How to Discombobulate Your Libertarian Friends

Exactly. Government does not treat citizens equally in that it takes more from some than from others. Indeed, it often takes from some to give to others.

There's a reason the Founders were so against an income tax. They foresaw all the perniciousness it would bring.

You are really putting words in the mouth of the framers there Paladin. I don't think we should base our current governance on what we think they may have meant. First, we shouldn't be restricted by 18th century thoughts when figuring out solutions to 21st century problems. Second, who are either of us to proclaim a priestly ability to interpret their intent?

You're suddenly a strict constructionist?

Given that most of our problems were created by government in the 20th century, from New Deal priests divining their intent, perhaps we should stick to the core of those ideas spouted in the 18th century? Any changes that were made should've been limited to expanding freedom and liberty to more people, instead of expanding special priviliges and entitlements.

And if you refuse to pay the fine and damages?

BTW Storm et. al.

When you say "Your Laws" and "Your taxes" You sound retarded. If you're a US citizen, they are also YOUR laws and YOUR taxes. Changing the words and removing yourself doesn't change reality.

You sound no different than those wackoloons that say "George Bush isn't my president" Ummm, if you're a US citizen, yeah he is, like it or not.

What problems are you referring to? The United States is still the most productive economy in the world and still attracts immigrants from around the globe. The progress we've made in the last five decades has meant that an entire class of previously oppressed citizens has been brought closer toward the fulfillment of the American dream. Fifty years ago, there were places that blacks and other minorities simply could not go without great risk to their personal safety. There was apartheid in America in all but name. That kind of open discrimination is now frowned upon almost everywhere in this country, although subtle forms of racial discrimination stubbornly persist.

The deficit we see now is the product of tax cuts as much as of government spending. Much-vaunted welfare reforms under Clinton did result in cutbacks and thus social welfare programs are much less onerous than is generally believed. The Social Security crisis we see today was supposed to have been "grown out of" because of Bush-era tax cuts, although obviously that has not yet occurred -- if it ever will.

While the Bushies claim credit for a recent reduction in the yearly deficit, the overall national debt continues to climb, and a large measure of that is attributable to Bush's misguided war on Iraq.

Compared with most other advanced countries, the United States tends toward almost a Dickensian view of the world, where the poor are treated as deserving of their fate. This cruel view is promoted by libertarians who, as I said, seem to believe that poverty is the best route to success, despite every indication to the contrary. Libertarians who even pretend to care about the poor openly claim that being poor is good for the unfortunate since the pressures of poverty inspire them to success. Other libertarians literally could not care less about the poor. Never mind that malnourishment and lack of educational opportunity are each increasingly deadly impediments to any hope for personal success. Never mind that millions of Americans still live below the poverty line and find it ever more difficult to reach middle class status as educational requirements for success are raised ever higher. Never mind that countries like Switzerland, Belgium, and other advanced postindustrial nations are leaping far ahead of the United States on both per capita and a quality of life bases. The old line that the U.S. is prosperous only because it is Dickensian is sold to the working masses as though repeating it will make it true. In the newspeak of conservative hate radio, if society gives you nothing, it's because you deserve nothing, and it's always your own damn fault if you're poor.

As a society, we've become more heartless since the 1960's, and we've given in to the attractions of selfishness while calling it "self-interest". We fail to see that grabbing everything for ourselves and leaving nothing for others defeats the entire purpose of nationhood, which is to lift all people of all backgrounds up from where they are. Libertarians look in the mirror and they see a mighty king, a dictator of worlds, when all they are is one person with wants and needs among millions. That they have what they have does not give them the right to deny millions of others the opportunity to create a caring society that demands mutual sacrifice in exchange for the privilege of living in a civilized world.

To blame the social programs of the New Deal for today's problems is to blame our nation for being itself. What sets a nation from a conglomeration of unrelated souls is the ability of each citizen to create a greater whole. To deny this is to deny our essential greatness as a nation, and to indulge in the fantasy of self that no rational state can accept as policy.

Far from it, but I don't base my interpretations on any claim to the workings of Jefferson's brain. I base them upon current conditions and how the Constitution might apply to situations Adams might not have encountered.

If, as you say, our problems were created by the 20th, why would 18th century solutions apply? Was the 20th so much like the 17th? 21st century problems require 21st century solutions. I'll thank you to leave the 20th and 18th out of things.

No, I'm not. They were hostile to an income tax because they saw it as a threat to liberty. That's why it was explicity forbidden in the Constitution. It was not until the 16th Amendment (over a century later) that a (legal) income tax was imposed.

We didn't. That's why we have the ever-encroaching system we have today.

Human beings and politics have not changed much from the Founders time to our own.

You do not have to be annointed to read what they wrote. They wrote the Constitution precisely so the people (who were supposed to be self-governing under it) could read it. I don't need an activist judge to tell me that the Constitution means B where it says A explicitly...

Given that the 20th century US government was a stellar example of the perils of intervention, intrusion, and the unintended consequences of statist meddling, why continue the path?

Knowing that our founding fathers looked into history, at past democracies, and the faults of other systems, to divine the Constitution, why is looking into our own past centuries so out of line?

Have you considered that there are larger forces in the world that made it impossible for the government not to increase in size? For one thing, the United States had grown from a collection of thirteen states to an intercontinental empire, stretching from from Hawaii to Maine. For another, technological and industrial developments meant that in many cases, the relevant market for goods and services was the entire nation.

As companies like Standard Oil grew increasingly powerful, the effects of their actions demanded government action that matched that power. Only the federal government had the authority to crack down on the abuses of commercial power by conglomerates with offices in dozens of states and who employed hundreds of thousands of Americans throughout the country. As countries abroad coordinated their policies to create uniformity throughout their domains, so, too, the United States had to respond by assuring the rationalization of industry and the smooth running of industrial relations.

The concept of "statism" is often used to disparage the right and authority of the state to act against private individuals. But often the result of these attacks is to vest powerful private interests, such as multinationals, with the freedom to act against individuals with little fear of consequence. The loss of state power results not in greater power for the little guy, but disproportionate power for those with a concentration of wealth and privilege.

For a historical example, we need only refer to the United States in the years immediately prior to the Progressive Era. Before strong anti-trust laws were passed, companies were free to disregard the health and welfare of their workers because states were powerless in the face of massive corporate power. Local governments were often in the back pockets of wealthy interests. Even today, states compete for the favor of giant corporations and willingly cater to them with tax breaks and other incentives.

The idea that statism is necessarily the enemy of the little guy detracts from what could be a worse alternative: Subjection to the power of giant concentrations of wealth, responsible to no one but themselves, and too large to care about market forces that otherwise might have limited their power.

It was like that before the 'Progressive Era' too. So what?

Even if one accepts the gains in the civil rights arena, it does not follow that income taxes, the welfare state, government intervention in the economy, etc. were worthwhile ideas.

(diatribe about Dickensian Libertarians and the evil Bushies deleted for relevence.)

Heartless being code for "unwilling to pay for expensive liberal schemes that had the opposite of their intended effect."

(chorus of Kumbahyah eliminated for brevity)

So, real American = support New Deal?

Make sure you pound your fist on the desk for added dramatic effect!

This is supposed to be a nation of the self-governing and self-reliant. It is degenerating into a nation of the dependent and irresponsible. And it all happened on the left's watch, sparky.

Will no one provide an answer? I'm crushed.

It depends. Ultimately, they have the right to jail you. But that's true with the violation of many laws.

Actually, Britain was.

As I said, if you can find some way of funding these programs without income taxes, feel free to throw it at the wall and see if it'll stick. "The welfare state" is really code for those programs you so readily dismiss. If they were really so ineffective, the majority wouldn't accept their existence, and yet they exist.

The fact is that only a small minority strenuously opposes these programs, because they are rich enough not to care about them. Unfortunately for them, the protection of the rights of minorities does not extend to ensuring that they have a veto over these programs. We have a name for systems where the rich are able to do just that. It's known as "plutocracy".[/quote]

In defense of the tax code...

The U.S. was surpassing Britain as the world's biggest economic power even before. And the U.S. was attracting far more immigration as well.

Ah, the big flaw in leftist reasoning: it must be good because a lot of people think it's good.

Because they are the ones who pay for them.

And we have a name for forcing people to serve others: it's called slavery.

IOW, ultimately you DO follow anti-discrimination laws at the point of a gun. Thank you.

Another question in the case of a conflict. What if there's only one side who has a conflict and the other does not see it is doing anything wrong. The person who does have a conflict wants to go to a mediator but the other absolutely refuses to go to a mediator. How would this situation be resolved?

Also, it almost sounds as if there are two different kinds of courts, one to handle the violation of peoples rights such as murder and theft, and a system of mediation to handle a conflict of interests from business and land owners. In the caase of the courts, how then does one punish the murderers and theives? With a prison system? If so, then how would the prison system be paid? If by taxes, then how would those taxes be enforced? If someone didn't want to pay those taxes would they be sent to jail themselves?

What jail?

If there's no prisons or jails or a policeforce, private or otherwise, how then can a libertarian society function? Let a system of mediation handle all of it? But not everybody agrees on ideas and concepts and notions, especially on hot button issues that are polarizing of society. Not everybody agrees abortion is murder but of those who do not even they can agree whether or not they want a government to enact legislaion to protect the fetus, for example.

If there are no jails then murderers go free. If there is no police there is nothing to arrest murderers. In any kind of society at the bare minimum a society needs jails to put the lawbreakers somewhere.

House arrest? How do you enforce that?

There seems to be nothing to prevent people from going over the head of a mediator if they strongly disagree with the mediator's final word, and nothing to prevent the person from breaching the contract beyond what they allegedly agree to if the mediator does not find in their favor, and there seems to be nothing to encourage a party to go to the mediator if they refuse because they don't see the conflict in the first place.

Hi Enty...

You are the statistic.

I'd like to say something about Raoul's posts. He and I don't agree on everything where government and economics are concerned, and I know he doesn't even come close to agreeing with Storm on those issues, but he has done an outstanding job in this thread of basing his comments and his arguments on what is being said instead of on projecting his own interpretations into what is said. In doing so, he has come across as about the most rational poster in the whole debate.

Good job, Raoul!

This statement, if true (and I have seen other information going in the same direction) has enormous implications in the arguments about how to deal with global warming.

But that, of course, is for another thread.

Or six...

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What the fuck?

OF COURSE it's bloody different. And as I'm said, I'm sure American law isn't as described here either. But for German law, I know.

It's true that the U.S. was soon to surpass Britain, but Britain was still the most productive economy in the world until some time after the beginning of the 20th Century. The Progressive Era is generally thought to include the 1890's.

Majoritarianism will not always please everyone.

And they're also ones who benefit from the best that society has to offer. They often have the best of everything, thanks in part to the existence of civilization and the advantages it confers.

If you think that civic obligations are slavery, then we have a fundamental disagreement concerning the value of civilized society. Civilization requires sacrifice. Freedom isn't free.