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Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby rangerone314 » Wed 29 Dec 2010, 07:33:02

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'W')hat is the libertarian solution for market externalities or does a libertarian acknowledge such things? Erin Brokovich?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-333m-payout-an-oscar-and-now-a-final-twist-was-erin-brockovich-wrong-2159569.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')early 15 years after the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric paid a $333m (£210m) out-of-court settlement to end claims that it had polluted the water in Hinkley, California, with chromium 6, a carcinogen, a new survey shows that the number of cancer cases there in 1996-2008 was not especially elevated. In fact, they were lower than would be expected.


Pwned.

Pwned. So what.

One example. And PG&E wasn't able to prove if it was so easy? They must have had lousy lawyers for all their money.

Still haven't answered my question about sociopaths floating up towards the top.

If I lived in a much more libertarian society, where those with money and power could get away with even more than they do now, I suppose the only recourse with people like me for justice would be a sniper rifle.

All the freedom that money can buy.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Wed 29 Dec 2010, 11:04:47

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Asterisk', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')You are right that the far left and far right are hugely different. You are wrong to clai that the media hacks that infest these two channels are substantively different or behaviorally different -- they just come at things from their target audiences' differing viewpoints.


I'm not going to get into it, but I can tell you that the left does not lie and the right does.

This is not my opinion vs. yours, the above is an objective and verifiable fact.

That's all I will say because I have decided that debating politics with right-wingers/libertarians is no different from debating climate change with a climate denier. Facts mean nothing and nothing I say is going to change your mind, so let's agree to disagree.

You have a right to believe what you like, but the fact is, Olbermann/Maddow do not lie and Rush/Orielly/ Hannity/Beck do.


Sorry but I don't know any of those people so this looks like one of the silliest things I have ever seen postulated on this website. They all lie. It's part of their job. Who they lie for and how convincingly or to what degree they lie are besides the point. Also not all libertarians are right wing. To say so suggests rhetorical understanding only of both libertarianism and the right wing.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby davep » Wed 29 Dec 2010, 11:29:40

I have a couple of quick points...

What's this talk about anarchism being about having no rules? For me it is all about local laws created using direct representation. What it avoids is the heirarchies inherent in any other system, and the inevitable corruption that goes with the heirarchy. I see it as a model for a post-peak world.

Another thing is this talk of free markets. What free markets? With the incessant lobbying of corporate interests, laws currently effectively stop smaller enterprises threatening the status quo than allowing for free markets. As long as corporations have the power they currently hold there will not be anything resembling free markets (and that is as true in Europe as it is in the USA).
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby rangerone314 » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 11:38:32

Do libertarians see any threat to liberty (ironic) or freedom in power being concentrated into the hands of a few? (one might note in most economic systems money equates to power... so any system that encourages the concentration of money in the hands of a few equates to power in the hands of a few)

I do not see how concentrating power in the hands of a few, whether corporate capitalism or communism is supposed to lead to greater freedom for the majority of people. Freedom to do what? Be serfs?

Political power is a zero sum game. The more power someone else has, the less power I have.

In a system with finite resources, economic power ultimately will be a zero sum game.
An ideology is by definition not a search for TRUTH-but a search for PROOF that its point of view is right

Equals barter and negotiate-people with power just take

You cant defend freedom by eliminating it-unknown

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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby mos6507 » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 12:05:58

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Asterisk', 'O')lbermann/Maddow do not lie and Rush/Orielly/ Hannity/Beck do.


Olbermann and Maddow are biased. They commit the sin of omission by virtue of emphasizing things that make their chosen targets look bad and play defense for their side. I say this even though ideologically I am closer to them than I am of Fox News. Sure, they hoist the conservatives up on their own petard. They use mostly fact-based and logical arguments to make their points rather than appealing to blind fear and rage the way Fox and AM talk does, but they definitely have an axe to grind. So you can't really say that Olbermann and Maddow are paragons of unbiased journalism. They are not as bad at Fox in the distortion department, no, but their purpose is to move you to their side.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby mos6507 » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 12:15:10

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')local laws created using direct representation.


Local laws require consensus. If a public rejects any and all authority, then where you draw the line? Dissent can occur all the way down to two individuals.

Note that we have a separate thread about "hyper individualism". The idea that localism will be the glue that binds us ignores the fact that two people living side by side can have two totally different outlooks on life. Globalization has led to a cacophany of viewpoints.

The days when a town was some homogeneous group of people are long gone. Not to say regionalism doesn't exist, but to think that it can avoid arguments over which way to steer the ship? Forget it.

Government is the process by which this sort of conflict is mediated, all the way back to the code of Hammurabi. It solved more problems than it created. Violence and war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means. To be against government is more likely to lead to more conflict, more violence, more war, than utopia.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby davep » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 15:23:58

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')local laws created using direct representation.


Local laws require consensus. If a public rejects any and all authority, then where you draw the line? Dissent can occur all the way down to two individuals.

Note that we have a separate thread about "hyper individualism". The idea that localism will be the glue that binds us ignores the fact that two people living side by side can have two totally different outlooks on life. Globalization has led to a cacophany of viewpoints.

The days when a town was some homogeneous group of people are long gone. Not to say regionalism doesn't exist, but to think that it can avoid arguments over which way to steer the ship? Forget it.

Government is the process by which this sort of conflict is mediated, all the way back to the code of Hammurabi. It solved more problems than it created. Violence and war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means. To be against government is more likely to lead to more conflict, more violence, more war, than utopia.


You wouldn't need 100% consensus all the time. You would still have local laws, and they would require to be applied. The big difference is that there is no hierarchy, not that there would be some happy clappy utopia.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby mos6507 » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 15:58:14

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')You wouldn't need 100% consensus all the time. You would still have local laws, and they would require to be applied. The big difference is that there is no hierarchy, not that there would be some happy clappy utopia.


Then how are those laws established? What about the minority who don't agree on those laws during the town hall debates? Are they not oppressed by "government"? Your anarchist ideals just can't work unless everyone magically thinks exactly the same way, and they don't. You can reduce government, but you can't eliminate it.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby davep » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 19:01:45

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')You wouldn't need 100% consensus all the time. You would still have local laws, and they would require to be applied. The big difference is that there is no hierarchy, not that there would be some happy clappy utopia.


Then how are those laws established? What about the minority who don't agree on those laws during the town hall debates? Are they not oppressed by "government"? Your anarchist ideals just can't work unless everyone magically thinks exactly the same way, and they don't. You can reduce government, but you can't eliminate it.


The point is that there is direct representation and only one layer of public servants. If you waited for everyone to agree, nothing would ever get decided.

I think some sort of constitution and bill of rights should underlie any lawmaking (to avoid any tyranny of the majority), but that would be pretty hard work unless based around some kind of template.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby SpringCreekFarm » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 20:55:24

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Asterisk', 'O')lbermann/Maddow do not lie and Rush/Orielly/ Hannity/Beck do.


Olbermann and Maddow are biased. They commit the sin of omission by virtue of emphasizing things that make their chosen targets look bad and play defense for their side. I say this even though ideologically I am closer to them than I am of Fox News. Sure, they hoist the conservatives up on their own petard. They use mostly fact-based and logical arguments to make their points rather than appealing to blind fear and rage the way Fox and AM talk does, but they definitely have an axe to grind. So you can't really say that Olbermann and Maddow are paragons of unbiased journalism. They are not as bad at Fox in the distortion department, no, but their purpose is to move you to their side.


Well it's obvious that they are biased. They admit they are liberals. Not sure why you are bringing that up. What was stated was that they do their best to NOT LIE.

I watch these shows all the time and see what kind of bias they have but the fact remains they don't throw wild bullshit non-facts around. I have seen on a few occasions where they retract something they have said because it wasn't entirely factual but at least they do that.

A large part of their programming is exposing the lies of the right wing conservative republicans. Without this, there would be no one in msm to debunk the hysterical bullshit taking place on the right. I'm sure you'd agree with this Mos. No?
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 21:33:54

The 'Magic' required to move human collectives is the inevitable demise of currency at the dusk of the oil age. Volunteerism is the right way to have local governance. Much like the reserve military system a lot of countries have where every healthy person must dedicate themselves to the good of the community for 1 month a year. An alternative to consensus is voluntary rotating chairs with strictly time limited authority and reverse consensus power of dismissal.

We need to remember that 99% of the wealth we see is illusory in that it will cease to exist at the end of the oil age. The game of keeping up with the Jones's will be utterly over. If the Jones want to keep playing that game, their stuff will be seized and they will be run out of town. The fat lazy pigman syndrome will be over too, since he will have nothing of worth to contribute he will be asset stripped and run out of town. That crack house down the road with the gangstas? Raided in an appropriate manner by the local vigilanty collective. Crime and punishment revert to natural law. Government will gradually be fully localised.

If this is what American Dream is alluding to in his communist allegory; he is right. But it won't be super state communists, it will be real local communities.

Libertarianism being seen as fundamentally right wing is because those flying the colours are often pigmen tax cheats with no real ideal beyond making lots of lucre. But the underground libertarian movement is a socially healthy one, bringing people together to act on real local issues without needing to involve the nanny state. Libertarianism is a healthy basis to form new communities especially as we are coming out of a hyper-individualised system, we will need our egos nursed somewhat as we take the medicine of having to work collectively for collective good.

The range of redundant professions will be mind boggling. Purely beaurocratic positions will cease to exist. Courts will be presided over by community peers and decisions will direct criminals to rehabilitation or death. There won't be enough spare energy to run prisons.

Anarchy simply won't work, one reason is enough, laziness. There are too many people who will do as little work as possible if not coerced into working, and when oil goes, we are going to have to do a lot more of that. The best reason to take up libertarian values now is that they are the most open model for transition away from big government and dependence on the oil ghost nanny state.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby rangerone314 » Thu 30 Dec 2010, 22:41:42

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'W')hat is the libertarian solution for market externalities or does a libertarian acknowledge such things? Erin Brokovich?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-333m-payout-an-oscar-and-now-a-final-twist-was-erin-brockovich-wrong-2159569.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')early 15 years after the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric paid a $333m (£210m) out-of-court settlement to end claims that it had polluted the water in Hinkley, California, with chromium 6, a carcinogen, a new survey shows that the number of cancer cases there in 1996-2008 was not especially elevated. In fact, they were lower than would be expected.


Pwned.

Ever wonder why there is so much more cancer now than in the past? And no, it is not all about longer lifespans.

Ever consider that it is probably that people in Hinkley are exposed to LESS of other carcinogens, and that their cancer case rate would be MUCH lower than the average? If you really want to consider a more scientifically valid way to look at the evidence, study cancer cases that occurred before PGE polluted the water and compare that cancer rate to the present one.

If skin cancer rates in Australia were high because more people expose themselves more to the sun, and some people in an area where the weather is lousy so they stay indoors more are exposed to chemicals that may cause cancer, I'm not going to learn anything by comparing people in that area to the general population.

Would you claim that chromium 6 is REDUCING their cancer rate since they were lower than the average?

How about George Burns dying at age 100? Maybe if he didn't do the cigar thing he would have lived to be 102.
An ideology is by definition not a search for TRUTH-but a search for PROOF that its point of view is right

Equals barter and negotiate-people with power just take

You cant defend freedom by eliminating it-unknown

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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby PrestonSturges » Fri 31 Dec 2010, 02:16:02

A friend is fat happy cigar smoking 83 years old. His son's skinny, never smoked, has pancreatic cancer.

Sometimes you should just have that extra slice of pie.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby Asterisk » Fri 31 Dec 2010, 06:20:08

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')Sorry but I don't know any of those people so this looks like one of the silliest things I have ever seen postulated on this website. They all lie. It's part of their job.

Also not all libertarians are right wing. To say so suggests rhetorical understanding only of both libertarianism and the right wing.


This is from the Preamble to the Libertarian Party Platform:

As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.

In other words, they have no empathy for the poor, just like Republicans. What's mine is mine because I earned it.

They believe in LESS regulation than republicans. The "free market" will dictate that all is well. Never mind that a free market does not exist and have never existed.

What is free about a free market? The government run courts where businesses can sue? The government run police force that drive on government regulated roads that are safe because of government regulations? How about the food that the workers at the business eat which is safe because of regulations. Or the fact that the government makes sure that their water is safe for their coffee machines. Don't forget about the safe flights for business trips...made safe by government regulations.

And hopefully the workers will make enough money to pay off their government backed student loans.

I could go on and on and on.

Libertarian and Republican = same nonsense.

And as for both sides lying, you can believe what you want, but the fact is that the left doesn't knowingly lie and the right does. When the left unknowingly states a falsehood, they run a retraction/apology. That is simply not the case with the right (except on rare occassions). That is a fact.

There is a reason every SINGLE republican candidate that was elected in this year's mid-term is a climate denier....EVERY ONE OF THEM.

So feel free to go on believing that MSNBC and FOX lie equally and that global warming is a hoax and that the national debt was caused by democratic presidents. Ignorance is a choice.

Whatever....

I'm over this debate. You guys enjoy this thread, but I'm out of here. I'm off to find rationality elsewhere because it certainly isn't here in this thread!
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby Cog » Fri 31 Dec 2010, 06:55:49

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Asterisk', '
')I'm over this debate. You guys enjoy this thread, but I'm out of here. I'm off to find rationality elsewhere because it certainly isn't here in this thread!


Well at least some progress has been made in this thread.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby Pretorian » Fri 31 Dec 2010, 07:03:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Asterisk', ' ')I'm off to find rationality elsewhere because it certainly isn't here in this thread!


I wouldnt believe it if i didnt read it for myself.. A Democrat is looking for rationality? Rationality? Democrat?!
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby Ludi » Wed 05 Jan 2011, 22:37:11

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ')I'm sure Ludi will interject about how everybody got along before agriculture, despite low-level internecine tribal warfare, which "doesn't count".


I've never said anything even slightly like that. I think you might be misunderstanding what I have said. :|


(grumping deleted because I've been enjoying your recent posts so much)
Last edited by Ludi on Wed 05 Jan 2011, 23:50:24, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby Ludi » Wed 05 Jan 2011, 22:46:07

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'T')here are too many people who will do as little work as possible if not coerced into working,


Personally, I don't see any problem with doing as little work as possible. I don't work harder than I need to and I'm not convinced anyone else should have to either. Explain to me how I am wrong and what bad things I am doing by working as little as possible, and how hard I should be working and by whose standard.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby mos6507 » Thu 06 Jan 2011, 00:24:28

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')I think you might be misunderstanding what I have said.


Or you might have a habit of writing things that come across differently from what you claim to mean.
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Re: Explain Libertarianism To My Mom

Unread postby Pretorian » Thu 06 Jan 2011, 02:51:23

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'T')here are too many people who will do as little work as possible if not coerced into working,


Personally, I don't see any problem with doing as little work as possible. I don't work harder than I need to and I'm not convinced anyone else should have to either. Explain to me how I am wrong and what bad things I am doing by working as little as possible, and how hard I should be working and by whose standard.


This actually is one of the best posts Ludi ever made. Congrats!
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