Interesting reading. I think the intellectual mistake the author made is in thinking that one's political dogma (and therefore party affiliation) should not change over time because the party does not change over time. That is, the idea that a political party is the manifestation of an unchanging view.
The fun revelation is that business dresses itself up as conservative, then pursues its own ends of profit. That's the entire definition of bourgeois. It is worth highlighting as in many ways, the free software movement is a very conservative one, from the point of view of the way code was shared in the beginning of its history: That is, you asked the programmer who wrote the code you were interested in for a copy and usually got it gratis as the money was made in selling the equipment. The change of label to liberal-radical came later when business started to realize that software, itself, was a sell-able product.
The point I'm making is that choosing a side in any two party system is always artificial. Any party affiliation should be viewed as one of convenience. This explains why Bernie Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and why both Paul politicians aligned with the GOP.
From my standpoint, the only winning play for the individual is to decide what is important to yourself, acknowledge that it will change over time, and remember not to get caught up in the game being played. Your "side", or party affiliation, in fact, should change as your interests change.
In other words, don't be proud of your party, and don't overly-identify with said party.
> In other words, don't be proud of your party, and don't overly-identify with said party.
Amen.
While I'm inclined to believe that an adversarial Congress is beneficial to the nation on the whole, the zeal with which most Americans seek to categorize themselves into "in-group" and "out-group" members is discomforting.
Scarier though, in my opinion, is how quickly the politicians are to capitalize on that polarization, which offers instant and immediate demonification of whomever takes the opposite view; and so long as the parties work like this, nobody notices that so much of the parties' political platforms are not internally consistent, or are even highly hypocritical.
Having been swayed by good arguments enough that I felt the need to make sense of it, I was able to divine a set of 'first principles' that I endorse, and policy choices that align with those principles tend to be ones that I approve of, no matter who, or from which party it originates.
Of course, being a political chimera makes for often difficult discussions.
I go a step farther. In my state, there is no requirement to join a party to vote in the primaries. Instead, you simply pick a party for which to vote. I believe the only rational choice is to say "Give me one ballot for each party," which gives close-to-stacked-rank voting for the primary.
I still show up for the primaries, as I want the chance to choose who I vote for when I get to the general election. However, such a system makes it impossible for me to consider political office (beyond school board) as my primary declaration is a matter of public record, meaning that I would not pass any test of party purity.
What I really want is stacked-rank voting in the primaries and in the general election. I think it would be interesting to see how the general public, used to a Coke vs Pepsi choice, handle a spectrum of choices where you don't have to Pick Only One.
Rothbard's view on the the issues like state, liberty and war altered my perspective a great deal. Also, this video titled
"How Murray Rothbard Changed my Mind on War" may be worth watching to see his influence.
> And this meant that the great danger to the peace and freedom of the world came not from Moscow or "international communism," but from the U.S. and its Empire stretching across and dominating the world.
Can anyone explain how this statement makes any sense for a supposed libertarian at that time? Any way you look at it, the Soviet Union 1) suppressed freedom and 2) espoused militarism. I'm puzzled why it seems to get a free pass here.
USSR did suppress freedom. It was a state after all; that is the purpose. USSR had a military, but it never received more than a tiny fraction of the resources that USA military received. The CIA and other liars continually exaggerated the strength of USSR military in order to inspire paranoia in the political and media elite, and to keep the world divided in ways that were good for business.
Their military still might have been a match for USA military, because keeping armaments manufacturers wealthy was never their purpose in the way it was in USA. Fortunately that test never came, perhaps because USSR believed much of the same hype we believed in USA. The Soviets were constantly afraid of what USA might do, and nearly every action they made was a response to that fear. Thus it was the actions of USA that drove the cold war.
The phrase I'd like to examine is "free pass". What constitutes a "free pass"? Would we consider allowing people on the other side of the earth to live as they will to be a "free pass"? How about not attacking those who have never attacked us? Would not spending more than the rest of the world combined on our military deserve the classification of "free pass"? We anarchists are so stupid, please explain it to us.
> The Soviets were constantly afraid of what USA might do, and nearly every action they made was a response to that fear. Thus it was the actions of USA that drove the cold war.
Every newspaper, every magazine in the USSR had the "Пролетарии всех стран, соеденяйтесь!" printed above the title. Which roughly means "Working men of the world, unite!" and refers this Marx's quote:
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!"
> Any way you look at it, the Soviet Union 1) suppressed freedom and 2) espoused militarism.
What human organization with a military arm doesn't do that? And for that matter how are you even defining freedom? The defense of freedom in the abstract is worse than meaningless.
so, against the government and against big business? what's left then?
and, awesome how his stance is ultimately self-defeating as any other political direction/movement will embrace the organisation of a big construct. libertarians and anarchists are adorable.
I kinda agree with you, and I think it's unfair you're getting downvoted by fundamentalists.
I don't understand the libertarian stance either. They are against concentration and misuse of power (big business and government), which I can relate to, to an extent. But at the same time, they seem unwilling to help or even compromise with the other people who are getting screwed (which is often a majority). Specifically, they don't want to support poor in any way, and are often against democracy.
Now I sympathize with the cause, but why should I (politically, economically) help/support person (a libertarian) that is unwilling to help/support me? It doesn't make any sense, in fact it sounds as a fishy proposition, where I am gonna get screwed (though at least I appreciate the honesty).
I'd be happy to hear from libertarians how is this supposed to work - why should I support you? Is your system going to help me when I am in trouble and how? (Or don't forget to downvote me as a signal that you don't want to have a tough but mature discussion about your precious beliefs.)
I am, at least, philosophically libertarian. But I'm not an activist and don't participate in electoral politics.
Here's the first problem: the word "libertarian" is a huge umbrella term that encompasses many different philosophies. Reasonable uses of word go from "fuck you, got mine" all the way to "no coercion, please." I've seen plenty of folks self identify on various parts of this spectrum, so I'm not even including derogatory senses of the word. And of course, many would consider this to be a "right wing" usurpation of the word from traditional leftists. So despite the broad spectrum, one could still consider it wrong in a variety of ways.
With that said, I personally identify close to "no coercion, please." Notably, I largely see this as entirely orthogonal to what it means to help others. In contrast, "fuck you, got mine," is a clear statement that "helping others" is to be looked down upon, and that those who are poor are weak or lazy.
The "no coercion, please" is also easy to conflate with "don't help others" because such a position often entails an argument in favor of defunding or abolishing many of the social welfare programs we see today. Often, this argument is made without any attempt at providing an alternative, so it's easily dismissed by conscientious individuals. However, many of these arguments are not based on the proposition that the poor are weak or that helping others is somehow bad, but rather, that these social welfare programs are predicated on the use of force (as us libertarians see it, which is not necessarily how others see it, because certainly not all people think that taxation is coercive, but I certainly see it that way). Since they are predicated on the use of force, they are generally incompatible with libertarian philosophy. However, the part where social welfare programs help people is, to me, not incompatible at all with libertarian philosophy. For example, there are uncountably many privately run charities in the world. These are of course organized voluntarily, and are therefore compatible with libertarian philosophy.
Naturally, this turns the discussion toward "well private charities provide no guarantees to help folks in need." And yes, that is true. But now you've arrived to the heart of the matter: the only way to provide a "guarantee" is to use coercion. (I personally don't think of this as a guarantee, but government institutions certainly have an air of longevity and stability that isn't often associated with private organizations, so I can understand the sentiment.)
I largely see this as a trade off between freedom and security. Freedom means there are no guarantees; folks in need will only get help if there are others willing to give it.
For me personally, I cannot ethically abide coercion, ever. This probably makes me an absolutist. Of course, in real life, my pragmatism takes over. I don't mind being an absolutist in theory. ;-)
no worries, was clear when I posted that the downvotes would come in heavy - this is HN after all.
big fan of this ideology, especially personified by the likes of Peter Thiel, who went on record stating that letting womenfolk vote in the US was a huge mistake and has doomed his perfect vision of a society. wonder how his seabase is going?
Readit News
The fun revelation is that business dresses itself up as conservative, then pursues its own ends of profit. That's the entire definition of bourgeois. It is worth highlighting as in many ways, the free software movement is a very conservative one, from the point of view of the way code was shared in the beginning of its history: That is, you asked the programmer who wrote the code you were interested in for a copy and usually got it gratis as the money was made in selling the equipment. The change of label to liberal-radical came later when business started to realize that software, itself, was a sell-able product.
The point I'm making is that choosing a side in any two party system is always artificial. Any party affiliation should be viewed as one of convenience. This explains why Bernie Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and why both Paul politicians aligned with the GOP.
From my standpoint, the only winning play for the individual is to decide what is important to yourself, acknowledge that it will change over time, and remember not to get caught up in the game being played. Your "side", or party affiliation, in fact, should change as your interests change.
In other words, don't be proud of your party, and don't overly-identify with said party.
Amen.
While I'm inclined to believe that an adversarial Congress is beneficial to the nation on the whole, the zeal with which most Americans seek to categorize themselves into "in-group" and "out-group" members is discomforting.
Scarier though, in my opinion, is how quickly the politicians are to capitalize on that polarization, which offers instant and immediate demonification of whomever takes the opposite view; and so long as the parties work like this, nobody notices that so much of the parties' political platforms are not internally consistent, or are even highly hypocritical.
Having been swayed by good arguments enough that I felt the need to make sense of it, I was able to divine a set of 'first principles' that I endorse, and policy choices that align with those principles tend to be ones that I approve of, no matter who, or from which party it originates.
Of course, being a political chimera makes for often difficult discussions.
I still show up for the primaries, as I want the chance to choose who I vote for when I get to the general election. However, such a system makes it impossible for me to consider political office (beyond school board) as my primary declaration is a matter of public record, meaning that I would not pass any test of party purity.
What I really want is stacked-rank voting in the primaries and in the general election. I think it would be interesting to see how the general public, used to a Coke vs Pepsi choice, handle a spectrum of choices where you don't have to Pick Only One.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBCiMxuX9_g
http://fee.org/resources/economic-sophisms/
http://fee.org/files/doclib/20121116_thelaw.pdf
Can anyone explain how this statement makes any sense for a supposed libertarian at that time? Any way you look at it, the Soviet Union 1) suppressed freedom and 2) espoused militarism. I'm puzzled why it seems to get a free pass here.
Their military still might have been a match for USA military, because keeping armaments manufacturers wealthy was never their purpose in the way it was in USA. Fortunately that test never came, perhaps because USSR believed much of the same hype we believed in USA. The Soviets were constantly afraid of what USA might do, and nearly every action they made was a response to that fear. Thus it was the actions of USA that drove the cold war.
The phrase I'd like to examine is "free pass". What constitutes a "free pass"? Would we consider allowing people on the other side of the earth to live as they will to be a "free pass"? How about not attacking those who have never attacked us? Would not spending more than the rest of the world combined on our military deserve the classification of "free pass"? We anarchists are so stupid, please explain it to us.
Every newspaper, every magazine in the USSR had the "Пролетарии всех стран, соеденяйтесь!" printed above the title. Which roughly means "Working men of the world, unite!" and refers this Marx's quote:
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!"
What human organization with a military arm doesn't do that? And for that matter how are you even defining freedom? The defense of freedom in the abstract is worse than meaningless.
and, awesome how his stance is ultimately self-defeating as any other political direction/movement will embrace the organisation of a big construct. libertarians and anarchists are adorable.
I don't understand the libertarian stance either. They are against concentration and misuse of power (big business and government), which I can relate to, to an extent. But at the same time, they seem unwilling to help or even compromise with the other people who are getting screwed (which is often a majority). Specifically, they don't want to support poor in any way, and are often against democracy.
Now I sympathize with the cause, but why should I (politically, economically) help/support person (a libertarian) that is unwilling to help/support me? It doesn't make any sense, in fact it sounds as a fishy proposition, where I am gonna get screwed (though at least I appreciate the honesty).
I'd be happy to hear from libertarians how is this supposed to work - why should I support you? Is your system going to help me when I am in trouble and how? (Or don't forget to downvote me as a signal that you don't want to have a tough but mature discussion about your precious beliefs.)
Here's the first problem: the word "libertarian" is a huge umbrella term that encompasses many different philosophies. Reasonable uses of word go from "fuck you, got mine" all the way to "no coercion, please." I've seen plenty of folks self identify on various parts of this spectrum, so I'm not even including derogatory senses of the word. And of course, many would consider this to be a "right wing" usurpation of the word from traditional leftists. So despite the broad spectrum, one could still consider it wrong in a variety of ways.
With that said, I personally identify close to "no coercion, please." Notably, I largely see this as entirely orthogonal to what it means to help others. In contrast, "fuck you, got mine," is a clear statement that "helping others" is to be looked down upon, and that those who are poor are weak or lazy.
The "no coercion, please" is also easy to conflate with "don't help others" because such a position often entails an argument in favor of defunding or abolishing many of the social welfare programs we see today. Often, this argument is made without any attempt at providing an alternative, so it's easily dismissed by conscientious individuals. However, many of these arguments are not based on the proposition that the poor are weak or that helping others is somehow bad, but rather, that these social welfare programs are predicated on the use of force (as us libertarians see it, which is not necessarily how others see it, because certainly not all people think that taxation is coercive, but I certainly see it that way). Since they are predicated on the use of force, they are generally incompatible with libertarian philosophy. However, the part where social welfare programs help people is, to me, not incompatible at all with libertarian philosophy. For example, there are uncountably many privately run charities in the world. These are of course organized voluntarily, and are therefore compatible with libertarian philosophy.
Naturally, this turns the discussion toward "well private charities provide no guarantees to help folks in need." And yes, that is true. But now you've arrived to the heart of the matter: the only way to provide a "guarantee" is to use coercion. (I personally don't think of this as a guarantee, but government institutions certainly have an air of longevity and stability that isn't often associated with private organizations, so I can understand the sentiment.)
I largely see this as a trade off between freedom and security. Freedom means there are no guarantees; folks in need will only get help if there are others willing to give it.
For me personally, I cannot ethically abide coercion, ever. This probably makes me an absolutist. Of course, in real life, my pragmatism takes over. I don't mind being an absolutist in theory. ;-)
big fan of this ideology, especially personified by the likes of Peter Thiel, who went on record stating that letting womenfolk vote in the US was a huge mistake and has doomed his perfect vision of a society. wonder how his seabase is going?
You ask that as if you're referring to two different things.
The government is theoretically accountable to all citizens, and conducts orderly and regularly scheduled changes of power.
Big businesses are theoretically accountable to their owners and no one else.
Small governments and small businesses, that can participate in the game but don't have enough power to change the rules of the game.