The Libertarian and Anarchist Society- Part II

POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 17:17
VIEWED: 10619
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SIGNYM

Thursday, January 17, 2008 6:47 PM

The old thread is loading slow.

There is prolly a misudnerstanding about what anarchism and libertarianism would look like. Some people think it would devolve into a "devil take the hindmost" free-for-all without government. Others think not.

Instead of discussing these issues in broad terms, I propose talking about what we would eliminate from the current setup. My vote would be with eliminating the "beat cop" and replacing them with investigators and therapists, and eliminating "politicians" and replacing them with direct vote democracy.

----------------------
Always look upstream.

GEEZER

Thursday, January 17, 2008 7:26 PM

From the previous thread.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I guess I'd like to see some answers from people who are proposing their society as THE answer to all of life's injustices.

First off, no one is proposing "...their society as THE answer to all of life's injustices" just as another attempt to have less injustices.

As to people with disabilities who are unable to take care of themselves here's a couple of ideas.

An association of the parents of children with such disabilities, and other concerned parties, which solicits contributions for their care and manages and provides that care. Could be to association members, or to everyone, We got things like that now.

Private long-term health insurance for older folks is always an option, and once again there are private organizations who can provide assistance. Care facilities might want to take in a number of indigent as a public service or for good will value. With your life being your own, suicide would not be illegal, and some folks might select euthinasia.

Libertarian economic theory posits that there will be less poor, because there will be more money in private hands to invest and make even more, and that anyone can get a share. Also implied, if not openly stated, is the thought that government needs poor people to justify its existance.

People would fall through the cracks in a Libertarian system, just like they do now, but the belief is that there will be less of them.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Thursday, January 17, 2008 7:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Instead of discussing these issues in broad terms, I propose talking about what we would eliminate from the current setup.

Licensing.

Why do I need a dog, cat, concealed carry, marriage, business, alcohol sales, animal massage, esthetician, fishing guide, kick boxer, private investigator, shopkeeper, travel agent, or wrestler license?

Google your state's licensing department and see how many things you have to have some sort of license to own or do. Surely this could be trimmed down a bit.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 17, 2008 7:40 PM

On the question of the beat cop. They tend to be the first responders to incidents and sometimes can be there before the incident gets too out of control. They also tend to be among the first to arrive immediately after an incident, when you want someone to tend to the victims and secure the scene and the evidence it contains. I suspect just CSI style investigation would be a lot harder if unsecured crime scenes were messed with by passers by. I also know of people that would have been dead had the police not been there to take immediate basic medical action in advance of paramedics.

That said if part of some future citizenship test included basic medical procedures like CPR (along with mandatory gun training since I assume we are still talking about handing out guns) some of those issues might be alleviated.

In short, the value of the cop on the street is less deterrent (though it does deter) but more rapid response to situations.

As for direct democracy, that can still be played with. There was recently a proposal for a new road here in Dallas where the proposition was worded such that voting "yes" was actually a vote AGAINST the road. That let the road folks push it through when before they would have lost.

In addition there is the problem of the passion of the majority. Imagine we has a domestic Muslim suicide bomber kill a bunch of people in a crowded mall. Immediately afterwards when the "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads" are watching the coverage for the 300th time you could probably table a "round up all the Muslims and throw them in camps" initiative and have it pass. Is that a good thing?

Back 200+ years ago your founders decided on a representative democracy in part because they didn't trust the people not to make dumb decisions in moments of crisis. If people today were really smart enough and politically savvy enough to know the issues and vote responsibly in a direct democracy then they would not have elected the current batch of idiots.

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 17, 2008 7:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Instead of discussing these issues in broad terms, I propose talking about what we would eliminate from the current setup.

Licensing.

Why do I need a dog, cat, concealed carry, marriage, business, alcohol sales, animal massage, esthetician, fishing guide, kick boxer, private investigator, shopkeeper, travel agent, or wrestler license?

Google your state's licensing department and see how many things you have to have some sort of license to own or do. Surely this could be trimmed down a bit.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

My guess? Either at some time someone abused one of these positions and when it came to light the public decided that "something must be done" (see my note on passions of the majority) OR they preform some function for which the local government has some other regulations and the license exists to ensure that those regulations are followed. In the case of boxers I suspect it's so they can ban people that bite other peoples ears off in the ring (etc..)

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:02 PM

Licensing.

I know of several people who had manicures or pedicures from shops that didn't follow basic hygiene and wound up with stubborn (and in one case disfiguring) infections.

You COULD propose a voluntary standards board, but it would have to be by a group that was not dependent on any single type of business (for example, the Cosmetology Approval Society should not be directed and funded by cosmetologists. I've worked with both gummint and private lab approvals, and the most meaningful approvals so far are from the gummint.)

AFA "the passions of the majority".... no proposal should be voted on until at least six months had passed since its introduction.

AFA the "beat cop" is concerned... we need rapid response, but do we really need them rolling around in cars all the time?

--------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:

AFA "the passions of the majority".... no proposal should be voted on until at least six months had passed since its introduction.

What happens if you don't have 6 months? US merchant ships are being attacked and looted by Somali pirates (I know you could argue that it's the company's business or the ships should be armed but Jefferson -- hero of the Libertarian element in society started America's first foreign war on this issue.) If Americans are being killed, do you really wait 6 months? What if the mainland US is attacked?

Quote:

AFA the "beat cop" is concerned... we need rapid response, but do we really need them rolling around in cars all the time?

--------------------------------
Always look upstream.

Well that's part of them being able to respond rapidly is that they are already in the area. I suppose that you could have them park and wait but that doesn't gain you much (other than you burn less petrol) and while they are cruising they at lest give you some fringe deterrent effect. Consider it an additional bonus rather than the prime reason.

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:17 PM

CTS WROTE

Quote:
OK, Signy, now to your question, "What about the feeble?"

I can sympathize with the question, because I was disabled for 10 years. At worst times, there is no doubt that I would have died had it not been for those who took care of me. I understand about completely being at the mercy of others. The question is, should a libertarian society force its citizens to take care of the feeble, whether they want to or not? Obviously, the answer for a libertarian (let alone an anarchist) is, no hell no. No force. Lack of action is not an active violation of someone's sovereignty.

In countries where no one is forced to take care of the feeble, the feeble are still taken care of--by family, by community. Sure, some fall through the cracks and die, but some do that even in socialist societies. Do more fall in the cracks where there is no social net? I haven't seen any research on this, but just from my travels and living around the world, my personal opinion is no. I have some experience as a social worker working with the poorest of the poor in the USA. The idea of a social net to catch the feeble is very attractive in theory, but in practice, that net is full of large, large holes. In my experience, that "net" is an illusion, like everything else govt provides. In some ways, it even hurts the feeble; people are less inclined to be charitable when they think there is already a net to catch those who fall (diffusion of responsibility), and it keeps the feeble "caught" in the net so that they are less likely to ever be free of the net. Voluntary family and charity nets are more responsive and empowering, and much less wasteful. As a former social worker, helping the feeble, both financial and physical, is a big issue with me. Social services is the least of my complaints about govt. But my opinion remains that voluntary charity is in all ways superior to govt charity.

A society IMHO is only as good as the care it affords to most "feeble" members. So I can point to Somalia where "the feeble" (women and children) are dying like flies... much worse than when there was government. And I can point to socialized Europe, where infant mortality and life expectancy are much better than in non-socialized countries. So the evidence seems to be that some government is better than no government, and socialized government is best. I know you've "seen" the feeble or helpless taken care of by family members, and it's a heart-warming sight, but the numbers don't seem to bear out your vision.

BTW- Credit where credit is due. The question was posed by Rue.

See? I'm a poet and I don't even knowit.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:38 PM

I don't want to hijack the thread but is the future necessarily the nation state at all? If you think about it the building blocks of society has always been based on geography and religion. People lived in small groups that were mostly relatives, then larger groups that were groups of families and this built up to city states and finally nation states. However for most of that time the majority of people didn't travel much. One of my grandparents has a distinctive surname and so we can see that for more than 400 years our ancestors lived within 30 miles of my parent's house.

Geography was important and the people you knew were people that you knew a long time. My mother almost always explains who someone is by recounting at least 3 generations of genealogy, there are families known to be bad sorts there are families you can make deals with using a handshake, people know you on the street. Maybe that's the kind of world where Fremland could actually work, except we don't need guns there. The point is that people used to be related to each other by kin, by religion and physical geography.

I live 5000 miles door to door from my parents house, 100x the distance that most of my ancestors managed in the past 400 years. I have no idea who lives next door, or down the street or across the road. I have no way of assessing how trustworthy any of them are. Sad as it may seem I know most of you better than I know my neighbors, I buy things online from people i don't know and never met on the basis of feedback given by previous customers, some of my online connections have become as real as some of my real relationships.

So here's the point. In the past states were limited by geography, by the people you could physically meet, get to know and could communicate with. On a small scale they could be kin but by the time you reach national level your bond to them was principly language, culture and physical location. The internet lets you find people that more closely match your own worldview irrespective of their physical location. How long will it be before a person's group associations are made more strongly with his internet peers than with those with whom he only shares a physical location?

In addition, if large corporations are effectively landless states, will a time come when that is where a person's principle loyalty lies? To the employer that provides for him as a state would? Is William Gibson's Zaibatsu the next stage of social development?

GEEZER

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Licensing.

I know of several people who had manicures or pedicures from shops that didn't follow basic hygiene and wound up with stubborn (and in one case disfiguring) infections.

And were the shops licensed? Who knows?

Hygiene in a manicure shop should be pretty easily observable by anyone who wants to take a cursory look before buying. Shouldn't be hard to find what to look for on the web, and any shop that's up to snuff shouldn't mind you asking. If you went into a licensed manicure shop and the place was filthy, would you expect the license to protect you? Licensing does not abrogate your responsibility to be aware of and protect your own safety.

An independent private certifying organization is also an option. There are lots of these now, from Underwriters Labs to the Snell Foundation. You can't go racing with any reputable auto or motorcycle body without a helmet that is Snell certified.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

RUE

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:43 PM

reposted

5. "All rights are derived from the bedrock principle of individual sovereignty. All citizens are sovereigns of the state."
Now here is where HKC, FremD, SergeantX, CTS and LeGuin have divergent opinions, especially when it comes to children, parents and school.

I'll start with LeGuin first b/c hers is the most completely thought out, and, b/c I also presume it's HKC's position. In her society (which I have to say she stacks quite carefully to give the best chance of working, down to a new language) families stay together out of mutual agreement. Children who are old enough to find their way can live in the 'dorm' and eat at the 'refectory'. In her vision, there is some kind of 'care' consistently available for very young children. (While she doesn't state it explicitly care is either given by someone who likes to spend their spare time doing that kind of thing, or by voluntary selection from a 'worklist' of basic social tasks.) In her vision there is also no school - everything is open, children hang out where it's interesting and people teach children what they're doing if / when the mood is on them to teach.
How do these children learn to read, write and do math ? A very few will pick that up from general exposure, but they are difficult enough tasks for most children that it will require some concentrated effort on somebody's part. How this happens isn't clear.

Frem's answer as best I can tell is private school. What I get from his posts is that 'public school' is all about killing the spirit, and that that is exactly what's happening to his niece. And that's why public schools should be abolished.
Personally, I don't see how private schools would fix that. Let's take the situation of his niece. If the parents are bad enough to pick a public school on its spirit-crushing ability, why would giving them a choice of a private school (or tutor) that they would chose for the exact same result be any different ? Or if the idea of mandatory school is the issue, how would home schooling be any better ?
His other answer as I understood it (and which I hope he was dissuaded from) is giving kids a piece to pack. How would this NOT create pathological children in large numbers ? Feeling burdened ? Put upon ? Misunderstood ? Don't like your vegetables ? You can solve all your problems with the equalizer !
Yes definitely ! there are children - too many - who are victimized sexually, physically and emotionally. But taking away any public interest in children's welfare and turning homes into inviolate gun-soaked hellholes doesn't count as an answer with me.

SergeantX as best I can tell seems to think there is no justification for public interest in children's welfare. Period. Now he doesn't say so explicitly but my impression is that a family (parents and children) is a private unit on which nothing can intrude, until it ends up in rape, death or beatings which leave permanent bodily damage, which are then crimes. Though this sounds like FremD's nightmare.

Now as best as I can tell (and I'm sure CTS will loudly complain that I'm picking on her no matter what I say) schooling is all about choice. No schooling ? Fine. Home schooling ? Great. Private schooling ? No problem. Whatever floats your boat and whatever you can afford.
It's all about the parents choice and the price. Should you decide to deny your children an education it's all good. Should you chose a madrassa that's great, the curriculum is your choice. Should you be unable to afford one for your children, it's all good too. Though again this does all seem to be about the parents rights, abilities and prerogatives, and not so much about the children.

So, whose vision do we follow ?

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:50 PM

so- govt licensing not a necessity.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Licensing.

I know of several people who had manicures or pedicures from shops that didn't follow basic hygiene and wound up with stubborn (and in one case disfiguring) infections.

And were the shops licensed? Who knows?

Hygiene in a manicure shop should be pretty easily observable by anyone who wants to take a cursory look before buying. Shouldn't be hard to find what to look for on the web, and any shop that's up to snuff shouldn't mind you asking. If you went into a licensed manicure shop and the place was filthy, would you expect the license to protect you? Licensing does not abrogate your responsibility to be aware of and protect your own safety.

An independent private certifying organization is also an option. There are lots of these now, from Underwriters Labs to the Snell Foundation. You can't go racing with any reputable auto or motorcycle body without a helmet that is Snell certified.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

I think this is a question of enforcement. If you need the license to operate the business then if you enforce the licensing no license === no business.

If you know you are going to get random inspections, if you know that failing those inspections means the end of your business then the theory goes you will comply with the cleanliness regulation. How well that works depends on how aggressively the licensing body polices the licensees and what powers they have. A voluntary body is just that, voluntary being part of it or not part of it only really effects your public profile, because you can still be in business if you are not a member. Also most voluntary organizations rely on member dues to continue to operate, they have a vested interest NOT to kick out dues paying members.

Here in Dallas one of the local news channels has a mole in the public health department. When a restaurant is about to be cited on health grounds they try to send a hidden camera into the kitchens.

What you see is always the same. Up front where the customer sits is clean and tidy, out back in the kitchens it's filthy, with rat droppings, roaches and other nasties. The idea that by looking at something you can necessarily make an informed customer decision is meaningless. However, once the inspector cites a restaurant it's out of business until it cleans up it's act.

RUE

Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:58 PM

"As to people with disabilities who are unable to take care of themselves here's a couple of ideas.

An association ... private insurance ... fewer poor."

In most primitive cultures taking care of the feeble is considered a basic social function. You are proposing a society even more primitive than those.

Not only that - by the sheer effect of a profit system - government programs are actually much more cost-effective. Private insurance has a 30% overhead, government-run healthcare 2%. If you want more money doing the actual task at hand, government programs are the way to go.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

HERO

Thursday, January 17, 2008 9:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Licensing.

Why do I need a dog,

Do you really want some unlicensed dog driving your car?

I understand some licensing makes sense. You license drivers to make sure folk know the rules of the road. You license marriages because of the legal implications of a joint household.

Pets...make no sense (except that a licensed pet can be returned to you if lost...but the chips work better and cost less).

Hunting licenses makes sense because orderly administration of public lands is good for everyone...but you should not need a license to hunt and fish your own land.

I think licensing of many things for administrative convenience makes good sense, but NOT as a revenue source. Thats does not seem right. Same thing for various permits. It makes sense to require a permit for large scale construction, but why require a permit if you hire a couple fellas to finish your basement. Getting a permit to hold a parade on a public street makes good sense, cause of traffic and such, but why require one to sell wine in your resturant?

And why give James Bond a license to kill? I mean he's an agent, is he really going to be on the job and killing folk only to have some cop come along and find he's killing on an expired license (Minor Misdemeanor is Ohio).

H

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, January 17, 2008 9:33 PM

Yes, licensing like Geezer said.

Licensing should be seriously reconsidered in most things. Alabama is not that bad, but it’s not getting better either. Just since I was a kid, several things that I used to do quite freely, I now need a state license for. Although I have to admit that I’m not completely against it in every area. Take fishing for instance. At first I was incensed by the state making me get a license for fishing, something that I’ve always done as a way of getting away from stuff like that, but later I warmed up to it, when I realized that the reason was the need for revenue to run the Department of Conservation and Nature Resources pertaining to the upkeep of natural freshwater resources. Now as a guy who is very big on environmentalism and conservation and very small on taxes and government involvement, it occurred to me that licensing fisherman was the fairest way to address the needed revenue for the conservation of our lakes and rivers. Now I happily pay for a license every year, whether I fish that year or not, because I like the idea of paying for government without taxation.

Another thing that I would like to see us get away from, for similar reason, is public school. Why should someone who doesn’t send their children to public school or have children to send, pay for public school? Property taxes keep going up and up and tuition for private school keeps going up and up and so if you have children in private school, you get smacked twice for education cost. What the hell!? Some would argue that everyone has to send their children to school, so education is actually a common issue, which might hold some water if public schools were any good. Now public schools around here are actually pretty good - the best in the state actually - and in many cases as good or better then the local private schools, but in most of the state, public schools are shit, driving Alabama to the bottom of the national list in public education. So if you want your children in get a good education in Alabama, outside of the Huntsville area, you need to send them to private school and pay twice for education.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

GEEZER

Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
In most primitive cultures taking care of the feeble is considered a basic social function. You are proposing a society even more primitive than those.

How is a voluntary organization to take care of the feeble not a social function? Social function does not have to mean governmental function. If people in a primitive tribe can recognize that they have an individual responsibility to take care of the feeble, without government coercion, why not the people in a technologically advanced society.

Also remember, sometimes taking care of the elderly in primitive societies was, "Nanook, help me get Grandma onto the ice floe."

Quote:
Not only that - by the sheer effect of a profit system - government programs are actually much more cost-effective. Private insurance has a 30% overhead, government-run healthcare 2%. If you want more money doing the actual task at hand, government programs are the way to go.

I'll have to check but I suspect that a good bit or private insurer's overhead costs are due to goverment requirements. Also, is cost-effectiveness the prime goal of healthcare, or is results-effectiveness?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

CANTTAKESKY

Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So I can point to Somalia where "the feeble" (women and children) are dying like flies... much worse than when there was government. And I can point to socialized Europe, where infant mortality and life expectancy are much better than in non-socialized countries. So the evidence seems to be that some government is better than no government, and socialized government is best.

Neither your evidence or mine is worth anything. Mine is anecdotal, and yours is correlational. (There are so many confounders that can explain why people in Somalia die like flies and why Europeans don't, besides political system.)

The fact is we don't know if feeble people die in significantly greater numbers where there is no social net than where there is. I guessed no, and you guessed yes. But in the end, they are just guesses.

And again society can act independently of government. So absence of legislation does NOT mean absence of societal action. See, this is where the "new paradigm" and new mindset/culture comes in. People can and do act, love, live, and help without government edicts.

--------------------------
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
--Bertrand Russell

CANTTAKESKY

Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:39 PM

I posted a lot more on this thread before I realized it was moved.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=32253

--------------------------
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
--Bertrand Russell

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:43 PM

CTS- Except in Somalia we have a direct "before and after" comparison. The worst violence was just before and after 1991. Even with the level of corruption and disorganization that surrounded a dying tyrrany, women and children were STILL better off. So if people wanna crow about the cellphone service being so much better than "before" (using the before and after modle) they have to take their lumps on child and maternal mortality too. I bring this up because you specifically mentioned your husband's trips to this country, and HE seemed to think things were "better". But then, perhaps he really only does see the route between the airport and the hotel, I don't know how deep his knowledge of the country is.

Quote:
The fact is we don't know if feeble people die in significantly greater numbers where there is no social net than where there is. I guessed no, and you guessed yes. But in the end, they are just guesses.

Baloney. I can show you not only concurrent comparisons (USA/ Europe) but also striking "before and after" comparisons (Russia, Somalia).

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

I'll have to check but I suspect that a good bit or private insurer's overhead costs are due to goverment requirements. Also, is cost-effectiveness the prime goal of healthcare, or is results-effectiveness?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Well they also have to make a profit as well, that was why folks invested in the business not to make a social statement but for the money.

GEEZER

Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
Well they also have to make a profit as well, that was why folks invested in the business not to make a social statement but for the money.

If you're buying healthcare or health insurance on the open market do you look for the company that's cheapest, or the one which provides the better results? Libertarian theory is that the fact that you have free choice between vendors forces them to be results-oriented, or they don't get your money. And lots of companies, if not to make a social statement then at least to get social approval, support and sponsor charitable and non-profit enterprises. Support for PBS comes to mind.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

CANTTAKESKY

Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:29 PM

No, my husband's not been to Somalia. (As an aside, since this is the second comment about being limited in his route, my husband is a "hobo" traveler. That means he wanders around in his backpack and bicycle way, way, way off the beaten path. And he usually stayed in "hotels" that cost 5 cents a night, with a chamber pot for a toilet.) He's spent the most time in Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic, and the DR Congo.

I am not well educated on the Somalia situation, but there are limits to comparing it with a libertarian society. It is a different situation when a tyranny protects a vulnerable, unarmed population, and then deserts them to fend for themselves, unarmed. A libertarian state would have the tradition and the culture of self-protection and responsibility for protecting the weak, that Somalia didn't have.

--------------------------
Seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.
--Mahatma Gandhi, a list closing an article in Young India (22 October 1925)

CANTTAKESKY

Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Baloney. I can show you not only concurrent comparisons (USA/ Europe) but also striking "before and after" comparisons (Russia, Somalia).

Okay. Show me, please.

--------------------------
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?
--Robert Heinlein, "Doctor Pinero" in Life-Line (1939)

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:40 PM

Quote:
A libertarian state would have the tradition and the culture of self-protection and responsibility for protecting the weak that Somalia didn't have.

I see nothing in CTSLand that would make this so, as there seems to be no mechanism to make it so. You would indeed have to have an complete "paradigm shift", but that shift seems to be heading in the direction of self protection only.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
Well they also have to make a profit as well, that was why folks invested in the business not to make a social statement but for the money.

If you're buying healthcare or health insurance on the open market do you look for the company that's cheapest, or the one which provides the better results? Libertarian theory is that the fact that you have free choice between vendors forces them to be results-oriented, or they don't get your money. And lots of companies, if not to make a social statement then at least to get social approval, support and sponsor charitable and non-profit enterprises. Support for PBS comes to mind.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

I completely understand. However the health insurance industry as run in America does not seem to be a free market. If it were I should be offered the same plans and benefits as a single payer as a person in a group plan and that is simply not the case. We get insurance though my wife's company, which is small and does not offer that great a plan (== large deductibles) we keep it so we have a method of payment in case of chronic illness or catastrophic injuries. It is not a great plan but I know how much she pays and how much her company pays into their group plan. I as an individual not associated with a company should be able to purchase the same plan on the same terms but I can not. This is especially surprising given the relatively poor level of cover.

In the UK where health insurance is rare, I can shop around and get a good deal because the plans are marketed more towards individuals and small business. My friends in the UK that have insurance as a higher level of service than the basics given by the NHS pay less than we do per year and have few deductibles for what is a first rate, first world service.

If i could get parity with the service offered to my friends in europe in US$ then I would be satisfied.

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 12:05 AM

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2006-23-20.cfm

"Glowing economic statistics show that Russia is in the midst of an oil-fueled boom, but the life expectancy of its citizens remained woefully low, the nation's top statistician said Tuesday.

... as Russia's financial health is improving, the physical health of its citizens continues to be on the decline.

Russia's population dropped by 0.5 percent, or 680,000 people, to 142.8 million last year, Sokolin said. And the average life span of the Russian male is now just 58 the level to which it dropped in the social turmoil that followed the default just over seven years ago. "Nothing has changed with regard to life expectancy," he said."

Among the causes for the decline in population, which has been dropping steadily since the 1991 Soviet collapse, were reduced birth rates and life expectancy, caused by increased poverty, alcoholism and emigration."

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 12:08 AM

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=CDI+Russia+Profile+List&a
rticleid=3408

"there have been a number of articles in the Russian press in the last few weeks dealing with the dire consequences that are predicted to result from the current low birth rate and high death rate in the Russian population. These rates have been attributed to a number of factors including unhealthy lifestyles, stress, and capitalism."

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 12:21 AM

"Social function does not have to mean governmental function. If people in a primitive tribe can recognize that they have an individual responsibility to take care of the feeble ..."

It does mean it has to be a societal function rather than an individual function, which you seem to confuse.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 12:37 AM

Nah, it's not government paperwork, it really is due to 'for profit' medicine.

"Our biggest HMOs keep 20%, even 25%, of premiums for their overhead and profit; Canada's NHI has 1% overhead and even Medicare takes less than 4%. And HMOs inflict mountains of paperwork on physicians and hospitals. The average US hospital spends one quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada."

"Administrative costs account for 25 percent of health care spending, but little is known about the portion attributable to billing and insurance-related (BIR) functions. ... Overall, BIR represents 20–22 percent of privately insured spending in California acute care settings."

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 12:41 AM

"In the UK where health insurance is rare, I can shop around and get a good deal because the plans are marketed more towards individuals and small business. My friends in the UK that have insurance as a higher level of service than the basics given by the NHS pay less than we do per year and have few deductibles for what is a first rate, first world service.

If i could get parity with the service offered to my friends in europe in US$ then I would be satisfied."

In an odd way you're making the case for government as a competitor in a market system, leading to better products at lower prices.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

FLETCH2

Friday, January 18, 2008 1:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"In the UK where health insurance is rare, I can shop around and get a good deal because the plans are marketed more towards individuals and small business. My friends in the UK that have insurance as a higher level of service than the basics given by the NHS pay less than we do per year and have few deductibles for what is a first rate, first world service.

If i could get parity with the service offered to my friends in europe in US$ then I would be satisfied."

In an odd way you're making the case for government as a competitor in a market system, leading to better products at lower prices.

That's exactly what it is, a correction of a market imbalance. Let's look at a typical consumer market transaction, like buying a TV or a car or a house. There exists within the market a number of competitors each of which have trade offs of price and quality. The consumer has an array of choices, assuming a savvy customer and hungry competition prices will fall as suppliers sacrifice unit profit for volume. Try to sell the same class of service to a customer at a higher price with no obvious advantage and you will fail, it's a buyers market.

Health care though is different. If I don't get the deal I want on that laptop I can wait until the market delivers the price performance point I'm interested in. With healthcare if you wait you could die. Faced with death people will pay what is asked without haggling, there is no downward pressure on cost, people don't tend to shop around for doctors (though interestingly I know a guy who is trying to make that work...) Put simply there is no mechanism to force prices down at the consumer level so in effect costs remain high.

What the NHS does is put a volume player in that market which means that you can no longer charge what the market will bare because there is an alternative. Thus the market goes from one where the patient is willing to pay any price back to one where he shops on a cost/benefit basis as he would for any other commodity. So even if you did everything privately and never set foot in an NHS facility the fact that it does exist effects the market in a way that keeps your cost down and in effect it does it not by regulating the market but by competing in it.

GEEZER

Friday, January 18, 2008 2:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
I completely understand. However the health insurance industry as run in America does not seem to be a free market.

Absolutely. However, from what I understand of libertarian thought, pretty much everything should be free market, and the competition inherent in a free market will keep prices low.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Friday, January 18, 2008 2:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"Social function does not have to mean governmental function. If people in a primitive tribe can recognize that they have an individual responsibility to take care of the feeble ..."

It does mean it has to be a societal function rather than an individual function, which you seem to confuse.

Society is made up of individuals. Individuals can, and do, voluntarily band together to perform societal functions without governmental coercion. Why do you think that individuals can't act for societal good without government intervention?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

CANTTAKESKY

Friday, January 18, 2008 2:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I see nothing in CTSLand that would make this so, as there seems to be no mechanism to make it so.

Do you need a legal "mechanism" to be motivated to protect your daughter?

Even if you didn't believe in love and general human kindness, you can count on some measure of self-interest in helping your neighbor. If you help him when his house burns down, he may be more inclined to help you when you break your leg. It is the most primitive form of catastrophic insurance. Then there is the self-interest in avoiding good old-fashioned guilt. Some people would voluntarily help others to avoid feeling guilty that they didn't.

But put all that aside and ask yourself, have you ever helped a stranger or given a gift even when there was no political "mechanism" to encourage such actions? Have you ever heard of people risking their lives to help strangers, even though there was no legal requirement for them to do so?

Maybe it comes down to one's view of human nature. But I have seen people help other people, and heard of people giving their lives for other people, whether the law says they should or not. So yeah, I think people will help each other when they have some time to bond as a community.

--------------------------
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
--Robert Heinlein, Logic of Empire (1941)

GEEZER

Friday, January 18, 2008 2:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Nah, it's not government paperwork, it really is due to 'for profit' medicine.

"Our biggest HMOs keep 20%, even 25%, of premiums for their overhead and profit; Canada's NHI has 1% overhead and even Medicare takes less than 4%. And HMOs inflict mountains of paperwork on physicians and hospitals. The average US hospital spends one quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada."

"Administrative costs account for 25 percent of health care spending, but little is known about the portion attributable to billing and insurance-related (BIR) functions. ... Overall, BIR represents 20–22 percent of privately insured spending in California acute care settings."

If you're gonna post "quotes" then cites would be nice.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Friday, January 18, 2008 2:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=CDI+Russia+Profile+List&a
rticleid=3408

"there have been a number of articles in the Russian press in the last few weeks dealing with the dire consequences that are predicted to result from the current low birth rate and high death rate in the Russian population. These rates have been attributed to a number of factors including unhealthy lifestyles, stress, and capitalism."

And this has what, exactly, to do with our discussion about Libertarianism/Anarchism?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 2:48 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

And this has what, exactly, to do with our discussion about Libertarianism/Anarchism?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Originally posted by SignyM:
Baloney. I can show you not only concurrent comparisons (USA/ Europe) but also striking "before and after" comparisons (Russia, Somalia).

Originally posted by CTS:
Okay. Show me, please.

Why don't you ask CTS or SignyM ?

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 2:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
If you're gonna post "quotes" then cites would be nice.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

You mean you can't use google and quotes to come up with sources ? Some of my sources are subscription (like here http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/162/9/973.pdf), so I provide quotes for people to be able to find their own sources for the same information.

The first quote can be found here
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Nh-q0_rjHaQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA40
5&dq=%22Our+biggest+HMOs+keep+
20%25,+even+25%25,+of+premiums+for+their+overhead+and+profit%22&ots=0nJCfDpvdx&sig=UyGnWlbxO1bc6xSHWTS-FiJ4E9s
(ETA: Link segmented to narrow page) or here
http://cthealth.server101.com/national_health_insurance.htm

The second can be found here
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/24/6/1629

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 3:02 AM

"Society is made up of individuals. Individuals can, and do, voluntarily band together to perform societal functions without governmental coercion. Why do you think that individuals can't act for societal good without government intervention?'

That wasn't exactly the point you were arguing.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 18, 2008 3:58 AM

Libertarianism will not work in a Welfare State. They are antithetical. There are few mechanism in a Libertarian society to deal with social issues within the confines of the state. A society under a libertarian government needs to have some kind of social structure independent of the state to handle dependents. Of course for most of civilization, the state rarely took responsibility for caring for those who couldn’t care for themselves, so traditional societies generally have already developed the capacity to deal with these problems, usually within the context of religion or social norms. This actually is the reason why Christianity became so popular and so quickly displaced the pre-existing pagan or cult religions in the late classical Roman world. A principle tenant of Christian theology is the concept of charity. So as these large cities began to develop within the Roman Empire in the late classical and early post classical period, a distinctly libertarian method of dealing with poverty and dependency developed along with it. It wasn’t a perfect solution, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was as effective as the Welfare State. In fact, modern Libertarianism would probably take issue with the fact that the religion was essentially an arm of the state, so in practice, it actually worked out very much like a Welfare State.

The point is that this structure can exist, and it can exist independent of the state. Take my family for instance - we are a very libertarian minded people - and very traditional. My grandmother is legally blind and legally deaf, along with being about 800 years old, racked with arthritis and requiring daily medication to live. So she is a dependent. A perfect example of exactly what we’re talking about, yet she not only survives but lives fairly well, all things considered, on the assistance provided by her family. As a traditional family, we are much larger then the modern nuclear family - in fact there’s about 60 that are considered as integral members of the “family,” which is perhaps better thought of as a “clan.” We are always in touch, and aware of the local issues being dealt and always prepared to help each other out. We’re a large enough group that there is often a delegation of authority and a degree of specialization, so that at any one time several problems are being dealt with, usually be the people most qualified. As a member of the family that has had some limited medical training, I was chosen almost immediately to help out my grandmother, and that’s what I do. I sit with her every weekend. That decision was not made by me - that came down from the Matriarchs - the current “rulers“ of the “clan,” but as a dutiful member of the “clan” I makes sure that I follow the rules. Normally sitting with an elderly member, particularly a grandmother, would go to the woman-folk, and it is true that my two Aunts and my female Cousin help out during the week. I simply come sit in on the weekends to give the woman-folk a break.

That’s just an example, and I’m sure that many of you have similar kinds of families, although I’ve often found that this is dieing culture in the US, where families more and more are limited to just the nuclear-type, if that. But this is the kind of culture that would have to be in place for a libertarian government to work effectively.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

GEEZER

Friday, January 18, 2008 3:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"Society is made up of individuals. Individuals can, and do, voluntarily band together to perform societal functions without governmental coercion. Why do you think that individuals can't act for societal good without government intervention?'

That wasn't exactly the point you were arguing.

Huh? I thought that was exactly the point I was arguing. I question your understanding of my point, since I know it and you don't seem to.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Friday, January 18, 2008 4:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
You mean you can't use google and quotes to come up with sources ?

I can, but most people consider it a courtesy to provide links to the sites they quote. If they're subscription sites most folk can't enter, they at least provide cites of the source.

Also, if you're dropping in a cite in relation to previous questions, it would be nice if you indicated the question the cite refers to.

Good manners apply to these boards as well as to personal interactions.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 18, 2008 4:10 AM

Yes. If you’re going to quote sources, then cite the sources. If you’re not going to cite the sources, then don’t quote them.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

CANTTAKESKY

Friday, January 18, 2008 2:00 PM

Quote:
it ends up with the person unlucky enough to be close by, not a paid professional. That kind of resentment can easily translate into bad care.

People with no family to look out for them get bad care, period, whether society participates or not. Do you think the minimum wage "paid professional" in a nursing home isn't resentful and doesn't take it out on the old man who has no relatives? There is no solution to the resentment. It's gonna happen, whether the care is voluntary or forcibly distributed.

Quote:
Somehow I cannot believe that if you are in a room where rape is being carried out and you do nothing, the law will not have something to say about it. Isn't that aiding the crime?

If you are only a watching bystander, you are not aiding. Hero can correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, being a witness or a bystander is not a crime.

Quote:
Is it irrational of me to favor a system that doesn't make me choose between giving up my life to care for a stranger if I don't want to watch them die?

Actually, most people prefer to do it the way you do. Pay the money and let someone else take care of the problem. It is so much easier to give money than a part of your life. And just because there is no govenrment/legal mechanism for it doesn't mean there can't be a voluntary charity to do the same thing. That way, people who prefer to give money instead of time still can--they just give the money voluntarily.

As I said before, libertarianism is not for everyone. But can you grant that there are people who have different preferences than you, who prefer to not be forced to provide social services, and let them provide social services in their own way (voluntarily)?

Quote:
It wouldn't even have to be governmental, so much, but would a government-free system be able to provide a system that takes care of the helplessly sick stranger than shows up needing help?

They do it all the time, right now. They catch all the people who fall through those large holes in the social net I was talking about.

When I was a social worker, I worked a lot with homeless veterans. That's right--we send them overseas to get injured physically and emotionally--and the we refuse to take care of them when they get home such that they have to live on the street. (That is why I say this social net is an illusion.)

So what did we do when a homeless vet shows up on Thanksgiving day, saying he hadn't eaten in 3 days? Usually, he doesn't qualify for any existing govt services, and any that does takes some time to kick in. We get local restaurants to donate hot meals. We find groceries from local churches and other private charity food banks. We find homeless shelters (some of which do not get any govt money because they are religious). If possible, we tried to find some long term solutions for them--food stamps, get them in the VA system somehow, find family, sometimes even get them a job. We would make contacts with private employers and talk them into giving homeless vets a chance. Human kindness is actually quite a remarkable thing when you see it in action.

Most of what we got for these vets were from private sources, not public. Public resources have too many hoops to jump through that these people can't and/or won't. (For example, you have to have an address to get food stamps, and homeless people don't have addresses--so no food stamps for homeless folk. Or a homeless vet is an alcoholic, but the VA won't certify the alcoholism as service-related, so he doesn't get the health care he needs.)

As I said before, in my own experience, private charity has always been superior to public charity.

--------------------------
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
-- Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

AGENTROUKA

Friday, January 18, 2008 4:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
it ends up with the person unlucky enough to be close by, not a paid professional. That kind of resentment can easily translate into bad care.
Do you think the minimum wage "paid professional" in a nursing home isn't resentful and doesn't take it out on the old man who has no relatives? There is no solution to the resentment. It's gonna happen, whether the care is voluntary or forcibly distributed.

But wouldn't paying them more than minimum wage solve that problem? Because I'm all in favor of that. It's an aspect that can be fixed in this system. Ought to be, certainly. If you make it a job that doesn't break the person's back, it's a normal job, like any other. Not to mention, the nurse - minimum or not - is being paid to do a job. They can choose another job. Being a nurse, in that case, is entirely voluntary. If they abuse their patients, there are legal consequences.

But anyway. Overworked, underpaid nurses are going to be resentful, but that is more easily fixed than an unpaid, overworked "volunteer". No one is going to pay him. Hell, abuse even happens within the family, when they are overwhelmed by the work. And "volunteers" don't even have the option of quitting, nor can they fight for a more just pay because there is no one paying.

Quote:

Quote:
Somehow I cannot believe that if you are in a room where rape is being carried out and you do nothing, the law will not have something to say about it. Isn't that aiding the crime?
If you are only a watching bystander, you are not aiding. Hero can correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, being a witness or a bystander is not a crime.

If this is true.. I'm seriously disturbed by it. It definitely IS a law here in Germany. You can go to jail for up to a year if you don't help, especially if it's to no danger to yourself.

Quote:

Actually, most people prefer to do it the way you do. Pay the money and let someone else take care of the problem. It is so much easier to give money than a part of your life. And just because there is no govenrment/legal mechanism for it doesn't mean there can't be a voluntary charity to do the same thing. That way, people who prefer to give money instead of time still can--they just give the money voluntarily.

As I said, I see this type of voluntary system causing its own problems down the line, but it's a compromise that makes a certain amount of sense to me.

Quote:

As I said before, libertarianism is not for everyone. But can you grant that there are people who have different preferences than you, who prefer to not be forced to provide social services, and let them provide social services in their own way (voluntarily)?

I can absolutely sympathize with the frustration of not being able to opt out if you feel you don't need it, but it would only be able to work completely outside the "forced" system. You can't have a system of garanteed care run evenly if people can opt out because the moment their voluntary system fails them in some way, they will be taking advantage of the public one.

Unless there's a working compromise there, too, that I can't see.

Quote:

Quote:
It wouldn't even have to be governmental, so much, but would a government-free system be able to provide a system that takes care of the helplessly sick stranger than shows up needing help?

They do it all the time, right now. They catch all the people who fall through those large holes in the social net I was talking about.

But those are not all the people. Those are the ones falling through the net. What about the ones cared for by the net that would also rely on the voluntary aid? Charity-run organizations would completely pay for all that is now provided publicly? How much in terms of charity would that require of people? Would a few who care be bearing the brunt of that cost or is it assumed that people will all automatically care more and give to charity i

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, January 18, 2008 5:13 PM

I don't have a lot of time, going in to back up dispatch today, so imma be brief.

Ponder this.

The stuff I do, outside of put food on the table work, mind you, I am talking down in the rabbit hole face to face with horrors I hesitate to describe... has no legal protection, is excessively traumatic and often downright dangerous, besides... and obviously I don't get paid for it.

I do it cause it *matters* to me, I understand in ways HKCav can probably articulate a million times better, just how important it is to not mangle, emotionally, socially or physically, our children, not just the disproportionate boomerang effect resultant, but because it costs us and them a critical piece of our humanity every time it is done.

I say again, people are not sociopathic by nature, especially within their own Monkeysphere (look it up), they are by default cooperative and helpful.

Don't believe me, try this experiment yourself.

At work today, place some small object nearby your workspace but obviously outside your immediate reach.

Pick a random passing co-worker and say "Oh, hey, would you hand me that, please ?"

AND THEY DO IT - our of sheer reflex without a thought, don't they ?

Tell me again, that our nature is so damn selfish and horrible, and while your at it, show me the title to that bridge in new york again ?

Cause I ain't buyin neither one.

-Frem

PS. To quote Zoe, "Oh yeah, this is gonna go great!" - puttin a guy on dispatch with a sense of direction so abysmal he keeps an expensive compass/direction finder in his cab in order to stay on course... still got a coupla days left before they lemme drive again.

FLETCH2

Friday, January 18, 2008 5:18 PM

Agent, you miss the point. They don't want to pay for this care at all through taxation, their possition is that rather than being "forced" to pay, if you want you can decide to pay via charity.

Now chances are that most people won't pay because I suspect there will be no social pressure that causes them to pay.

FLETCH2

Friday, January 18, 2008 5:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
I don't have a lot of time, going in to back up dispatch today, so imma be brief.

At work today, place some small object nearby your workspace but obviously outside your immediate reach.

Pick a random passing co-worker and say "Oh, hey, would you hand me that, please ?"

AND THEY DO IT - our of sheer reflex without a thought, don't they ?

Tell me again, that our nature is so damn selfish and horrible, and while your at it, show me the title to that bridge in new york again ?

-Frem

.

While you are in NY to buy that bridge, try dressing in old clothes and sit at a street corner begging for change. See how many people reach for their pocket and how many pretend not to have noticed?

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, January 18, 2008 5:44 PM

Meh, I'm gonna be late, they can deal...

Fletch, that was what the Monkeysphere statement was all about.. here...
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html

A hilarious, but fairly accurate, assessment, if you ask me.

-F

CANTTAKESKY

Friday, January 18, 2008 6:16 PM

Oh my God, Frem. I loved that article!!

Quote:
This is perhaps how Ayn Rand would have put it, had she not been such a hateful bitch.

OK, see, that just made my day. God, that made my month. ROFL.

Makes me want to buy the guy's book. He is hilarious.

--------------------------
Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.
--Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 1907

AGENTROUKA

Friday, January 18, 2008 6:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
AND THEY DO IT - our of sheer reflex without a thought, don't they ?

Tell me again, that our nature is so damn selfish and horrible, and while your at it, show me the title to that bridge in new york again ?

Cause I ain't buyin neither one.

-Frem

I am not saying at all, nor did I ever, that human beings are selfish and horrible. We're just lazy.

In a crisis, we tend to be great. New and acute things motivate us like nothing. But in the long run, we tend to suck. Take care of someone for a week, once, and most would do it gladly. Take care of someone for years to come, someone you don't know or like? Most would not do it gladly. Especially if they are left alone with it.

I'm watching my little sister grow up, 16 months now and she has both sides in her, selfish and generous. Cooperation is hardwired but so is wanting to get away with things.

I'm not trying to sell you that humans are all horrible. Are you trying to sell me that all problems of care WILL be resolved, no one left behind, no one full of resentment, if we rely on people's good nature alone? Gee, why hasn't it always been perfect then? We haven't always been organised under governments, right? Why didn't things stay perfect? Oh, wait, we live longer now. Don't die from diseases and infections and childbirth all over the place. More people actually need care now, for a longer time.

CANTTAKESKY

Friday, January 18, 2008 6:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
What about the ones cared for by the net that would also rely on the voluntary aid? Charity-run organizations would completely pay for all that is now provided publicly? How much in terms of charity would that require of people? Would a few who care be bearing the brunt of that cost or is it assumed that people will all automatically care more and give to charity in the needed amounts?

The able-bodied people who actually rely on the social net on a long term basis more often than not have dysfunctional lifestyles. They can get their act together and go to work, if they had to.

The disabled people who need a monthly stipend to live independently would the only ones who would truly suffer if the social net weren't there. There is no reason to think though that a private charity couldn't provide the same, if it weeded out all the dysfunctional able bodied folk. If people didn't have to pay taxes, they would have the money to spare.

Would they do it? After 911, private donors gave $500 million in two weeks. Total private donations are likely to be over $2 billion.
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/09/04/911/Sept_11_donations_swa.shtml

And this is folk who are already paying taxes.

After two years in social work, I have no doubt that a private charity could provide the social net needed. I would stake my life on it.

--------------------------
What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.
--Bertrand Russell

AGENTROUKA

Friday, January 18, 2008 7:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
What about the ones cared for by the net that would also rely on the voluntary aid? Charity-run organizations would completely pay for all that is now provided publicly? How much in terms of charity would that require of people? Would a few who care be bearing the brunt of that cost or is it assumed that people will all automatically care more and give to charity in the needed amounts?
The able-bodied people who actually rely on the social net on a long term basis more often than not have dysfunctional lifestyles. They can get their act together and go to work, if they had to.

Do they make up that large a number? I am honestly asking, I don't have the information. (Btw, My questions about that privately run security net are all asked in honesty, just as my concerns are honest ones. If your facts line up, I'm more than willing to admit that it might work. Not my personal choice, but.. whatever. I'm just curious about how realistic the logistics are.)

Quote:

Would they do it? After 911, private donors gave $500 million in two weeks. Total private donations are likely to be over $2 billion.
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/09/04/911/Sept_11_donations_swa.shtml

And this is folk who are already paying taxes.

But that was a crisis response. Huge crisis, huge response.

I don't think we can equate that sort of reaction to a steady, unchanging, unexciting amount of care and money needed, unless it's made up in such a way that people fall into a habit of pooling their money. An automatic monthly donation you don't think about, like private insurance. I don't have the numbers, as I said. If you think it can be comfortably achieved, I'm not inclined to disagree just on principle.

I'll think about this more.

RUE

Friday, January 18, 2008 7:50 PM

Geezer and Finn

I'll post my quotes and links as I please. That's the libertarian way - eh ?

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

SIGNYM

Friday, January 18, 2008 8:01 PM

Finn- It's nice to see that such families as yours still exist, given our intensely individualistic and competitive society.

It would seem to develop in this Anarchic society that ethics could be different from group to group, depending on whatever could be defended. So one group might be into kidnapping and slaveholding, another might be a large capitalist business, another might be a cooperative in which nobody owned anything. Would any of these groups violate Anarchist ethics? If so, what ethics are being violated?

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FLETCH2

Friday, January 18, 2008 8:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Finn- It's nice to see that such families as yours still exist, given our intensely individualistic and competitive society.

As it would seem to develop in this Anarchic society, ethics could be different from group to group, depending on whatever could be defended. So one group might be into kidnapping and slaveholding, another might be a large capitalist business, another might be a cooperative. Would any of these groups violate Anarchist ethics? If so, what ethics are being violated?
.

I suspect they would be against slavery. Of course if the slave society was better armed then nobody would do anything about it. Hey they could call it "New Sparta"

SIGNYM

Friday, January 18, 2008 11:42 PM

Bump for those who may not have seen it yet but might like to answer.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 12:28 AM

Well, both Kidnapping and Slavery violate individual sovereignity, so that's a slamdunk, besides which - yanno, it's really hard to make slaves of armed people, not sayin it's impossible, just so bloodily unprofitable, especially against folk who, once they realize what yer up to, will very likely adopt old school soviet nihilism scorched earth tactics against you.

A little patience willya, rough day and a screamin migraine ain't makin it easy on this end here, right-O ?

Might be a while in gettin back to this.

-F

RUE

Saturday, January 19, 2008 1:05 AM

"People with no family to look out for them get bad care, period, whether society participates or not."
Which is worse do you think - bad care or no care ?

"being a witness or a bystander is not a crime"
Ahh - but being a victim with onlookers idly watching by and no help on the way has got to be the worst.

"They catch all the people who fall through those large holes in the social net I was talking about."
Sure is nice to have that net to catch that 95% though.

"We get local restaurants to donate hot meals."
Tax-deductible ? B/c AFAIK that's pretty much the only reason businesses give away anything substantive.

"... we tried to find some long term solutions for them--food stamps, get them in the VA system somehow ..."
Were those your first options ? B/c it seems to me you were trying to get them help through the very system you would like to dismantle.

"Most of what we got for these vets were from private sources, not public."
And as I sad earlier as well - they do it b/c it's tax-deductible. Not 100% of the time, but nearly all of the time. Oh, and food banks which depend so much on individual charity - are at an all-time critical low. So are blood banks and the Red Cross. In fact the Red Cross is having to lay people off and downsize. That's the thing about generosity - it's sometimes there but many times - not.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

GEEZER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 1:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So one group might be into kidnapping and slaveholding, another might be a large capitalist business, another might be a cooperative in which nobody owned anything. Would any of these groups violate Anarchist ethics? If so, what ethics are being violated?

As Fremd noted, the slavery and kidnapping would violate the Libertarian/Anarchist philosophy against initiating violence against the individual. A Capitalist business would be OK, free trade being one of the touchstones of both philosophies, as long as all transactions were free and un-coerced. The concept of a cooperative where no one owns anything would seem a non-sequitur because each individual owns, if nothing else, themselves. If they wanted to pool their property and all agreed to it, probably no problem, unless they decided to insist that everyone else did the same, then it's initiating force again.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 19, 2008 1:13 AM

Okay, so individual sovereignty is a given. What does that mean?

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

GEEZER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 1:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Okay, so individual sovereignty is a given. What does that mean?

My understanding is that you are the sole owner of yourself and your property. No person or group of persons (read as "state" or "government") has any claim on your person or property that you did not willingly contract. No one has any right to damage you or your property, and is liable for any damage they do cause, either by design or accident.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 19, 2008 2:16 AM

Okay, thanks Geezer and Frem. I know this is Libertarianism & Anarchy 101 so I appreciate you going through this with me step by step. You've given me something to think about.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FLETCH2

Saturday, January 19, 2008 4:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
yanno, it's really hard to make slaves of armed people, not sayin it's impossible, just so bloodily unprofitable, especially against folk who, once they realize what yer up to, will very likely adopt old school soviet nihilism scorched earth tactics against you.
-F

I think you over state things. Think on it, armies are made up of young healthy people, heavily trained in weapons and very well armed. If what you say it true, no army would ever surrender no soldier ever captured by an enemy. Hell I'm sure those Israelis taken by Hamas were very well trained and armed and I suspect Hamas didn't think it too costly to capture them. Talk to a miner, talk to a deep sea fisherman, they have dangerous jobs and they know people that get injured and killed doing it. You're average suburbanite with a gun is not nearly as dangerous as you think he is.

As for scorched earth, they can do the same back to you, and if there are more of them and they are better armed you would lose.

As for

GEEZER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 4:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Okay, thanks Geezer and Frem. I know this is Libertarianism & Anarchy 101 so I appreciate you going through this with me step by step. You've given me something to think about.

It's L&A 101 for me as well. I'm just a couple of chapters ahead, probably. An interesting learning experience.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, January 19, 2008 4:51 AM

Well, it still seems to me like the only ‘ethic’ of anarchism is “might makes right.” If you have the firepower and the element of surprise, you‘re in charge.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 12:36 PM

"armies are made up of young healthy people, heavily trained in weapons and very well armed."

And are a function of the state.

Standing armies are one of the greatest dangers to liberty there is, all of our founding fathers agreed on this, and it's part of why we are not supposed to have them - not that it stops a cabal that's prettymuch ignored that provision of the Constitution from day one, but there you have it.

Without a state, you don't have a standing army - maybe, MAYBE you could ponder a corporate army, if the corp was large enough, but even so, the whole reasoning fails because you assume a communities militia would "fight fair" and get creamed.

That is, to my mind, ridiculous, and the same kind of thinking that is causing us to get our ass handed to us by what amounts to tribal militias.

Look at what the Mujahadeen did to the Soviet army, and what they are, in spite of puff pieces to the contrary, doing to ours - guerilla and insurgency tactics would be adopted almost immediately against a superior opponent, and in the case of a corporate army, would make it unprofitable to engage in such behavior due to the destruction of the very resource base they would want to secure.

You are taking bits and pieces out of one world, placing them in a world that would by it's nature be preventative of their formation, and then making assumptions based on an entirely different pattern of thought and behavior from the folks who would even WANT to live in such a society.

Sure, the US Army would cream a bunch of suburbanites toting hunting rifles...

But that is not what would happen.

A warlords ratpack, of average to poor training, discipline and equipment, looking for loot or plunder, would get CUT TO PIECES by a neighborhood militia willing to rabidly defend their own turf at any cost - like any bully or criminal, they depend on easy targets and walkovers, such crime is the realm of slackers who want easy money without putting effort into it, if they didn't, they would work or trade.

And of course, folks fighting in defense of life and turf do not play nice and go head to head with you anyway.

You do NOT understand the mindset of the people or society we're discussing, and I am not at all sure I could get it across to you if I tried, to be honest.

And no, the 'ethic' of Anarchism is that MIGHT MAKES WRONG, actually.

To sum that up ?

"You wanna force me to do something ? HA!, come and make me, and I'll make sure it costs you dearly."

Anarchists aren't the kind of people where you can shoot two out of a hundred and the other ninety-eight knuckle under... you'd have to shoot at LEAST ninety of them, by which time they'd probably rip you limb from limb, and even if they didn't you have to sleep sometime - and what would you have, TWO of them ? maybe five ? and it cost you thirty men, or more, to get that ?

The whole psychology is radically different from the ground up, we've been sayin that for a while, but ain't no one seeming to GET it, I think.

The profit-loss equation for trying to force them to do something, or forcefully take from them, sucks so bad that it would be idiotic to prefer that option over negotiation and trade.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 1:38 PM

Re: Monkeysphere Monkeyshines.

Now, I don't know that other folk can do this, it stands to reason some can, and I might not be able to explain the concept, but imma try.

The mind has.. several layers of memory, but let us simplify that to short and long term...

The long term, stuff like your graduation, wifes birthday(or else!), home phone number, the archive deep storage, right ?

Short term is stuff like what you had for lunch, which pocket your car keys are in and yes honey I put the trash out this morning.

Well, that deep-storage archive is where most folk keep their Monkeysphere, but it is added to and subtracted to by the short term.

You with me so far ? I hope so.

When I see or interact with another person, a grocery store clerk, a fare, etc - I make eye contact, and in that second take careful note, reading their facial expression, posture and general sense, and then mentally flag them into the Monkeysphere short term buffer.

And I deal with them as if they were part of it - and when we part company, simply dump them from the buffer without allocating to deep storage.

Not sure if that comes off, it's a hard concept to explain, but my grocery clerk today, was named Linda, had red hair, and was definately having a bit of a rough day, and so I offered her patience, calm and comforting words, and a small smile as I bid her good day - by tomorrow none of that will "stick", but by doing so, I deal with people, as PEOPLE, by temporary inclusion into the Monkeysphere by conscious process.

As I said, I am not sure that other folks can do a pan-and-scan temporary inclusion like that, but it stands to reason that at least SOME can - and it's well worth a try, especially if you deal with people on a regular basis.

Been tryin it with voice too, seems to totally WEIRD support people out when you talk to them as PEOPLE, instead of some annoying part of the background machinery.

So far I have had only ONE person resent my temp-inclusion and treating them like a person, some Dunkin Donuts clerk up in Flint, and seeing that, simply dumped her right back out of my MonkeySphere, since she didn't wanna be there.

Give it a try, you might be fascinated with the results.

-F

GEEZER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 2:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Well, it still seems to me like the only ‘ethic’ of anarchism is “might makes right.” If you have the firepower and the element of surprise, you‘re in charge.

I'm beginning to believe that a lot of the confusion here comes from a misunderstanding of the difference between the multiple meanings of "Anarchy" and their relation to "Anarchism".

Just using Wiki's definitions:

Quote:
Anarchy (from Greek: ἀναρχία anarchía, "without ruler") may refer to any of the following:

"Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."[1]

"A theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder)."[2]

"Absence or non-recognition of authority and order in any given sphere."[3]

It should be noted that "ruler", if used in the context of the third bullet point, has no explicit connection to the term "rules". In an anarchy, as defined by the last bullet point, it is possible to have rules (laws), however, these must be agreed upon by the participants in the system, and not imposed from above, by a ruler (leader, authority). Some Languages, such as Norwegian[4] have two separate words for the two meanings. This lack of separation causes problems of understanding in a similar way that the word "free" in English causes misunderstandings when relating to open-source software.

Anarchism (from Greek ἀν (without) + ἄρχειν (to rule) + ισμός (from stem -ιζειν), "without archons," "without rulers")[1] is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which reject compulsory government[2] (the state) and support its elimination,[3][4] often due to a wider rejection of involuntary or permanent authority.[5] Anarchism is defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics as "a cluster of doctrines and attitudes centered on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary."[6]

The Anarchists here, I believe, are looking for the reduction or elemination of government, not a descent into a state of lawlessness.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 3:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Been tryin it with voice too, seems to totally WEIRD support people out when you talk to them as PEOPLE, instead of some annoying part of the background machinery.
F

I use this with telephone soliciters on the rare occasions I pick up my land line. When they introduce themselves, I remember their name. Usually if you try to cut into their spiel they just go right on, but if you say their name assertively (although you know it's probably not their real name) you can get them to stop so you can politely ask to be put on their 'do not call' list. Yeah, I know, but my momma raised me to be polite to everyone, and it won't wear off.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, January 19, 2008 3:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
You do NOT understand the mindset of the people or society we're discussing, and I am not at all sure I could get it across to you if I tried, to be honest.

I think what is not being understood here is that only a small number of people in any society have the mindset your talking about. And that is why Anarchic societies are unstable and break down into dueling warlords. Most people are simply content to live their lives, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but in an Anarchy that means they become pawns in a chaotic society while the people your talking about duke it out for supremacy. And you keep avoiding this fact, but human nature does not allow for an Anarchic society to be any kind utopia or offer any kind of freedom - it will always be chaos, excepting the case in which a rigid ideology holds the society together, such in the case of the Amish. But that’s hardly the utopia of freedom either. It is a rigid society where everything is controlled, from what you are allowed to say to what you are allowed to wear, which ironically demonstrates that the only way for an Anarchy to be stable is for it to be anything but an anarchy.

And even though you seem to be avoiding accepting this reality, you also don’t deny it. You’ve made statements to the effect that we are not ready for an Anarchy or “The whole psychology [of an Anarchic Society] is radically different [from modern societies] from the ground up.” But this is what we’ve been saying all along. It simply won’t work. It is not stable for this very reason - it does not realistically account for real human psychology.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, January 19, 2008 3:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
...Yeah, I know, but my momma raised me to be polite to everyone, and it won't wear off.

Just made me think of 12 Angry Men.

Juror #11: I beg pardon...
Juror #10: "I beg pardon?" What are you so polite about?
Juror #11: For the same reason you are not: it's the way I was brought up.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

FLETCH2

Saturday, January 19, 2008 4:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
"armies are made up of young healthy people, heavily trained in weapons and very well armed."

And are a function of the state.

And you ignore the point again. Those young Israelis are armed trained and ready. They know if they are taken alive that the people holding them are predisposed to do all kinds of crap to them. If any group of people are predisposed to fight to the death rather than be taken alive these guys are it, but they were captured. Why? Because the non psychotic human being wants to live and given a choice between 2% survival and 100% death they will chose to survive.

So this idea that you sling some suburbanite a gun and he suddenly becomes John Rambo is bullshit because if someone comes down hard enough on him that using his "piece" will 100% cost him his life and that of his family he will fold in favour of the 2% hope that they will survive. Ten men come into your house hard and hot with assault rifles pointed at your family the .38 in your hand makes you a target and not the Equalizer.

Quote:

Standing armies are one of the greatest dangers to liberty there is, all of our founding fathers agreed on this, and it's part of why we are not supposed to have them - not that it stops a cabal that's prettymuch ignored that provision of the Constitution from day one, but there you have it.

Yep I know, I read that too however it's not germane to what I was discussing.

Quote:

Without a state, you don't have a standing army - maybe, MAYBE you could ponder a corporate army, if the corp was large enough, but even so, the whole reasoning fails because you assume a communities militia would "fight fair" and get creamed.

That is, to my mind, ridiculous, and the same kind of thinking that is causing us to get our ass handed to us by what amounts to tribal militias.

Look at what the Mujahadeen did to the Soviet army, and what they are, in spite of puff pieces to the contrary, doing to ours - guerilla and insurgency tactics would be adopted almost immediately against a superior opponent, and in the case of a corporate army, would make it unprofitable to engage in such behavior due to the destruction of the very resource base they would want to secure.

Let's look at that in detail a moment. First I would hope you would see that these are not JUST tribal militias, they are proxy armies for larger powers that provide know how and ongoing material aid. In Afghanistan Charlie Wilson was busy lending US support to ABL's "Arabs" in Iraq it's the Iranians. Smalltown USA comes into this fight with limited weapons, limited ammunition and limited personel. If the other side inflicts enough damage early on there is no way that Smalltown can make good those losses without a sugar daddy to pick up the bill. Be harsh and brutal enough and you can make them fold. Yes there will be die hards that will keep fighting but they will dwindle over time.

Now if you look at separatist and nationalist group like the IRA and ETA they actually support your arguments better. However, the people that form these groups tend to have a collectivist ideology not a vastly independent one, they also see themselves as governments in waiting, have command structures and commanders. Further they "bleed over" into the societies that support them. For example in Belfast punishment beatings were common for petty crimes and since the groups doing battle were sectarian from the point of view of religion, a protestant boy could be beaten for being seen with a Catholic girl. This was not a situation where personal freedom was being maintained. If the collective group with guns decided what you are doing is wrong, that could get bad for you.

In fact those same folks "handing us our ass" in Iraq are forcing previously secular Iraqi women to adopt the Islamic dress code and of course as they have guns and there are more of them the women comply.

So I still believe the quaint idea that you'll have some romanticized citizen militia

FLETCH2

Saturday, January 19, 2008 5:13 PM

Frem I got a little long winded there.

I think the point I was trying to make is that you don't need an army to really fuck with someone's rights under your system any sufficiently well armed organised group can do that be it corporate goon squads, traveling bandits to the militia from the next town over or even your neighbors if they collectively decide to mess with you. Throwing a guy a .38 does not make him Rambo they idea that a well armed group will not try to impose their will is naive. Now of course your suburbanite with his .38 can join with a few of his neighbours but that just creates another group of guys with guns with a fairly equal risk of things going bad.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 5:31 PM

Finn sayeth..
"you also don’t deny it."

I absolutely deny it, it's a false reality force-fed to folk cradle to grave by an established set of bastards dependant upon it to feast upon us peons while offering us naught but more chains in payment.

You cannot see past it, cannot even concieve of a world without it, but dude, that's YOU.

Not everyone is like you, not everyone is like me - that's the point you are intentionally and deliberately not getting.

That "small number" is due to a system designed, top to bottom, to crush those "dangerous" thoughts out of people before they become a threat to the status quo.

You also seem to have the idea that everyone would be at each others throats, and that's damned unlikely unless you picked up existing frameworks and societies and dropped them wholesale into an entirely DIFFERENT society with no frameworks to support them in the first place.

And you seem to have the idea that we are all rabid, slavering, greed-infested, sociopathic monsters only kept in check by Government and it's laws, a truly, truly laughable concept down on cass corridor at four in the morning, I can assure you. **

And since you're on the topic of avoiding reality, YOU seem to be willfully, intentionally, even maliciously, avoiding the reality that people get along with each other BETTER in the ABSCENCE of Government force involving itself in that equation.

Your own comments regarding family show that - and by contrast the breakdown occurs when a Government/Corporate oligarchy takes SO MUCH of a persons resources that they are forced to break those bonds in order to "stay afloat" and not sink deeper into the debt trap, a price not paid in coin, but in humanity as well.

What does it say about a society when a person is forced to abandon personal relationships, even at the level of a family bond, in order to survive at a (often barely) comfortable level of existence ?

What you call real human pyschology I call a perversion of humanity, and it is my firm belief that as the gap between what children are taught in our brutal education-indoctrination system and what their natural human instincts are gets wider and wider, we see a stronger and stronger reaction, evidenced in many forms when they, in essence "choke on the kool-aid" - the direct result of which has landed us at the point of an ever growing waterfall of psychotropic drugs pushed on them while we demand they sabotage, bury or subvert their natural instincts in order to survive and thrive in this hell we call a society.

There's nothing NORMAL about it.

The more you suppress a persons humanity, the more twisted a form it takes when it finally does bust free and express itself.

If human nature was really as awful as people here are making it out to be, we would have never successfully built ANY civilization in the first place, would we ?

-Frem
** EDIT, ok that came out a bit wrong...
I go down there, pick up, drop off, deal with these people - and it's never come to violence because I can deal with them, de-escalate, negotiate, and if it does come to cases, can either spin rubber out of sight, or fill them with holes.. I am not "prey" to them, but a service they need now, and may need in the future, and it carries no advantage to piss off the few drivers who will still pick up there.

Government has cursed little to do with it, between the folk who need/want a pickup or dropoff down there at those hours, and myself, business and mutual advantage has everything to do with it.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 5:47 PM

Fletch, point by point..

The critical difference is that in an Army people are taking orders to secure someone else's wants and desires, not their own - this is why slacking off and desertion happen.

Also, call them psychotic if you wish, but the type of people who favor Anarchy (even over Libertarianism) ARE the type of folk who, confronted with ten guys holding assault rifles, WILL empty that .38 and see how many they can take with them, it's in their nature, it's who they are, and a key part of their entire mindset and pyschology.

And yes, that scares some folk, but that IS how a threatened Anarchist responds.
(See Also: Babylon 5, subsearch: Shadows)

The problem seems to be you are applying the typical here-and-now MODERN suburbanite mindset, the kind of people who handed over their weapons when confronted during Katrina, sure, THOSE people will react as you state, but we are not whatever talking about those people.

The kinda person who WANTS to live in that type of society isn't going to go easy, and they know full and well that life is dangerous - who would carry an AK-47 and know how to use it, while less able family members reloaded magazines for them, for example.

And yes, overwhelming numbers might see the job done, but if in the end all you get is scorched earth and a few survivors and wounded, you've accomplished damned little for your pains.

I ain't sayin there would not be banditry, that happens in any society, only in this one it's organized, rapacious and we call it Government...

I am saying that a wholesale attack on a community would simply not be worth the effort for the potential gain, not against THOSE people.

And yes, if you wanna call it so, by THIS societies standards, in THIS day and age, I supposed they could be called "insane", sure.

But ya know what ?

That would be their perception of us, who take orders and hop to the tune of folks we know are screwing us over.

Food for thought, that.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

FLETCH2

Saturday, January 19, 2008 5:57 PM

One of those guys has a gun to the head of your wife another to your 13 year old daughter. You shoot, one of them is dead, absolutely and 100% sure. Are you REALLY saying that Mr Anarchist opens fire knowing that his family WILL die?

I'm curious, because I wouldn't want to live anywhere near that person.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:15 PM

You really don't understand the mindset, the wife would be trying to rip the one's eyes out and the 13yr old would be sinking her teeth into the others wrist and going for a disarm before you even cleared leather, gun to the head or no, certain death or no.

That also presumes wife doesn't have a piece *snort* and kid doesn't have a knife, and the aggressors made it through the door somehow without having to wipe out the defenders, who would no doubt set the place on fire if a breach was imminent.

You're really saying you'd prefer to live with people who did *not* defend themselves with absolute rabidity ?

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

FLETCH2

Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

You're really saying you'd prefer to live with people who did *not* defend themselves with absolute rabidity ?

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

I'm wondering if I'd have that knife in me if I pissed the daughter off. I'm wondering if I wouldn't get my brains blown out if I stop off to drop off misdelivered mail... so yeah.

Do you have a wife and children Frem?

GEEZER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
One of those guys has a gun to the head of your wife another to your 13 year old daughter. You shoot, one of them is dead, absolutely and 100% sure. Are you REALLY saying that Mr Anarchist opens fire knowing that his family WILL die?

I'm curious, because I wouldn't want to live anywhere near that person.

I'm curious that you would trust armed folks, who have already forced their way into your home and threatened to kill your family, to let you go on living if you just put your gun down.

edit to add: especially if you consider it likely that folks would shoot you just for misdelivering the mail.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

RUE

Saturday, January 19, 2008 7:09 PM

oops. Meant "edit" not reply"

AGENTROUKA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 7:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
You really don't understand the mindset, the wife would be trying to rip the one's eyes out and the 13yr old would be sinking her teeth into the others wrist and going for a disarm before you even cleared leather, gun to the head or no, certain death or no.

That also presumes wife doesn't have a piece *snort* and kid doesn't have a knife, and the aggressors made it through the door somehow without having to wipe out the defenders, who would no doubt set the place on fire if a breach was imminent.

You're really saying you'd prefer to live with people who did *not* defend themselves with absolute rabidity ?

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

Would they have that kind of extremely aggressive defense response if they live in a period of peace and prosperity? I mean, I will utterly give you that people are not sociopathic monsters by heart because I think that most people not used to violence and horror would have a high level of hesitancy to respond with such vehemence. I can see it if the society is constantly threatened by violent crime, or in war time, but if they are not a society traumatized by exposure to such violence... I just don't see it being the natural response, especially of a 13-year-old. The mother, maybe. Except her child might die, so that might stop her.

Unless people engaged in constant high level self-defense training, really. Which, I guess, is what you're envisioning there.

FLETCH2

Saturday, January 19, 2008 7:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
One of those guys has a gun to the head of your wife another to your 13 year old daughter. You shoot, one of them is dead, absolutely and 100% sure. Are you REALLY saying that Mr Anarchist opens fire knowing that his family WILL die?

I'm curious, because I wouldn't want to live anywhere near that person.

I'm curious that you would trust armed folks, who have already forced their way into your home and threatened to kill your family, to let you go on living if you just put your gun down.

edit to add: especially if you consider it likely that folks would shoot you just for misdelivering the mail.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Well the same could be true of those captured Israeli soldiers, why wouldn't they fight "to the death" in fact why would any army surrender ever? Let's be clear on this situation, if you open fire at least one of your family dies instantly with the rest to follow because the other side has overwhelming force. You may kill a few which may give some people with a psychotic mind set some satisfaction but right at that moment you pulling the trigger means 100% certainty that at least one of you will die, and realistically probably garentees that you all do. Even if you have 2% chance of survival by surrendering at that point. It has to be a better choice. Let's say you ARE Rambo and you take 3 of them down with you. It does you no good at all if your entire family is dead.

The mail comment was this. No attacker is going to send you a postcard saying he's on his way. For Frem's highly armed nuclear family to even stand a chance they would have to be on guard constantly, they would have to view any stranger with suspicion, would probably answer the door armed. Otherwise this is academic since they can be caught cold. Let's say they live at 350 W High Street and I move in to 350 E High street and find a pile of their mail and being a good new neighbor I decide to deliver it to them. When I walk up their drive carrying something that could conceal a weapon they HAVE to meet me expecting trouble or the Frem idea just doesn't work.

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 8:29 PM

I've been trying to work up a serious post on the subject of philosophical and psychological Anarchism but the discussion keeps getting mired in hysterical hypotheticals. Sorry, Signy, I'm still trying to formulate my ideas--it's a BIG topic.

Meanwhile, I gotta interject here. I have undergone what I think could be called "high-level martial arts training" and I can tell you it doesn't turn you into a rabid paranoid. Quite the opposite, it gave me a very grounded sense of security that I never had before.

And for a second, forget the "high-level" part, just 6 months of good training would have a profound effect on a community, on a culture if enough people participated. In those six months, for instance, the "threat" of a box cutter would be largely neutralized. Think of the effect that would have had on 9/11. Bunch of humiliated would-be hijackers. But more importantly, the plan would have never gotten off the ground because the terrorists would not be able to count on the passengers acting like sheep.

Martial arts training has given me an awareness of people's energy, force, power, momentum, body language, even some of their physical intent, so I am much better able to judge questionable situations now. Think of your wonderful household pet--gentle, great with kids, empathetic to your needs and moods, and pretty deadly if you were to try something physical. Even a house-cat could mess you up good if you weren't very fast. Not because they're violent, vicious creatures, but because they know how to move! Good martial arts training is designed to make you more at home in physical space, more aware of how reality works, more like the fully functioning animal you were born to be.

So in the case of Frem's hypothetical family...their training would be to assess actual threat, actual body language and intent, not this ham-fisted "ooh, that guy out there's got a package...bligh' me, it could be a gun--RED ALERT! BATTLE STATIONS!"

Martial arts doesn't teach you to trust everything and everyone less, it teaches you to trust yourself more.

So the family Frem wouldn't be going medieval on ya unless you crossed a big, big line in terms of behavior or intent. On the contrary, if you were friendly and had a good story to tell, they'd prolly invite you in for dinner. If things got ugly they'd have the turf advantage.

See, that's one of the big "paradigm shift" things a lot of folks are missing. In this world we live in here, you can expect most inhabitants to be docile and compliant--this expectation gives violent people opportunity, a sympathetic environment for them to work their will. In Fremworld, that assumption of a docile public would not be there for the guy who wants to mess with 'em. He'd have to assume every fight would get ugly, even if the reality was that he could catch the family Frem unawares and win out.

The issue is, does the average criminal want to take that chance? In our world, experience teaches the criminal that it's not that big of a chance. A country can be brought to its knees with box-cutters. In Fremworld, experience would teach a different lesson. Docility and subservience are not human nature, they are accomodations to systematic abuse and control.

Whoops, I just lost a whole bunch of folks with that last comment, didn't I?

Well, that's all I got time for atm.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

FLETCH2

Saturday, January 19, 2008 8:59 PM

On 9/11 we know, ---because the idiots that took over the Penn flight used the radio instead of the cabin PA the first time--- that they actually told the passengers they had a bomb. Now we know it was a lie and the terrorists never had a bomb but the passengers didn't know that.

It's a question of evaluation of risk. Prior to 9/11 most hijackings had ended with most of the passenger's surviving, so faced with rushing the "hijacker with a bomb" with 2% chance of success and going along with things with a 95% chance of survival most people went along.

What made the Penn incident different to the others was that the folks on board found out about the previous 2 planes and did the math. Now they knew 100% that they would die if they did nothing, so a 2% chance that they could overrun the hijackers before the "bomb" went off looked like a good move.

So in fact how fast you can disarm a guy with a box cutter was never part of the equation on 9/11 as the Penn passenger's showed, it was could you take back the plane before the "bomb" goes off. Show me a martial art that lets THAT become an easy action and I'll buy.

You also fall into the same trap as Frem in assuming the criminal element just give up. What evolution shows is that when a prey animal becomes tougher you end up with tougher predators. These guys will not just give in and take a job flipping burgers in McDonalds, they will evolve to counter the threat. They may kidnap rather than burgle, they may do home invasions where rather than controlling the occupants they kill them outright before they can use "stupid monkey foo" or whatever martial art you're selling.

A few years ago I had to itemize the approximate value of my household effects for customs and duty purposes. Now even excluding items like furniture that are not easy to carry off it comes to a reasonably large number. Think of what you earn, remove cost of living stuff like food and accommodation and savings. What's left is probably somewhere in your home right now and it's a reasonably big figure, far more I suspect than you could make in a month of a regular job. Given that people do legitimate high risk work already, can you really be sure that nobody is going to be interested in taking the risk to rip you off?

AGENTROUKA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 9:02 PM

Btw, I never implied that self-defense training would make people aggressive. It was a serious thought that - obviously - hits your vision on the head, nail-wise.

So far my understanding of this society has been improved by the following:

1) Care for the helpless through a highly organized net of voluntary charity.
2) Self-defense training from childhood on to create a sufficiently ruthless response to physical threats.

I want to understand it, magical mystery "paradigm shift" or not, I'm trying to get a feel for what people are imagining the everday of it to be like. Or the not every day.

For example, what if actual war is at hand? Can this society exist as a country next to governmental societies, realistically? This independent judge thing, how realistic is that to work in a society of individuals/groups that place such importance in being in control of their own affairs? Things like science and medical advancements, would they go on at the same level as now? Aside from a greater focus on family and treating people like people (as if it's so very unusual now *eyeroll*) what would social values be, how would kids be raised and treat each other growing up? Do the types of jobs available change from what they are now? Does social entertainment change? Gender roles, body image, university education? Would cities remain as they are?

I may be a sceptic, but I'd love to hear what proponents imagine it to actually be like, instead of saying "It will be so different, but you will never understand it because it can't be explained to the likes of you."

Anyone?

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 9:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
What evolution shows is that when a prey animal becomes tougher you end up with tougher predators.

Ack, so depressing. So monumentally depressing. You folks sling this stuff like it's common knowledge, when it is only common myth and self-serving prejudice. You do know that many animal species have no natural predators because they've evolved a defense mechanism that has outclassed the local predator population, right? Nature is not macho. Nature has nothing to prove. Nature is all about going the way of least resistance. Uh, um, species like, f'rinstance, the human species? Where's evolution's big bad adaptive predator on us? And where was she when we were just getting the whole walking upright thing down, or the tool use thing figured out? And don't go selling me no line on viruses. Germs are not predators, they're parasites and they fail if the host dies.

But, ack, your whole way of thinking is like a virus and it's infected me! Criminal humans are not comparable to predatory animals in the first place! That's just violence-fetishist romance for what is, again, the result of systematic abuse and control and violent, coercive and contemptuous child rearing practices.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

AGENTROUKA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 9:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
That's just violence-fetishist romance for what is, again, the result of systematic abuse and control and violent, coercive and contemptuous child rearing practices.

So, in an anarchist world, all parents would magically be good parents? Ready, able, no family disruptions, abandonment, divorce, drug abuse, violence within the family, etc? I mean, if it's all about how the child is reared, can't parents still make the same mistakes they make now? Or is it all "the system" that makes them do bad things?

Oh, and in the case of child abuse, who interferes? Concerned neighbors? Or would that just not happen? I repeat, I am not asking to bait, I am asking to understand.

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:05 PM

Hi, AgentRouka,

I got a little time here so I thought I'd give you some quick answers to your queries.

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
For example, what if actual war is at hand?

War is a big problem for any population. Period. On a psycho-social level wars are like cancer or a psychotic break. There are many things anyone can do to reduce their chances of getting cancer and there are certainly things we can do to reduce the likelihood of having a psychotic break. So are there things any society could do to reduce their chances of war.

Wars have universally been used by Governments to consolidate their power over their citizens. War's have primarily been wars of conquest by oligarchs. So, first of all, an Anarchist "Union" would not be starting any wars. And, I'll admit, to survive a ground war an Anarchy would prolly need some serious geographical advantages, not unlike the U.S. of A. Friendly nations on our borders and oceans between us and the expansionists. An Anarchist America would also likely have awesome trade relations with the saner segments of the human population, so we'd have most of the world on our side if push came to shove.

Quote:
Can this society exist as a country next to governmental societies, realistically?

Of course. Do you really think Canada would invade? Mexico might cause some trouble, and our southern border might change, but can you not imagine an equilibrium being struck at some point?

Quote:
This independent judge thing, how realistic is that to work in a society of individuals/groups that place such importance in being in control of their own affairs?

Sorry, I missed this part of the conversation. Y'know though, there's some comparison to be made between some aboriginal cultural values and the values of a future Anarchist culture. Respect for elders would prolly be greater than in our youth-obsessed consumer culture. So age, experience, knowledge might carry a little more weight than they do in our corporatist funhouse.

Quote:
Things like science and medical advancements, would they go on at the same level as now?

Rue alluded to this before and I think she made a good point about nano-technology--something of which I have but the slightest understanding. I'd say that in the transition to Anarchy our technological base would take a hit. Advancement might very well stagnate for a while. But here's a thing:

You heard about the semi-aquatic theory of proto-human evolution? The idea that pre-human hominids began an adaptation to aquatic life when the interior of the continents became more and more inhospitable and then doubled back when the climate mellowed? This is a perfectly respectable theory, that just isn't very popular today--you should look it up, fascinating stuff.

Anyway, one of the issues it addresses is how humans were able to evolve in enough physical safety that we actually evolved into physically less dangerous creatures. The idea was that when we moved into a tidal existence we found a place of remarkable safety from large predators. The big predators from the land would not venture far into the water and the big predators from the sea surely wouldn't go up on shore. So, if we were clever and getting cleverer, we could have it pretty easy in that regard. Furthermore, the relative ease of living in the tidal zone, coupled with the constant availability of rocks made the development of tool use possible.

So what I'm saying is: sometimes freedom can have a profoundly beneficial effect upon the mind.

Quote:
Aside from a greater focus on family and treating people like people (as if it's so very unusual now *eyeroll*) what would social values be, how would kids be raised and treat each other growing up?

This is the hardest of your questions to answer because most people's prejudices on this subject were imprinted on them in their first 3 years of life and such prejudices will never be shaken by mere talk. Unless, maybe, maybe, maybe, the one d

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:07 PM

In this postulated world, are there any other ways to mediate disputes besides violence?

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
So, in an anarchist world, all parents would magically be good parents? Ready, able, no family disruptions, abandonment, divorce, drug abuse, violence within the family, etc? I mean, if it's all about how the child is reared, can't parents still make the same mistakes they make now? Or is it all "the system" that makes them do bad things?

Oh, and in the case of child abuse, who interferes? Concerned neighbors? Or would that just not happen? I repeat, I am not asking to bait, I am asking to understand.

Oh man, this topic really brings out the contempt in people. Contempt, which you feel completely, unassailably justified in voicing here. You mean the question sincerely enough, but you can't frame it in anything resembling neutral terms. Do you see?

Another Alice Miller book, two: For Your Own Good and Thou Shalt Not Be Aware. The basic deal is that family norms and cultural norms are the same thing. To the extent that we live in families where sexuality is repressed and lied about, where an emotionally distant father gets his way time and time again, we will live in a culture ruled by irresponsible hyper-masculine liars. But seriously, do some reading--it really is fascinating stuff.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
In this postulated world, are there any other ways to mediate disputes besides violence?

Signy, in your own life, are there any other ways to mediate disputes besides the Government forcing its will on you?

In your own head, do you come up with good solutions to problems without adhering to some external authority?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

AGENTROUKA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
So, in an anarchist world, all parents would magically be good parents? Ready, able, no family disruptions, abandonment, divorce, drug abuse, violence within the family, etc? I mean, if it's all about how the child is reared, can't parents still make the same mistakes they make now? Or is it all "the system" that makes them do bad things?

Oh, and in the case of child abuse, who interferes? Concerned neighbors? Or would that just not happen? I repeat, I am not asking to bait, I am asking to understand.

Oh man, this topic really brings out the contempt in people. Contempt, which you feel completely, unassailably justified in voicing here. You mean the question sincerely enough, but you can't frame it in anything resembling neutral terms. Do you see?

Another Alice Miller book, two: For Your Own Good and Thou Shalt Not Be Aware. The basic deal is that family norms and cultural norms are the same thing. To the extent that we live in families where sexuality is repressed and lied about, where an emotionally distant father gets his way time and time again, we will live in a culture ruled by irresponsible hyper-masculine liars. But seriously, do some reading--it really is fascinating stuff.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

I'm sorry if my questions came across as more judgmental than sceptical, I'll try to work ont that.

However, the sad reason is that I'm asking all these questions here because I don't have the time to read the books right now. Studying for finals, writing papers... Were it February, it'd look different, but the thread is right now.

I'm not saying you have to educate me, that's not your job and I have no right to ask it, but if you felt that short precise sentences to sum up certain things were something you wouldn't mind giving me, I'd be very grateful. No problem if you don't. Just saying that I won't be able to read the lit now and my questions would remain unanswered.

I'll add to my list, though not fully defined yet.
#3) Child-reading: cultural norms = family norms.

GEEZER

Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
So I still believe the quaint idea that you'll have some romanticized citizen militia that with no organization just stands up to the bad guys is wrong.

Why do you assume that a citizen militia would have to be unorganized? All sorts of voluntary clubs, associations, charities, etc. get established and function very well now, and lack of government shouldn't prohibit that from happening.

As to eight armed marauders invading your home:
1) How likely is that to happen anyway?
2) Why should we consider it more likely to happen in an Anarchist community?
3) Wouldn't a community who rely upon themselves for defense against this unlikely circumstance have aome sort of plan worked out? Panic buttons to summon the militia or the private security firm? Massive turnout of force?

As has been noted, plopping down a particular situation in the midst of your bedroom and requiring that you alone respond to it ignores the fact that like-minded people would have some mutual agreement to provide aid, and procedures would be in place to do so.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

AGENTROUKA

Saturday, January 19, 2008 11:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Hi, AgentRouka,

I got a little time here so I thought I'd give you some quick answers to your queries.

And I'm very appreciative that you took the time, thank you.

Quote:

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
For example, what if actual war is at hand?

And, I'll admit, to survive a ground war an Anarchy would prolly need some serious geographical advantages, not unlike the U.S. of A. Friendly nations on our borders and oceans between us and the expansionists. An Anarchist America would also likely have awesome trade relations with the saner segments of the human population, so we'd have most of the world on our side if push came to shove.

I see that starting wars wouldn't be a priority, certainly, but I note you didn't really answer my question fully. I wasn't asking about a hypothetical America and why it wouldn't be attacked, really. I'm more interested in a possible practical response to war in an anarchist society, which would likely be an attack from a foreign army, then.

Some coordinated effort to defend would have to take place, and in the absence of government I'm merely interested in the proposed model of coordination.

Quote:

Quote:
Can this society exist as a country next to governmental societies, realistically?

Of course. Do you really think Canada would invade? Mexico might cause some trouble, and our southern border might change, but can you not imagine an equilibrium being struck at some point?

As I said, not asking about America, per se. More in terms of... diplomacy. Foreign governments would be talking to each sovereign citizen directly, I take it? Just to help me get an image in my head.

Quote:

Quote:
This independent judge thing, how realistic is that to work in a society of individuals/groups that place such importance in being in control of their own affairs?

Respect for elders would prolly be greater than in our youth-obsessed consumer culture. So age, experience, knowledge might carry a little more weight than they do in our corporatist funhouse.

Noted, thank you. :)

#4)Disputes - ingrained cultural respect for independent judgement.

I suppose in that theory, going to a judge would already be an act chosen with great deliberation and a wish for some kind of agreement. Cases with more stubborn disagreement would have to be handled in some other way.

Quote:

Quote:
Things like science and medical advancements, would they go on at the same level as now?

I'd say that in the transition to Anarchy our technological base would take a hit. Advancement might very well stagnate for a while.
(*snip*)
So what I'm saying is: sometimes freedom can have a profoundly beneficial effect upon the mind.

I suppose I'm looking for a slightly more practical description than that. Research would be financed by businesses? Donation? Both? Scientists sell their own inventions and use that money? Is there going to be such a thing as intellectual property or patents? I'm leaning towards no... I can see science running for the sake of science. Universities funded through tuition and donations competing with each other, researching what pays well and some on top. *nod-nod* Would things like ethical concerns in medical science be a subject at all, or would that be part of the total freedom?

Quote:

Quote:
Aside from a greater focus on family and treating people like people (as if it's so very unusual now *eyeroll*) what would social values be, how would kids be raised and treat each other growing up?

Thank you for the recommendations on the subject, I'll note it down for the near future when I have time again.

Quote:

Quote:
Do the types of jobs available change from what they are now? Does social entertainment change? Gender roles, body image, university education? Would cities remain as they are?

Running

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SIGNYM

Sunday, January 20, 2008 12:47 AM

Quote:
Signy, in your own life, are there any other ways to mediate disputes besides the Government forcing its will on you? In your own head, do you come up with good solutions to problems without adhering to some external authority?

At least ten times a day and twice that on Sunday

But some disputes have been irreducible and so I've gone to court to get them resolved.

I can think of a LOT of disputes... property-type disputes.... that don't quite rise to the level of kneecapping your neighbor but which might require more than negotiation or accommodation. And since this world seems to depend a lot on individual agreements by contract, what if someone breaks a contract?

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FLETCH2

Sunday, January 20, 2008 12:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
So I still believe the quaint idea that you'll have some romanticized citizen militia that with no organization just stands up to the bad guys is wrong.

Why do you assume that a citizen militia would have to be unorganized? All sorts of voluntary clubs, associations, charities, etc. get established and function very well now, and lack of government shouldn't prohibit that from happening.

Governments didn't come into existence fully formed they started as ay to more efficiently provide common services taht were agreed to by the community, as time went by they were given more duties and pulled together more power. Given the right circumstances almost any group of individuals can become a force for tyranny -- look a some home owners associations and condo councils.

If you have an organized militia then I'm assuming it has leaders and followers I assume it has some form of discipline and I assume for efficiencies sake that the guy in charge gives orders that the group expects to have followed.

This is incidentally how armed nationalist groups like ETA and the IRA operate. The problem is that it's an arbitary and largely unaccountable concentration of power. In Belfast like I said you could see the wrong girl and take a beating for it if the guy that runs the local IRA thinks it inappropriate. You could be burnt out if you moved onto the wrong street. No government set these guys up --which seems to be what Frem doesn't grasp, they started out as guys with guns defending their communities, but that's the thing about unaccountable power it gets out of hand.

These are real world examples there are others. So as I see it if your militia has an organized core group you run the risk they will eventually run the place as warlords because those inside the group will become better armed and trained than the rest of the community. If instead of having a core group and a clear chain of command you have a more ad hoc structure -- in order to limit the risk of tyranny from what could become a semi-standing army ---- then the militia will not be as effective against other organized armed groups.

Quote:

As to eight armed marauders invading your home:
1) How likely is that to happen anyway?

Type "home invasion" into a browser, you will see that it's a new popular crime. As to there being 8. This assumes that in order to cope with a more heavily armed population you need to apply a numeric advantage. Home invasions today are usually done by groups of between two and four. Faced with an armed family in the Frem model groups smaller than the typical family unit would be unlikely to assert enough control to avoid the family taking action. Just as lone thieves realised that they could do bigger crimes by massing in 2 and 3 man teams the ways around this is a bigger group. To deal with an armed family of 4 I'm assuming 6 or 8 bad guys.

Quote:

2) Why should we consider it more likely to happen in an Anarchist community?

1) Movement to a hard currency means that more of a families assets will be available in untraceable liquid funds.

2) A heavily armed populous makes some types of crime --- burglary for example -- relatively high risk for a single perpetrator. You seem to imagine these people will give up. I believe at least some of them would look at ways to mitigate the Frem family numeric advantage. This is the way to do that.

3) The move from a professional local police department backed by a national FBI to an adhoc system of private security and untrained militia means the chances of getting away with the crime if you survive the initial encounter with the victim is actually better. Who will maintain national criminal records, who will coordinate information sharing between private security firms that are in fact each other's rivals? If someone commits a crime in Nevada, can you extradite him from California? Under who's authority? Surely if personal liberty means any

GEEZER

Sunday, January 20, 2008 2:12 AM

Fletch

Rather than try to respond point by point to your post, I'll try to hit what I understand as some general principles of Libertarianism/Anarchism which may answer your questions.

Anarchism does not preclude people from forming either volunteer or commercial self-defense or law enforcement organizations. There is no reason that they could not be as trained as the current police. There is no reason that these organizations should not be nationwide. The guiding principle would be that initiation of force against an individual is wrong, and that the individual, and anyone who wants to help, either from the goodness of their heart or because they're contracted to do so, can respond forcefully to that inital use of force. Not sure why you consider that this would be less efficient than cops who are on the public payroll and have no reason to work too hard on a case unless it's high-profile and risks the displeasure of their political bosses.

People who believe in the Anarchist philosophy would not band together to use their power as a group to initiate force against anyone. It would be totally antithetical to their way of life. Thus the concern about militias taking over is unfounded.

Yes, there will always be criminals. The fact that there may be criminals in a Anarchist society does not invalidate the goals or ideals of the society. Criminals who got away from the immediate crime scene would be pursued by the voluntary or paid law enforcement organizations. They have initiated force against a person and are liable for restitution. This assumes that the criminals survive the initial encounter. I don't hold the average intelligence of criminals in as high a regard as you apparently do.

The return to a hard currency doesn't mean everyone keeps their gold/diamonds/uranium/? under the mattress. No reason there shouldn't be private banks, or you might have your extra cash invested in the neighborhood brothel or smoke shop.

People who understand that they are primarily responsible for themselves and their security will be more likely to take better precautions than the folks who let anybody in a power company cap and jacket in their front door. And no, this doesn't mean shooting anyone who shows up in a power company outfit. Good locks, a peephole, Checking ID, calling the power company to verify their ID, any number of simple things are very effective.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

FLETCH2

Sunday, January 20, 2008 2:55 AM

Then the personal liberty and sovereignty argument is a sham argument. Police enforce laws and that can mean the use of force to protect individuals and property or it could ultimately be the enforcement of contracts. Like any group of individuals this power could be abused but I would argue that the very nature of this power is coercive. How could it not be unless the person being arrested agrees with the process.

Now the moment you give the power of enforcement to anybody else, be it militia, volunteer or paid cop that coercive power is back because that is the nature of enforcement.

Since I am assuming that you do enforce laws and I am assuming that not everyone will agree to that enforcement (being well armed individualists) what can you do.

Harry cheats Jenny out of her life savings. Jenny's family complains and "militia dude" goes around. How can he force Harry the "sovereign individual" to give Jenny her money back? What happens if Harry doesn't even admit to having Jenny's money? How can you enforce anything if you have no standing?

Angela elderly and saintly Sunday school teacher is found stabbed in her home in Bugspit Indiana. her savings in gold are missing. Because Bugspit has no real police and murder is uncommon the crime scene has been botched by the militia and yields no forensic evidence. A neighbor remembers seeing an out of state car which proves to belong to a Mr Frem in the area that night. Frem says he was lost, just driving through and taht his friends back home all know he has a bad sense of direction.

What happens when rentacop knocks on Frem's door to extradite him back to Bugspit? If he goes he loses his job/house/income and he swears he hasn't done it. His neighbours believe him. What authority does rentacop have to extradite to Bugspit, if sovereign citizen Mr Frem refuses to go and his community decides not to turn him over?

I'm hoping you see the issues because I(f you keep ignoring this I will just stop talking to you. Explain how a system can operate with a sovereign citizen concept, show me how any law enforcement can be anything but local.

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