August Spies

yes. yes you could. An army could overthrow the goverment and force everyone into some kind of libertarian society. If the corporations had armies of cops and police at their payroll this could be done pretty easily.

I, of course, dont' think this is likely. but it is certainly possible.

your ideas on objective morality have no amount of philosophical weight as far as I can tell (as far as anyone on this board can tell it seems). You certainly aren't doing much to convince us otherwise.

99Percent

Can you actually enforce libertarianism on people? Think about this oxymoron, before just stating it...

August Spies

I didn't just state it, I showed an example of how it could happen.

99percent. If I remember correctly you believe that the articles of the confederation, or the consitituion in the beggining were close to libertarian principles. I wont say these were libertarian soceities but they were close. Well BOTH of these were imposed on the majority of people by a small minority.

you have yet to say why it would be any different for libertarianism. Its no oxymoron, you would jsut like it to be. Sorry 99, but just because you guys put "liberty" in the name doesn't make it an oxymoron.

99Percent

So you did just state it. Wrong and if you can't see so then blame your stupid liberal university teachers. Funny, this just shows what you wish from your projection to the opposite of your false ideal, namely the contrary to capitalism.

August Spies

99 as a moderator you should have better posting habits than that.

"oh im not going to explain anything that I would then have to actually defend ill just make vague attacks on liberal proffesors"

as to your last claim, I never said it would be different for anarchism/socialism/communism/etc..

August Spies

i openly challange you to prove that this country's goverment was not "imposed" on the majority of people by a minority.

of course ive never known you to answer a challange before, but one can always hope.

99Percent

Just read the constitution, carefully, please and with your own mind.

August Spies

and 99 avoids the challange yet again.

managalar

Kip,

Yes, my statement about me being glad that selfish and ignorant people are forced to pay for our government makes our differences obvious, that�s why I said it. I suppose I�ll elaborate on it more later. I wish I could be more idealistic about it, but I don't have confidence in myself to know everything that's 'best' for me. Many things in life are too complex, and division of labor is what makes it possible for billions of people to live together...I'm glad I dont have to think too much about the machine that is our civilization, I could spend my life studying it, and not know it inside-out, I can instead trust division of labor, while I do more interesting things and specialized things, like study Physics.

�I understand your point and I agree that if we didn't value understanding and science - that would be tragic.�

It is tragic.

�The difference between you and me is that you are willing to force that value system upon your fellow citizens.�

It�s not my value system. Our system was created by ancestors, I was born into it, it has been forced on my like life has. The system isn�t perfect, but it has done a lot for me, and promoted our civilization.

� I do not understand how forcing people to pay for space exploration makes them "value" the program any more, instead of just growing resentful.�

If they grow resentful, they are dumb. If they don�t want it, they can write to their representatives, and their representatives will decide if the benefits are worth the costs (their decisions may not be the �best�). Our representatives have decided that NASA deserves about 14 billion a year, while the military should get a about 300 billion a year. These representatives do not work for more money, but for the people (ideally). If you don�t like it, you can try and change it from the inside, by gaining popular support, or try and force change. If you don�t like being forced to pay taxes, you can try and convince me and others that changing the system would do more for the success of our civilization. If I didn�t have to pay taxes, I could buy some more luxuries�but I already have tons of luxuries, and I bet most Americans have tons of luxuries. I think taxes should be raised to pay for the communications infrastructure, there should be a base level of voice and data bandwidth (not-necessarily luxury bandwidth), just like the government pays for the roads. Roads, schools, health standards, communications (if I had my way), science funding, NASA, FEMA, the Police, the coast guard (soon to be assimilated), NSF, and many more things all contribute to my quality of life, the success of our civilization, and should not be left up to a free market. I will write in detail why these things should not be left up to a free market, some time when I�m not so tired (tomorrow).

�Yes, I wish that everyone supported scientific endeavor (and curing cancer is more important that exploring the moon) but I cannot force people to agree with me nor would I wish to. I may be wrong. If my fellow citizen wishes to buy an mp3 player instead of supported cancer research, or putting a man on the moon, shouldn't that be his choice?�

If my fellow citizen wants one of these things, he saves for them. What isn�t his choice, for his own good, is to pay for the government which serves him. I am not an organ donor, I had a choice about it, and I shouldn�t have, because many people die on organ waiting lists. As for Cancer, if I had the 30,000 dollars, I would go for neutron therapy, if I had cancer. Fermi Lab was the first place you could get neutron therapy. I�ve toured the treatment room, and talked with those who work there�they are usually the last referral for people who are otherwise going to die. Even with most of their patients being beyond the help of other treatments, they have a 99% cure rate. The individual I spoke to said all the people that had died had huge tumors that had already caused too much damage. Anyway, private industry could not and would not foot the bill for a particle accelerator for no other reason that some scientists asked for the money to smash particles, and we now have a cure for cancer to serve all those who gave up a tiny portion of the money they worked for. The scientists at Fermi Lab basically get all the money they ask for, and the politicians pay it out because they know the people�s interests will be served. We have previous generations of public effort to thank for the quality of life we have now, and we will continue the effort-i.e. we are not going to say, thanks for all the effort (roads ect.), now I�m just going to optimize my luxuries instead of supporting the system that made me.

�You do realize that the fact that you agree with the majority on this issue is only a happy coincidence, don't you?

Sorta. If my ancestors were unhappy, they would have changed things, they worked hard to make a world that I would be happy in, so its not exactly a coincidence. I think they could have done a better job, but its not that bad.

�Next time you may be in the minority and everyone else will be taking your money to pay for something you vehemently disagree with? What will you say then? �

�Figures� This actually happens all the time, and I say, �it figures.� I hate it when public money is given to religious groups, but it isn�t much of my money. I�ve written my representatives, and they told me to *#&@ off�tough for me, I didn�t vote for them. I vehemently disagree with public money being spent supporting religion, but I see long term benefits. That potential benefit is that religious organizations will have a harder time getting private citizens to pay for their works�they are going to preach, donate into the collection plate if you care for the poor and helpless at the shelter, and the person sitting there is going to say, I don�t have to, my taxes take care of it. Well, that�s all speculation, and I�m too tried to go on about it. The point is, a large majority of the money I pay into taxes makes a large majority of people happy. Yes, it sucks to be a minority, but our society does a decent job of protecting minorities, and gives them many forums by which they have a voice.

You would have a lower quality of life if you did not pay taxes (even if you make 6 digits), and I�ll have yet to be convinced otherwise, because I think our system is pretty decent. (I�ll respond fully tomorrow night)

Dr. Retard

I should start by asking: Have you been watching "Mama's Family"? A zing of that magnitude bespeaks the acid wit of Thelma Harper.

I think you're mixing up two different questions. Maybe I was a little vague in my original post. One is legitimate and not loaded:

* What would happen to the X's in a libertarian society?

This one just asks for some information so we can make a reasonable comparison between the proposed society and the real world. The other is illegitimate and loaded:

* Would we just IGNORE the X's? Would no one take care of the X's?

This presupposes that the real world setup successfully takes care of the X's. But it cannot be assumed that it does so. It's not automatically reasonable to believe that the status quo is successful at its claimed goals. Whether the status quo is successful should be investigated. Only then can we make a reasonable comparison.