You know, the more I think about this, the more I realize what's behind the mindset of people who want to tax and regulate businesses to no end. They're afraid of what they would do if they were free to do as they saw fit. They honestly can't fathom the idea that most of us make rational decisions in the best interest of all parties involved, and that market players who make irrational decisions don't last as market players for very long. Now that is a fucked up mentality.
This is not to be taken as a criticism of libertarianism (since I myself have some tendencies along those lines, though by no means as strong as your esteemed self...), but there is a lot of truth in what you say. There are too many people who are thoroughly selfish and can be kept in line only by force. Though people like to argue that the use of force to compel behavior is immoral, every time government regulation is invoked, that is what it is. And there is some need for that. (Though by no means to the extent, and in all the areas, that is currently practiced by Western governments.)
I disagree. The market sort of self-regulates people like Cass out of play, because people as irrational as she is never rise to positions where they can make the big decisions. There are exceptions to prove the rule, but you don't get to head your own company or lead a corporation or really acquire much in the way of any kind of wealth if your decisions are irrational. Or, more succinctly -- a fool and his money are lucky to get together in the first place.
While I think Async sounded a bit too authoritarian in tone, there is some truth to the concept that evil is more easily accomplished if there is no force in place to block it. I think that's what he really meant, and I agree with him that it is the great failing of libertarianism. What would the market do to put the next Hitler in check? How would it respond to slavery masquerading as indentured servitude? As much as I like the market, I recognize that it does not provide solutions to every problem.
Go ahead and kick her out if you want. But when, while exiting to the cold, mean streets, she brushes a whithered, old hand across your cheek and whispers the word "Thinner", I think you'll come to see the error of your ways.
If privacy is such a big concern, just tell her that the neighbors are complaining about her cutting holes in the hedges and to not do it. Yeah, she might then try something else, which is why if you want to be a good landlord, you stay on top of it and repel her at every turn. If it's only YOU that is noticing the holes in the hedges, and the neighbors are not complaining, then maybe they don't really see a problem, and it's your own history of being creeped out by this woman that's the problem.
And that's the stupid strawman I keep seeing. Libertarianism is not anarchy. Violations of rights will be punished. So, you know, if you keep repeating that lie, you suck.
You have yet to demonstrate how a punishment will be met out by a society lacking any strength or authority in excess of moral righteousness. So, suck it yourself, cowboy.
I'd say a court system and police force will do just fine. Especially since they'd be overfunded, given we won't be spending government revenues on much anything else. So fuck you and the horse you.... oh, I guess just "fuck you" suffices here, huh?
But once there is a force empowered to compel acceptance of adjudication, you start to have that thing called society, which you prefer to deny. You start to have dissent, you start to have disagreement, you start having to enumerate rights, you start having to interpret them, etc. What you decry as a perversion of original intent in this country, is really just a natural progression. The only way you can avoid societal structure and some level of regulation is by taking man out of the equation (or giving each man a literal island). Your acknowledgment of human failings comes up short, which I guess goes with everything else about you.
In a libertarian society, the government has just as much strength as the present one. i.e. the strength to enforce contracts, laws, etc. Only difference is the laws don't legally tax(steal) from Peter to give to Paul. (Thus giving Peter the freedom to help out Paul as he sees fit, or not at all.)
Again with the strawmen. I acknowledge the existence of society -- what I don't think is that it has the right to violate the rights of individuals. And once one person violates the rights of another, then society -- through the aegis of government -- can rightfully punish the offender. There is no natural progression from negative rights to positive (entitlement rights). Strawman again. What, is it nearly lunchtime and you have hay on your mind?
Through circular logic, you can define any government as oppressing. Made up definitions or conventions not universally accepted can't make the case that government is stealing. In any society, a government with strength will be seen to favor some at the expense of others. Taxation is but one of dozens of flavors.
Definitions, like morality, are not determined by majority vote. The opinion of 50 percent plus one doesn't make the immoral, moral.
We will all, of course, regret telling Cass to let the tenant stay when the police find dismembered body parts in the woman's freezers... That being the historically typical ending for stories like this one.
There's plenty of nutjobs out there running corporations. Some quite successful ones, too - Ken Lay got away with a lot of crazy and illegal things and would still be doing business this very moment without the interference of a pesky interferin' gubmint.
As I said -- there are exceptions that prove the rule. But look who busted Enron -- not the SEC, but private investors and analysts. They scoped out the wrong doings because it was irrational market behavior.
Nor are they made up by you. You remind me of one of those bible thumpers who cites scripture as evidence that the bible is correct.
You can deny that taking property against the owner's will is theft all you like. But you are wrong. And that is fact.
The only thing that reason and ruthless logic has lead me to see is that there is no such thing as "morality". Instead there are just ways individuals wish that the rest of creation was "in sync" with their own inner desires. The best thing for you, Storm isn't to champion Libertarianism, it is instead to champion yourself - though you already know that. Be the outlaw; and accept that there's no way your "morality" can ever be universal.
I have never heard anyone claim that a libertarian government would be a "society lacking any strengh or authority" except for people who have no idea what libertarianism is all about, setting up that strawman because it is easier to refute than the genuine concept. It makes me wonder if you can actually discuss about true libertarianism, since you always have to deflect the discussion to concepts like this, that the libertarians don't defend any more than you do.
The problem with true libertarianism is that it will decay; some groups, some factions, some individuals will have more say over what the body politic does - thus the ulitmate failing of our system already as we started closer to the libertarian ideal than we are now - and that took less than 100 years. It would happen just the same from a more libertarian starting point, might even take less time if the players were already as unbalanced from the start like 1776. I just don't see why you guys don't see that?
I understand that libertarians believe there will be strength and justice. I disagree with that conclusion. My argument responds to what I perceive as the actual result of libertarian government, rather than the fantasyland presented by folks like storm and evenflow.
