The gov't we have now is ultimately the fault of the voters.


Are you saying there needs to be a "new man" for your system of governance to work? If it won't automatically compensate for the choices people make given incentive structures that actually exist, and human nature as it actually is, it is not viable.

----------


## Maximatic

> No.
> 
> You're not functioning on a rational level.


Okay, I didn't think you knew. You could look it up, but I can tell that you hate learning.

----------


## Maximatic

> Have you ever heard of archaeology?


Stop posting bullshit and source your claims. 

You're telling me that you can know something about law before writing. 

Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?

The only thing I'm learning here is that, either both of you are so oblivious when it come to ancient history that you didn't even know when writing began, have no familiarity, whatsoever, with what the oldest writings do, in fact, tell us, or you think you can build some kind of case from SPECULATION about governance BEFORE WRITING!

You do this every time you try to engage me, you make up BULLSHIT, you get caught in it, and have to, try and schoolyard-talk your way out of it.

You both need to THINK BEFORE YOU POST.

Make a case or shut up, because you're making a fool of yourself, again.

----------


## Maximatic

> "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
> 
> Our New Breed of Free Thinkers, aided in their thinking with copious amounts of wacky-tobaccy, have made a construct up out of fantasy where they want to pull down all government.
> 
> NOT recognizing the brutality that ALWAYS exists whenever social controls are absent or destroyed - whether in prehistoric anthropological studies; or isolated hunter-gatherer tribes; or war zones; or Occupy This! squatters.
> 
> They cannot set up a society without government of some sort.  But in pulling down what exists, in destroying Western society and Western values, they CAN, with upheaval, nudge us into a New Feudal Age, a new Dark Ages.
> 
> Since there was no, and can be no, industrial-agricultural surpluses of the size that Free-Market Capitalism provides (because there is no codified protection of basic human rights) there WILL be population decimation.  From starvation and then disease.
> ...


You don't know anything about history. How can you learn from it?

----------


## JustPassinThru

It is you who sounds stupid - denying all history, archeology, anthropology presented.  And then claiming victory.

Only someone addled on chemical compounds would behave this way.

----------

DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

----------


## Maximatic

> It is you who sounds stupid - denying all history, archeology, anthropology presented.  And then claiming victory.
> 
> Only someone addled on chemical compounds would behave this way.


I haven't denied anything.

All I'm telling you is that, if you want to appeal to some claim about ancient history, YOU NEED TO BACK IT UP.

----------


## Maximatic

> *L M F A O !!!!
> *
> Rotsaruck.   
> 
> IMO...New Hampshire is part of the problem....
> 
> NOT part of the solution.  Letting idiots (lefties) cross over and vote in their opposition's (Republican) primary is one reason why this nation is so fukked up as we speak.  And yeah....that's why NH is a "swing vote state"...lol.  Move there?  I'd rather take my chances in Hell.  At least I'd not be deceived as to what I'd be getting.


I have no idea what you're talking about. You say leftists influenced the nomination? I was very involved in the previous primary, and I don't remember anything like that. What are you talking about?

----------


## Maximatic

> Longshot, we went over this in the private road thread, remember? To your credit, you engaged me in a discussion while Axis largely avoided engagement. 
> 
> The take away point about the Voluntaryist society is that it would quickly expand the definition of "aggression" to reflect trespassing and public order crimes  because they are necessary rules for social living. Once, that happens, the NA principle loses all meaning. 
> 
> Property rights should be respected and they are respected. That is not a right to avoid taxation in a commonwealth/state. A person born into a state enjoys the protection of the state and the taxpayers who come before them. That is a debt for services rendered. Of course, the protection continues. The citizen has no right to be a freeloader and to enjoy protection on the backs of others. 
> 
> Any voluntaryist who claims any protection of law, constitution, or emergency public service is a huge hypocrite, since they seek to avoid paying for the very protections that they cling to in times of need.
> 
> In fact, I challenge any voluntaryist here to renounce his right of United States of America citizenship  or any nation they happen to be a citizen of. 
> ...


I'll start answering your questions after you agree to the terms of a debate.

I'll make it easy on you. You can choose all the terms, as long as it's even for both sides. You can have all the partners you want against me alone. Each of you can post the same amount that I will be allowed to post. In other words, if you have three partners, your team gets four posts to my one.

The only thing I insist on is that you agree to a resolution.

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## Maximatic

> You haven't told me. So, what is the answer?


I'll give you 'till Tomorrow to find out.

You still have two unsourced claims. Source them.

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## Roadmaster

Southern states have always believed in states rights because it's the will of the people who live in the state. The supreme court was never meant to rule over the will of the people. It's like a neighbor coming into your house trying to tell you how to arrange your furniture. They always use the slave issue on the south and forget they used slaves long before the south did to build their cities and it was being abolished in the south before the civil war. In SC it is still against the law to sell beer on Sunday, no other state or the government should go against the will of the people in that state. It doesn't matter what other states think.

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## Maximatic

> Southern states have always believed in states rights because it's the will of the people who live in the state. The supreme court was never meant to rule over the will of the people. It's like a neighbor coming into your house trying to tell you how to arrange your furniture. They always use the slave issue on the south and forget they used slaves long before the south did to build their cities and it was being abolished in the south before the civil war. In SC it is still against the law to sell beer on Sunday, no other state or the government should go against the will of the people in that state. It doesn't matter what other states think.


I live in the south. Some states are definitely better than others. The best ones are always the ones where the government does less. Of course they're all absolutely bound to the federal government, not just because it might try to kill them if they try to leave, like it did last time, but, also, because of the welfare state.

It would definitely be better without the federal government. We'd have much greater choice about what kind of place to live in. But, it would be even better if we could each govern our own lives, absolutely, insomuch as we don't damage others.

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Roadmaster (04-27-2014)

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## Longshot

> We also talked of public order crimes.


Yes, you posited something that you are calling a "public order crime". I don't agree that there is such a thing, but rather that there are only violations by one person(s) of another person(s) body or property. 




> Children do not pay most taxes. They can leave the state, when they become adults. Why didn't you leave the state upon reaching the age of 18?
> 
> Then, leave the state. No one is making you a prisoner. 
> 
> Then, you remain under what you consider unjust laws, when you are free to leave the injustice by choice.


My goal is not to leave. It is to eliminate unjust laws. I can't do that if I'm not here.

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## Karl

> Southern states have always believed in states rights because it's the will of the people who live in the state. The supreme court was never meant to rule over the will of the people. It's like a neighbor coming into your house trying to tell you how to arrange your furniture. They always use the slave issue on the south and forget they used slaves long before the south did to build their cities and it was being abolished in the south before the civil war. In SC it is still against the law to sell beer on Sunday, no other state or the government should go against the will of the people in that state. It doesn't matter what other states think.


 @roadmaster you aint alone

Indiana has NO SUNDAY SALES so the HOOSIERS all come to ILLINOIS on Sundays and Stateline Liquor Stores have Brisk Buisness on Sundays due to Unprepared Indiana residents

Indiana also suspends Booze sales on Election Days as well

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## Calypso Jones

I'm sorry.   Did anyone define 'the state'?

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usfan (04-27-2014)

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## Roadmaster

> @roadmaster you aint alone
> 
> Indiana has NO SUNDAY SALES so the HOOSIERS all come to ILLINOIS on Sundays and Stateline Liquor Stores have Brisk Buisness on Sundays due to Unprepared Indiana residents
> 
> Indiana also suspends Booze sales on Election Days as well


People that do drink in SC just buy up enough on Saturday. It doesn't prevent people from drinking on Sunday just the sale of it. It's the ones that don't know it's state wide that get caught if they are visiting. I am pretty sure it's still state wide, or I know it was 5 years ago but I am not a drinker. I think I drank maybe two beers last year.

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## Karl

> People that do drink in SC just buy up enough oi Saturday. It doesn't prevent people from drin nking on Sunday just the sale of it. It's the ones that don't know it's state wide that get caught if they are visiting. I am pretty sure it's still state wide, or I know it was 5 years ago but I am not a drinker. I think I drank maybe two beers last year.


Well them SOUTHERNERS got the Screwiest Liquor Laws in the Country and TEXAS has got to be the WORST as far as UNIFORMITY

Texas has no Official State Law BUT... In Texas individual Towns and even Entire Counties can declare themselves DRY

Further complicating things is Texas specifically "distinguishes" CARRY-OUT Sales "Liquior Stores" or "By The Drink" meaning restaurants and Bars

Lubbock Texas for instance and not Mayberry a Large city of about a Quarter Million People for DECADES banned CARRYOUT but Lubbock ALLOWED for ESTABLISHMENTS or By The Drink Sales but no taking it home

All around the areaas surrounding Lubbock but ACROSS the official CITY LIMITS was you guessed It LIQUOR STORES several at every intersection on every road leading out of Town


 @fyrenza and @Max Rockatansky and @Foghorn actually LIVE in TEXAS they could explain BETTER

Nonetheless I prefer the STATE regulate Liquor Laws as to create UNIFORMITY across the State rather than what ya get In Texas or many other Southern States which is MASS CONFUSION

Indiana has a STATE LAW and Uniformity despite lack of Sunday Sales @roadmaster

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## Roadmaster

I use to live in a dry county in NC. It's voted on by the people who live there.

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## Karl

> I use to live in a dry county in NC. It's voted on by the people who live there.


Thats nice off some backwoods roads 

BUT an entire CITY of substanial Size should NOT have SCREWY LAWS really bites into COMMERCE

As I stated I prefer the STATE LEGISLATURE make Ironclad UNIFORM LAWS as to create UNIFORMITY

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## Maximatic

> I'm sorry.   Did anyone define 'the state'?


Yes, I did, here and  here. Usfan didn't agree. Then I asked him, here, if he would understand his definition or mine, when I use the term, but he wouldn't tell me. Then I asked him, here, for another word I could use, since he wouldn't tell me whether he would read what I mean or what he means when I say "state", but he didn't want to give me one.

Glock and JPT are not interested in definitions. They, also, like to keep things nice and vague. Its how they roll.

Hey, while I've got you here, if anyone ever agrees to any kind of rules for a debate, will you set up some kind of moderated debate-only thread?
 It probably won't happen since these guys don't like to define things, but, just in case...

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## Maximatic

I hate no-beer-Sunday laws. It doesn't matter any more, but, when I drank, it was very inconvenient. I had to, either, make sure I had enough beer before Sunday, or drive very far on Sunday, or go to a bar and then drive drunk, which is not only extra expensive, but can also cause other inconveniences, like having to talk to a damned cop.

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## Max Rockatansky

> @fyrenza and @Max Rockatansky and @Foghorn actually LIVE in TEXAS they could explain BETTER
> 
> Nonetheless I prefer the STATE regulate Liquor Laws as to create UNIFORMITY across the State rather than what ya get In Texas or many other Southern States which is MASS CONFUSION


In Texas it's decided by county; local laws.   My county used to be dry and I'd have to stop on the way home from the airport or the military base to buy liquor.  If not that, then I'd drive south 9 miles to another county which was wet and buy there.  Usually I'd just stock up and not worry about it.     

About 10 years ago the county went wet and I have two liquor stores within 5-10 minutes.  None are open on Sundays.

I have no problem with local laws requiring certain hours on liquor just as I don't have a problem with Chik-Fil-A being closed on Sundays.  I just plan around them.

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## Foghorn

Yes the laws can get confusing as you travel from town to town, but personally I think its great.

If Dime Box, TX wants to be dry then that is their choice.  If they change their mind tomorrow, then that is their choice too.  I'm all in favor of choice and the closer to home the better.  I see no reason why some stranger in the State Capitol should be allowed to make choices about a place they've never even visited.

Majority actually rules some of the time, which is a refreshing change.

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## fyrenza

In Beeville, the liquor store (packy ~ lol) opened at 9am;
up here, they don't open until 10am,

but they all close at 9pm, and none are open on Son-days, nor holidays.

For beer, the rule for Son-day is that you can't buy it until noon,
but on other days, you can start buying it at 7am,
and have until midnight every day to "stock up."

----------



----------


## Maximatic

> In Beeville, the liquor store (packy ~ lol) opened at 9am;
> up here, they don't open until 10am,
> 
> but they all close at 9pm, and none are open on Son-days, nor holidays.
> 
> For beer, the rule for Son-day is that you can't buy it until noon,
> but on other days, you can start buying it at 7am,
> and have until midnight every day to "stock up."


The noon thing was never a problem for me, 'cause I usually didn't have any reason to be up at such a ridiculous hour anyway. If I did, it was usually because I had to do some work, but, in that case, a flask works better because it's easier to transport.

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## DonGlock26

> Are you saying there needs to be a "new man" for your system of governance to work? If it won't automatically compensate for the choices people make given incentive structures that actually exist, and human nature as it actually is, it is not viable.


No, what made you say such a stupid thing?

You want a state to "compensate" for the will of the people?

----------


## DonGlock26

> Stop posting bullshit and source your claims. 
> 
> You're telling me that you can know something about law before writing. 
> 
> Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?
> 
> The only thing I'm learning here is that, either both of you are so oblivious when it come to ancient history that you didn't even know when writing began, have no familiarity, whatsoever, with what the oldest writings do, in fact, tell us, or you think you can build some kind of case from SPECULATION about governance BEFORE WRITING!
> 
> You do this every time you try to engage me, you make up BULLSHIT, you get caught in it, and have to, try and schoolyard-talk your way out of it.
> ...


You said this:



> I'm sorry you think you have to explain it, but you've never said anything true that I didn't already know.
> 
> *You can't know what society was like before about 3,300BC,* because nobody wrote any of it down, because nobody knew how to write. Stop pretending to have knowledge that I know to be impossible for you to have.


That is an absurd statement. 

Here's a hard definition for you:




> *1so·ci·e·ty*_noun_\sə-ˈsī-ə-tē\: people in general thought of as living together in organized communities with shared laws, traditions, and values
> : the people of a particular country, area, time, etc., thought of especially as an organized community
> : people who are fashionable and wealthy
> 
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society

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## DonGlock26

> I'll start answering your questions after you agree to the terms of a debate.
> 
> I'll make it easy on you. You can choose all the terms, as long as it's even for both sides. You can have all the partners you want against me alone. Each of you can post the same amount that I will be allowed to post. In other words, if you have three partners, your team gets four posts to my one.
> 
> The only thing I insist on is that you agree to a resolution.


This thread is the debate. You're getting your ass kicked in it. 

I said this a while ago. Consider it a resolution.




> The state provides protection, justice, and order that allows civilization. Without it, conquest, slavery, tribal warfare and the blood feud is the natural state of man.

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## Rudy2D

> Okay, I didn't think you knew. You could look it up, but I can tell that you hate learning.


JPT's I.Q. would put yours in the basement--as would mine--151, from two tests.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## Maximatic

> In Beeville, the liquor store (packy ~ lol)


The first time I tried to buy liquor in a pharmacy in GA (you can't), the girl didn't know what  liquor store was. I repeated it several times, thinking she didn't hear me. Then I realized she didn't understand me, so I described it. Once she understood, she said "Oh, you mean a _package store_".

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## Maximatic

> JPT's I.Q. would put yours in the basement--as would mine--151, from two tests.


If you're really at 151, you should be able to carry on a discussion with me. If you can't, you need to improve your communication skills. If you won't, what are you doing on a discussion forum?

----------


## Maximatic

> No, what made you say such a stupid thing?


This:




> Good government is the responsibility of the  people. The gov't we have now is ultimately the fault of the  voters.

----------


## fyrenza

Okay, so let me get this straight ~

everyone thinks that a community, coming together at the lowest level possible,
to cuss and discuss what "The Rulez" should be,

is the same as an impersonal group of strangers to the district getting together to decide what 'The Rulez" should be,
FOR THAT COMMUNITY?

To me, the actual neighborhoods deciding for themselves what is going to be considered "Right" or "Wrong"

is NOT the same as a detached group of people making those decisions for those residents,

and I consider that detached group "The State,"

which should be responsible for the LEAST amount of rule making,
only making laws, based upon the commonality of The Rulez each county wants.

If EVERY county wants murder to be against the law?
THEN, it should be a "law" that The State is responsible to write,
but it must be based upon the definitions of what "murder" consists of.
i.e.  Killing another person in self-defense shouldn't be called "murder," 
under certain sets of circumstances.

The higher up the power is, the more the actual communities will NOT be served ~

what will be served are the IDEAS of what the strangers think.

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usfan (04-27-2014)

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## DonGlock26

> I'll give you 'till Tomorrow to find out.
> 
> You still have two unsourced claims. Source them.


 Which post numbers are you speaking of?

----------


## Maximatic

> You said this:
> 
> 
> That is an absurd statement. 
> 
> Here's a hard definition for you:


Okay, fine... Oh, wait, no. You still owe me two sources. Get them, and then we can pick up right here, and I'll address that.

----------


## DonGlock26

> Yes, you posited something that you are calling a "public order crime". I don't agree that there is such a thing, but rather that there are only violations by one person(s) of another person(s) body or property. 
> 
> 
> 
> My goal is not to leave. It is to eliminate unjust laws. I can't do that if I'm not here.


You called loud music an act of aggression on ear drums. You talked about a community doing something about prostitution taking place, etc.

http://thepoliticsforums.com/threads...l=1#post285140

Regardless of what we call a public order crime, some people will disrupt the community and society will stop them. That's why your pipedream is a joke.

----------


## Rudy2D

> If you're really at 151, you should be able to carry on a discussion with me. If you can't, you need to improve your communication skills. If you won't, what are you doing on a discussion forum?


I can.  But I refuse your terms.

----------


## Maximatic

> Okay, so let me get this straight ~
> 
> everyone thinks that a community, coming together at the lowest level possible,
> to cuss and discuss what "The Rulez" should be,
> 
> is the same as an impersonal group of strangers to the district getting together to decide what 'The Rulez" should be,
> FOR THAT COMMUNITY?
> 
> To me, the actual neighborhoods deciding for themselves what is going to be considered "Right" or "Wrong"
> ...


The thing is, every county WOULD want murder to be against the law. They would all also want theft, and battery, and robbery, and fraud, and assault, to be illegal. It seems, to me, that, if it were at all likely for any substantial group of people to not want all of those things to be illegal, there would be some state in existence, now, or at any point in history, where they were not all illegal.

If all the counties in the entire world have always believed that all of those things should be illegal, than any individual who believes that those things should not be illegal is just wrong, always will be, and always will be treated as such when he acts on it and is found out, no matter what.

----------


## Maximatic

> I can.  But I refuse your terms.


What are my terms?

----------


## DonGlock26

> This:


You are getting tangled up in your own web of stupidity. You claimed that you couldn't know anything about a society before a written history could be read, which is absurd on its face and shows a profound ignorance of the existence of the science of archaeology.

----------


## Rudy2D

> If you're really at 151, you should be able to carry on a discussion with me. If you can't, you need to improve your communication skills. If you won't, what are you doing on a discussion forum?





> I can. But I refuse your terms.





> What are my terms?


That I reply to you in the manner that you have dictated previously in this thread.  I'll reply to you as I wish.

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DonGlock26 (04-27-2014)

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## DonGlock26

> Okay, fine... Oh, wait, no. You still owe me two sources. Get them, and then we can pick up right here, and I'll address that.


I don't owe you jack. You've avoid my questions in numerous threads because your pet philosophy is the joke of the forum. You apparently still can't figure out what archaeology is. I gave you a link to the Code of Hammurabi. I can't make you abandon your unicorn dreams. You'll have to do that yourself.

BTW- did you renounce your US citizenship yet and free yourself of this evil state?  :Smiley ROFLMAO:

----------


## Calypso Jones

> Yes, I did, here and  here. Usfan didn't agree. Then I asked him, here, if he would understand his definition or mine, when I use the term, but he wouldn't tell me. Then I asked him, here, for another word I could use, since he wouldn't tell me whether he would read what I mean or what he means when I say "state", but he didn't want to give me one.
> 
> Glock and JPT are not interested in definitions. They, also, like to keep things nice and vague. Its how they roll.
> 
> Hey, while I've got you here, if anyone ever agrees to any kind of rules for a debate, will you set up some kind of moderated debate-only thread?
>  It probably won't happen since these guys don't like to define things, but, just in case...


sure.    I'll have to bone up on Rules for Debate.  OR will the combatants set their own.

----------


## Maximatic

> I don't owe you jack. You've avoid my questions in numerous threads because your pet philosophy is the joke of the forum. You apparently still can't figure out what archaeology is. I gave you a link to the Code of Hammurabi. I can't make you abandon your unicorn dreams. You'll have to do that yourself.


I didn't see you post that link. I did, though, it's a link to the copy on my website.

----------


## Maximatic

> sure.    I'll have to bone up on Rules for Debate.  OR will the combatants set their own.


There really isn't much as far as rules go. There are traditions. The typical format is just some number of timed speech sessions, in turn. The side defending the resolution goes first, but the resolution is just any positive statement, so it can be worded in a way that allows either side to go first.

These guys don't want to agree to anything though, so I've already pretty much told them that I'll accept just about terms as long as there's a resolution. So, if any of them accept, the rules will be whatever they say they are. I think the only thing you'd have to do would be to keep non contestants out of the thread, and, I guess, if any of the debaters posts out of turn, you'd delete that. Basically just make sure the debaters do what they agreed to do.

----------


## Dan40

> What are my terms?


Your terms are as simple as your position.  Convert to your naive and lunatic religion or you'll make another naive and lunatic false claim.

----------


## Maximatic

> Your terms are as simple as your position.  Convert to your naive and lunatic religion or you'll make another naive and lunatic false claim.


Why don't you quote just one false claim I've made.

----------


## Dan40

> Why don't you quote just one false claim I've made.


Your every post would be a good start.  You twist history better than a lying liberal, and you refuse to acknowledge logic and reality.

You love to start ignorant threads so you can mentally masturbate.

You are a complete waste of time.

----------


## Maximatic

And why is it that all you guys do is call names? I may go off on one of you from time to time, but look at my posts. Almost none of them are like that, and almost address the discussion and NOT the other person. But see how many you can find, of any of those claiming to oppose my position in this thread, that do address the discussion without also insulting me.

Count them. And then count the ones that are just pure vitriolic bullshit.

----------


## Calypso Jones

Y'all could stop this arguing now.   Set up a proposition, positive or negative and go for it.

----------


## Maximatic

> Your every post would be a good start.  You twist history better than a lying liberal, and you refuse to acknowledge logic and reality.
> 
> You love to start ignorant threads so you can mentally masturbate.
> 
> You are a complete waste of time.


Quote one post that proves anything you're saying.

This is all you've ever said about what I believe, and, did you notice that it's not actually about what I believe, but about me? 

And did you notice that every single one of the other posts about this issue were exactly the same way? 

If I really am just a waste of time, wouldn't you have found that out by first telling me why what I believe is completely insane?

But you've never done that.

POWER

HUMAN NATURE

That's only explanation you've ever given, and of course you can never say it without including the good old "YOU LUNATIC MASTURBATER!" 

Do you not understand that that does not explain anything?

----------


## Maximatic

If you understand something, you can explain it.

IF YOU CANNOT EXPLAIN IT, YOU_ DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT._

----------


## Longshot

> You called loud music an act of aggression on ear drums.


Yes. Loud music could certainly be considered aggression. Perhaps you've never heard of sonic weapons?




> You talked about a community doing something about prostitution taking place, etc.


Yes, I said how individuals in a community could establish a contract that would forbid nuisance behaviors. 




> Regardless of what we call a public order crime, some people will disrupt the community and society will stop them. That's why your pipedream is a joke.


I don't agree that respecting the property of others and condemning the initiation of aggression is a joke.

----------


## DonGlock26

Did anyone renounce their US citizenship and free themselves from the clutches of the state overnight?




> Persons intending to renounce U.S. citizenship should be aware that, unless they already possess a foreign nationality, they may be rendered stateless and, thus, lack the protection of any government.
> 
> http://travel.state.gov/content/trav...tizenship.html



It sounds like a voluntaryist path to paradise.

----------


## Network

It is all for your safety, chitizen. We promise. Just look at all that trouble brewing over the oceans, they want to kill you.  But we are here for your safety chitizen.  Please look away as we spend trillions to accomplish nothing that has anything to do with you across that vast ocean.  thx tho

----------

