silentstriker

Omg, you're still having this libertarian debate? Don't know where you get the energy tbh.

P5b - The idea of liberty is a fantastic one, but it is fraught with responsibility. Some people don't like having that responsibility or don't (IMO wrongly) think others should have the right to act responsibly for themselves.

It goes back to the original question for me: what is inherently different about regulating the transactions of consenting individuals for very remote harm in a social or economic context? And there is none, and I have yet to hear you give one. Saying 'I think social rights are more important than economic rights' is your opinion, that's fine but it is subjective. Why should one person's subjective interpretation rule the lives of others?

P5a - Who says what is a private matter then? You say economic transactions aren't private matters; that they eventually affect others so they can be legislated/regulated. The sale of drugs is an economic transaction by definition. Moreover, if you are talking about harm then the sale of a drug to another person is far more demonstrably harmful than selling him lemonade. So the remoteness factor with regards to harm is even more of a reason to legislate it.

I have no problem with treating subjects on it's merits. I abhor this arbitrary, subjective and frankly random logic to deal differently for things which are inherently the same. You aren't a religious person, yet to me you moralise - very subjectively I might add - the differences between the activities you would allow or not allow. I consider you a very smart person, but do these arguments really convince you? Or are they just truths you've warmed to through habit?

P4a - Then you have a different definition for it. Discrimination is prejudicial treatment for perceived differences.

You can't lobby for property rights if it is against the law - constitution, let's say - for you to have property rights. This is like me arguing that if you have property, you'll eventually have your say because you can be powerful/wealthy enough to be listened to. It's a cop out for this discussion.

You can't live without food, not speech. If you can't garner any wealth then you are a slave dependent on his master for consumption. It's like life; do you think poor societies concern themselves with art? There is a progression for need in life, as in gov, that survival comes first, then other evolved faculties are entertained once that's feasible.

P3a - Stealing is the taking of force, without being given any consent by the owner. What the government is actually doing is stealing. They just right the laws so they legalise it. What you are moralising and condoning is stealing. If a program is good, effective, etc, then people should have the option of being in it. Forcing someone to do something for their own good or the good of others is some sense of warped morality. Again, as the theme is with gov intervention; it is also a pandora's box for tyranny.

You have restrictions on speech where there is a far less remote harm to people - i.e. defamation. You didn't answer my question: how does two kids selling lemonade without a license possibly harm the economy? It is the same as your logic of your free speech not harming anyone else. Licensure and regulations are, in large part, purported for those ideas.

P3a - He's right, the programs that were being legislated for never really got to the light of day. The recovery was that quick. Government being able to aid the economy by creating jobs is a dead concept in most academic circles in economics. If government could do that, they could merely employ half the population to dig holes and the other half to fill them. Whilst the New Deal was going on, unemployment remained high - this is the biggest undertaking for government employing labour.

P2b - Some things may not be useful now; a lot of it probably ever. Why should the average man pay for something rich people will later use to make a profit out of them? This is the very definition of privatised profits and socialised losses. If McDonalds' and other huge food services search for food subsidies (corn, being a big one) people are in arms. Why should they not be for scientific research?

What is "good" for people is an arbitrary concept Manan. The only way we can know in society for what they want is if they pay for it, or they vote for it - the former being a far more efficient way of knowing.

P2 - It's quite simple: socialist programs can not promise to cover everyone. It lacks price mechanisms which determine how the resources are to be distributed. Inherent in price is the value people will pay respective to the service or good they are getting. It tells you about how rare those resources are, and many other things inherent in the price. You can't cover everyone, period. Picking between the two on that rationale is completely flawed.

These distortions lead to other distortions in other markets. This is just a spiral for each industry to be negatively affected by government's interference; then for the common man to not know any better and ask for those services to be socialise too.

The US system hasn't had a free market for 50+ years. Even 'successful health care systems' (Germany) run their programs run expensively (4th in the world) and continue to rise in price (no true mechanism to keep prices down). These programs always fail; it is not a matter of if but when.

P1 - Look at it objectively; your take on education, health, etc, being a function of government is and other things not being is arbitrary. In America, those things weren't considered functions of government, and yet they are now. If a communist state was to eventuate; this is the philosophy you'd adhere to. You have basically said the government has the right to confiscate private property for the subjective aim of equality.

The difference the left and the Libertarian philosophy is that the latter is very defined. The law is an interpretative thing; the things you advocate now, and the reasons for them, I'd argue are inherently dangerous.

P4b - 1) Can't be proven. This is my contention; you can no more prove that a kid selling lemonade without a license hurts the economy than you can prove that by letting them curse they harm culture. 2) How do freedom of speech rights give you economic rights? If you can't hold property, you have no right to wealth in any legal sense. 3) The right to breath is a right to life. When I mean social rights, I am talking about things like freedom of speech or the freedom to assemble.

It's great that you'd like both sets of rights. The problem is you hold social rights absolute - no exceptions, yet you do not do so for economic rights. I am yet to understand your rationale on this.

In fact, I think I know an example where you're not consistent. Are you for or against drug laws? If you are against them, then you are for unrestricted economic rights - two consenting individuals are selling drugs; it only concerns them.

P3b - Myth.

P4a - Because the programs you promote means taking rights away from a certain segment of individuals. Whether the discrimination is by race, gender or economic considerations it is just as arbitrary. There is no proof that taxing higher income people helps the economy - in fact the opposite is argued more. It is merely stipulated as such to get the programs enacted. It is about as useless of a belief as saying black people shouldn't own property because they'll demean the culture in those neighbourhoods.

Regardless, it is interesting to me that you'd rather have freedom of speech than property. Why? You are effectively a slave who can say what he wants to his master.

In P1 - I've talked about where we differ on the use of force. And yes, states' should have those rights. That's the whole point to the federalist system; to keep taxing an benefits localised. It is far easier to change, it is efficient, and if it works it becomes a model for other states. Whereas a unified program either swims or sinks the whole country.

P2b - Why is it the role of the government so subsidise research that private firms should be doing? If there is no use for the technology, what does it matter being at the forefront of it?

P3 - Yes, so on that theory; you are saying it is okay for me to steal from you to benefit my aunt; provided you have enough? As a legal argument; it isn't a strong one and it pervades the whole property rights system. This kind of logic also undermines your freedom of speech position. Why can't I shut you up, if that means it benefits someone else?

I also don't mention the founders to sway you as if it is namechecking. When I refer to the founders, again, I am talking about the reasons why they picked a federal system, why they had a bill of rights. You agree with them in those facets - i.e. freedom of speech - so I am referring to the reasonings they have applying to several facets of society where you already agree with them in some sense and they are still revered for.

P2 - But you're wrong. Not even in a socialist society can you provide for all - even if you legislate to. It is called the Economic problem - unlimited wants, but limited resources. To me, you are essentially saying: unless you can provide Utopia; you are perverting society. A standard that can't be reached but one which socialists always advertise by. It reminds me of the atheist/theist problem. One party gives you the answer you'd love to hear; even if isn't remotely true or realisable.

It's the kind of logic where you can injure someone else to steal a loaf of bread - because everyone should be able to eat. You're allowed to harm some, to benefit others. That is Utopia?

Nevermind the economic argument which shows the incredibly poor record of socialist programs.

P1 - Again,there is a difference. If I want gov to exist to protect my rights; that is fine. That gov protects all our rights and is for the benefit of all.

You are talking about a gov program which 1st impinges on the rights of some, to give to others. There is no benefit for the former, it is only for the latter. Here, gov has taken without consent for the benefit of another. The two situations aren't alike.

Libertarians want gov to exist to protect the rights of individuals. The left sees things such as education, housing and welfare as part of those rights. That is quite a big disagreement. The latter being more akin to communism for the state is confiscating or controlling resources to bring about a perceived equality. The Libertarian society doesn't.

One can be very abstract and say that anything which isnt anarchy is similar to communism in some way, but there is a great difference between our thinking and making it out to be different shades of grey misses the point.

P6b - I remember a Friedman interview where he was asked if he thought his theories had won and been effective - if you follow economics you'll know he was very responsible for bringing about the fall of Keynesian ideals. Yet he responded by going year by year, decade by decade, showing the increase of government spending in relation to GDP. And he is baffled, for everyone knows socialism/communism doesn't work; yet they are basically becoming more and more of a socialist/communist state as time goes by.

P6a - For me, the best way to give freedom yet protect from corruption is whittling that power down to the individual. It means individual freedoms - socially and economically. To vest power to aims that are hardly defined and can be abused is the surest way to tyranny. People on the left laugh at those kinds of proclamations - that what they vie for will eventuate into tyranny but I feel they are too certain for their own good and have not learned from the lessons of the past. It is like the boiling frog story. Tyranny doesn't happen overnight. It is explained away, one by one, for group by group, for the betterment of all as its rationale.

P5 - I'll say this: for all my reading in law, history, economics, etc, I have never come across a society or a situation where great power conflicted with certain duties and those powers were not abused. And that is what your revolution and subsequent revolutions in that era were about. They wanted to divide power - separation of powers being an example. It was of the utmost importance to divide federal and state laws - for example (and yet those are abused).

P4 - Well, fair play that you admit it at least. I still feel you haven't answered some questions.

Going by your logic - and tell me if I am wrong - you are saying it is more valuable to have a black man say what is on his mind than for him to own any property? I still don't understand how you make the distinction between social rights and economic rights. Why are the former different, let alone more important?

P3b - The argument is not only about keeping people's legal rights sovereign in the face of helping people. As I alluded; it is also an economic argument. Who produces jobs? The wealthy. The more they have, the more they can produce and the more they do that the more it benefits society. It is not just about keeping profits for profit's sake. It is that in the end, capital in their hands is far more beneficial to society than capital in the hands of government - or those that do not have the skills necessary to create more wealth.

To put it in a nut shell; you'd argue you need health care for all - as is essential in your society. I would argue, that is the surest way to bankrupt that society. But I'd argue, the best way is to provide an environment where society can produce so much that the price of health care is cheap enough for all to afford it.