Libertarianism in practice

[FlashDangerpants]

What say have you got in who other persons sell their property to?

The opening asks for a picture of a working Libertarian community, not one just startin' out. The minarchy I'm describin' is seasoned, been thru it's start up period. Only folks livin' it are folks, well, like me.

Okay while we wait for you to do that unpacking think in the other thread. ~We're back to the issue of how outsiders can stage a hostile takeover and subvert your society.

You've set the scene above, you've overthrown the old order in a revolution, and now you have purged the counterrevolutionary elements and the other undesirables. So far so Stalin.

That means that you will have encouraged a large number of your landholders to sell up and leave town before you came for them in the night like you did for the shysters. Therefore the question of who sells their property is answered, it doesn't have to be the people who you say would never sell, it's all the others that you were expelling anyway.

We seem to have found that the retailers of narcotics aren't breaking any of your 3 laws. So that part of the tale stands. Other properties are purchased by others who see your little town as a place to get away from social and economic restrictions everywhere else. Some of them are a Christian sex cult much like the Duggars perhaps, and the Scientologists are bound to want in just for the tax breaks.

Somebody else buys in to open up a gambling establishment, perhaps specialising in dog tearing each other apart and cock fighting. Perhaps this is controversial, possibly not all of your inhabitants agree with your position that such things are absolutely not immoral. But nobody is allowed to do anything about it, because all these disparate outsiders have an interest in working together to avoid all the free persons that all think alike from judging them.

So the Duggars and the cock fighter, the biker gang with the meth warehouse, the man-vs-animal pornographer, and all these other shady bastards will always team up even if they find each other disgusting, for fear of one domino falling and taking the rest with it.

Thus your legal system is perverted.

[henry quirk]

Thus your legal system is perverted.

Since the legal system is only about determining if life, liberty, or property has been violated, then determinin' consequence if violation is proven: if none of the parties you mention actually ever murder, or enslave, or steal, why would any be inclined to pevert the court of last resort?

The druggist (maker/seller/user) is free to make/sell/use and others are free ostracize him.

The sex cultist (of any stripe) is free to do whatever it is he does and others are free to not associate with him.

The cock or dog fighter is free to stage and profit from his displays and others are free to not participate.

The pornographer is free to movie-make and others are free not pay for his productions.

These folks, like anyone else in the Free Zone, are bound only to respect and adhere to the charter they signed, a charter which doesn't prohibit drug makin'/sellin'/use or creative sexual expression or use of animals or filming the sez acts of consentin' adults (with or without animals).

The perversion of the court, which would be preceded by the adulteration of the Free Zone, happens when its citizens choose to no longer recognize the 3 or to abide the charter.

For example: Miss Peabody finds one or more of the fellows above, as you say, immoral, and she's not content to simply not associate with such folks. She's free to plead her case in court. The burden is on her. She has to evidence that murder, enslavement, or theft has occurred.

This, of course, is where the perversion occurs, you might say, with money bein' thrown at the arbiter to rule one way or another. But: isn't that the possibility in any legal system? Are courts in the U.S. or U.K. immune to such perversions? Seems to me a simple system with clear categories and sub-categories of crime (as dictated by the 3rd line) is less prone to subversion than what either of us is saddled with now.

The minarchy is a human endeavor. I believe it's a better one, but it can never be a perfect one.

As I say: the minarchy fails when its people lose sight of the principles that undergird it. This is no different than any nation, large or small.

Anyway, Miss Peabody...

If she wins (proves murder, slavery, or theft) then somebody faces a consequence which could be merely an individual matter or the shuttin' down of the entire endeavor.

If she loses: then she needs to go about her business and boycott those folks, not do business with those folks, talk badly, but not slander, those folks.

Anything else (beside packin' her bags and leavin' the Free Zone) might very well be a violation of the charter and 3.

you've overthrown the old order in a revolution

That's certainly a possibility. Imagine if progressivism actually dominates the U.S. (actually only dominatin' the seats of political and cultural power). Someone like yourself would get hard-on over such a thing, but a large number of folks in the middle of country and livin' outside the major cities would not. It's entirely feasible some section or sections of the U.S. might go to town on progressives, socialists, state capitalists, and others. I would prefer it otherwise, but yeah folks who are, or are who perceived to be, hobblers of freedom might very well end up swingin' gently in the breeze.

unpacking..in the other thread

I expect to post this evening.

[FlashDangerpants]

Thus your legal system is perverted.

Since the legal system is only about determining if life, liberty, or property has been violated, then determinin' consequence if violation is proven: if none of the parties you mention actually ever murder, or enslave, or steal, why would any be inclined to pevert the court of last resort?

The druggist (maker/seller/user) is free to make/sell/use and others are free ostracize him.

The sex cultist (of any stripe) is free to do whatever it is he does and others are free to not associate with him.

The cock or dog fighter is free to stage and profit from his displays and others are free to not participate.

The pornographer is free to movie-make and others are free not pay for his productions.

These folks, like anyone else in the Free Zone, are bound only to respect and adhere to the charter they signed, a charter which doesn't prohibit drug makin'/sellin'/use or creative sexual expression or use of animals or filming the sez acts of consentin' adults (with or without animals).

The perversion of the court, which would be preceded by the adulteration of the Free Zone, happens when its citizens choose to no longer recognize the 3 or to abide the charter.

Cool. Public opinion abroad is scandalised by your willingness to harbour a cult that is suspected of abusing their own children, a man who has sex with donkeys and sells the videos to internet perverts, and so on. But the thing they most despise is being lectured about morals by the people who allow this to happen in their midst, that apparently is intollerable.

Now you are regarded as a bandit nation by your neighbours.They demand that you evict the drug barons. Their army, considerably more expensive and equipped with the sort of weapons that require billion dollar R&D programs is now in place. You cannot import medicines or food. So some more people now wish to leave, htey didn't realise that living the minarchist lifestyle would require quite this level of sacrifice. Luckily some new guys have made their way into town and are offering to buy property at a reasonable price under the circumstances. They are completely willing to sign the decree.

For example: Miss Peabody finds one or more of the fellows above, as you say, immoral, and she's not content to simply not associate with such folks. She's free to plead her case in court. The burden is on her. She has to evidence that murder, enslavement, or theft has occurred.

This, of course, is where the perversion occurs, you might say, with money bein' thrown at the arbiter to rule one way or another. But: isn't that the possibility in any legal system? Are courts in the U.S. or U.K. immune to such perversions? Seems to me a simple system with clear categories and sub-categories of crime (as dictated by the 3rd line) is less prone to subversion than what either of us is saddled with now.

If cock fighting and donkey fucking aren't crimes, I would suggest your criminal code is inadequate personally. But you do you. However, with your juries stacked with these people, who aren't minarchists like you, they are just opportunists who signed a piece of paper, you can't properly enforce your 3 laws.

So ... is it time now for a new purge of the faithless? If it helps, when you assemble that lynch mob to get rid of the naughty intruders, the meth cook and the cock fighting dude are happy to be with you, they are actually politically commited minarchists just living their best lives and doing what they love.

The minarchy is a human endeavor. I believe it's a better one, but it can never be a perfect one.

I am saying that your's can't because you have created a recipe for a capricious legal system.

It would be simple, robust, and largely incorruptible.

[Belinda]

Henry, you say "responsibility". To whom should one hold oneself responsible?

To himself. In context: the self-incapacitated is self-responsible. He'll pay the price for his bad choices, one way or another, cuz those are his bad choices.

I must say I agree. Our responsibility as parents is to try to ensure our kids make good choices.

What if we live in a city slum where there are gangs of feral youths and no good school or policing?

[promethean75]

"What if we live in a city slum where there are gangs of feral youths and no good school or policing?"

Damn straight. Keep the pressure on em, B.

What's a good choice for lil Jerome here, Henry? Cain't find a job, teachers are all underpaid idiots with no real ambition to teach, and his moms is smokin crack in the trap down the street.

[henry quirk]

What if we live in a city slum where there are gangs of feral youths and no good school or policing?

Is such a person self-responsible? Is that the question, B? If so: yeah, he is.


What's a good choice for lil Jerome here, Henry?

To survive it and leave it, P.

[Skepdick]

All the strains fail with scale.

Why?

For all sorts of social, psychological and logistical reasons.

[henry quirk]

Your examples, flash, are the equivalent of sayin' your house would never survive a forest fire, so don't build in the forest or, even worse, never build a house.

Public opinion abroad is scandalised by your willingness to harbour a cult that is suspected of abusing their own children, a man who has sex with donkeys and sells the videos to internet perverts, and so on.

Nah. Other nations are too busy fryin' their own fish to pay that much attention to the goings-on of a nation that minds its own business and keeps its hands to itself.

But the thing they most despise is being lectured about morals by the people who allow this to happen in their midst, that apparently is intollerable.

Except for the Miss Peabodys (who've taken off for less free-circumstances) the good folks of the Free Zone aren't lecturin'. They're declinin' to transact with overt slavers (pretty much every gov in existsnce), sure, but no lecturin' is necessary on their part.

Now you are regarded as a bandit nation by your neighbours.

Cuz their citizens keep tryin' to immigrate to the Free Zone.

They demand that you evict the drug barons.

Translation: stop bein' so free! You're makin' us look bad!

Their army, considerably more expensive and equipped with the sort of weapons that require billion dollar R&D programs is now in place.

Where do you think all that hardware came from? Guns, weapons, are encouraged in the minarchy. By the time I began my description of it in this thread the Free Zone was, as I say, seasoned. Every manufacturer of armaments is a well-established Free Zone enterprise. Couple that with the militia (which is everyone) and my people will tell your people bring it on. Israel ain't got nuthin' on us.

You cannot import medicines or food.

Why wouldn't the minarchy not have medicine production in-house? We have thrivin' meth production, so why not everything else? Same with food. And as we're, accordin' to you, one of the leadin' sources of illicit drugs in the world, I imagine the palms of elected officials in all them outraged nations have been well-greased by us. There will lots of noise from those elected folks to placate their outraged publics that sumthin' is bein' done, but there will be no embargoes, no gatherin' of forces on our border.

So some more people now wish to leave

Probably not. The Free Zone's been thru its start period, it's seasoned, its citizens already figured out how to build fire-proof houses. Anyone who woulda left, woulda been long gone. It's a nation of eleutheromaniacs.

It would be simple, robust, and largely incorruptible.: yep, the justice system would be, which, of course, is not to say it wouid be perfect.

I would suggest your criminal code is inadequate personally.

You haven't demonstrated that. All you've done is say you can't build there and not-so-artfully ignored forest management and fire-proofin'. You've highlighted the worst aspects of human nature and ignored the best. You nay-say'd, but haven't refuted.

you can't properly enforce your 3 laws

Sure we can: we don't have 100,000 self-conflictin' laws; we have 3 coherent, complimentary laws. Easy-peasy.

[henry quirk]

All the strains fail with scale.

Why?

For all sorts of social, psychological and logistical reasons.

gosh, what a clear, concise explanation of why libertarianism fails to scale up

thanks, guy!

[henry quirk]

Flash,

Just wanna say: you've done me, are doin' me, a solid in this thread, cuz you're makin' me think about what a workin', established, minarchy might look like. And in thinkin' I''m refinin' my notions.

Thanks, guy.



-----

I only have so many good words in me at a time, and I believe I've shot my load for the day, in this thread.

I'll continue the unpackin' tomorrow.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Tell me how Liberty is supposed to work: paint me a picture of a working Libertarian community, society, nation if the citizens, workers, etc. got it right.

I don't wanna read theory, no: I wanna read your vision of application.

A world without you hypocritical pommy fuck heads.

[Belinda]

What if we live in a city slum where there are gangs of feral youths and no good school or policing?

Is such a person self-responsible? Is that the question, B? If so: yeah, he is.


What's a good choice for lil Jerome here, Henry?

To survive it and leave it, P.

My question was to try to edge your thinking towards how some people have fewer free choices than others. Some people have no choices at all. I think it is natural for humans to want to be responsible for their own choices.

[FlashDangerpants]

Your examples, flash, are the equivalent of sayin' your house would never survive a forest fire, so don't build in the forest or, even worse, never build a house.

Public opinion abroad is scandalised by your willingness to harbour a cult that is suspected of abusing their own children, a man who has sex with donkeys and sells the videos to internet perverts, and so on.

Nah. Other nations are too busy fryin' their own fish to pay that much attention to the goings-on of a nation that minds its own business and keeps its hands to itself.

But the thing they most despise is being lectured about morals by the people who allow this to happen in their midst, that apparently is intollerable.

Except for the Miss Peabodys (who've taken off for less free-circumstances) the good folks of the Free Zone aren't lecturin'. They're declinin' to transact with overt slavers (pretty much every gov in existsnce), sure, but no lecturin' is necessary on their part.

Now you are regarded as a bandit nation by your neighbours.

Cuz their citizens keep tryin' to immigrate to the Free Zone.

They demand that you evict the drug barons.

Translation: stop bein' so free! You're makin' us look bad!

You don't think that anyone else has any sort of point being worried that you permit all sorts of cruelties and abuses on your territory, and just write it all off as the price of freedom? That after all the thing that makes such people want to come and live among you.

Their army, considerably more expensive and equipped with the sort of weapons that require billion dollar R&D programs is now in place.

Where do you think all that hardware came from? Guns, weapons, are encouraged in the minarchy. By the time I began my description of it in this thread the Free Zone was, as I say, seasoned. Every manufacturer of armaments is a well-established Free Zone enterprise. Couple that with the militia (which is everyone) and my people will tell your people bring it on. Israel ain't got nuthin' on us.

Firearms, sure, you would have several factories for those I assume. It doesn't seem like you have the legal framework that would provide contractual certainty for a complex armaments industry to work within though.

And you definitely don't have the tax base to fund purchase of drones, satellites, etc for your militia, which appears to be self armed? So I don't think you have much beyond infrantry in pickup trucks. You'd be more like the Taliban than the Israelis.

You cannot import medicines or food.

Why wouldn't the minarchy not have medicine production in-house? We have thrivin' meth production, so why not everything else? Same with food. And as we're, accordin' to you, one of the leadin' sources of illicit drugs in the world, I imagine the palms of elected officials in all them outraged nations have been well-greased by us. There will lots of noise from those elected folks to placate their outraged publics that sumthin' is bein' done, but there will be no embargoes, no gatherin' of forces on our border.

Nobody would invest capital to build a complex pharmacuetical production facility in your region for the simple reason that you have no regulatory bodies to certify anything. They wouldn't be able to export any product so such a facility would only be able to service the local market, whereas the same thing in the next country along can service your market plus all the others because that would fall under the FDA or some similar body to inspect.

So some more people now wish to leave

Probably not. The Free Zone's been thru its start period, it's seasoned, its citizens already figured out how to build fire-proof houses. Anyone who woulda left, woulda been long gone. It's a nation of eleutheromaniacs.

So did you take over a city and force most of its population to leave, or did you take over a swamp and only allow the right sort in?

Is it not Utopian to assume that as these people face new challenges, none of them would waver in their commitment? Did your new politics create these perfected persons, or did you only admit the perfect to your heaven?

It would be simple, robust, and largely incorruptible.: yep, the justice system would be, which, of course, is not to say it wouid be perfect.

I would suggest your criminal code is inadequate personally.

You haven't demonstrated that. All you've done is say you can't build there and not-so-artfully ignored forest management and fire-proofin'. You've highlighted the worst aspects of human nature and ignored the best. You nay-say'd, but haven't refuted.

you can't properly enforce your 3 laws

Sure we can: we don't have 100,000 self-conflictin' laws; we have 3 coherent, complimentary laws. Easy-peasy.

So far you haven't expanded from your 3 lines of law to cover very much. You still only have the rule about not depriving others of property unless they first deprive other others of property.

The role, nature and status of the appeal remains in question.

Ignoring the bad bits of human nature because you hope everything would work out if you just gave them an ideal political situation to inhabit is supposed to be the failing of Marxism, you've made that point many times. Your minarchism can admit no greed, malice, deception or cowardice, so you predicate it on all of those people having left. But those are normal components of human nature.

[henry quirk]

My question was to try to edge your thinking towards how some people have fewer free choices than others.

This is obvious, B.

If I'm straitjacketed, blinfolded, gagged, my legs bound together, in a steamer trunk, sinkin' to the bottom of a lake, obviously I have fewer choices available to me than if I'm not straitjacketed, blinfolded, gagged, my legs bound together, in a steamer trunk, sinkin' to the bottom of a lake.


Some people have no choices at all.

Rarely is this case. Even in the lil scenario I just offered, I have a choice: go bug fuck crazy in fear, or, get ahold of myself and face the inevitable with a measure of dignity. Not much of a choice, I grant you, but a choice still.

Thing is: such scenarios are far from common. Lil Jerome, for example, can put his shoes on and leave. His future is uncertain (aren't all our futures uncertain?) but he's not committed to stayin' in his dismal circumstance.


I think it is natural for humans to want to be responsible for their own choices.

I know it is. Therein lies part of the problem for TPTB (actual and wannabe). It's damn difficult to direct folks who, by nature, wanna self-direct. They have to be fooled into it if you want minimal resistance. One way to achieve this is to teach folks how small they are, how little control they have over their circumstances. Convince them that true self-direction only comes thru some other-controlled process (education, for example) and should anyone start down that road, keep movin' the goal posts, never let 'em actually cross the line.

Erode natural self-efficacy, intentionally complicate everything: keep Jerome locked in a room with no walls, or locked doors (then Jerome goes on the dole, is a means to their ends).

Freedom is frightening to TPTB. Free men don't need them, don't respect them, don't listen to them, don't fear them.

Jerome, walkin' away, to an uncertain future: that nixes them. They can't have it. They need impotence on our part to exercise, or pretend to have, potency.

[henry quirk]

You don't think that anyone else has any sort of point being worried that you permit all sorts of cruelties and abuses on your territory, and just write it all off as the price of freedom?

So: how many folks with say-so are worried about the cruelties and abuses in China? Disney is in bed with them. Their products dominate markets. Govs support trade with 'em. China is a friggin' slaver-state folks with say-so turn a blind eye to and profit from but you'd have me believe the Free Zone would be the debbil everyone would rally to stop.

If the Free Zone were opposed it would be becuz of the freedom it offers. You can crow about abuses and cruelties of animals in the Free Zone all you like but till you amass on China's borders, till you sanction and embargo the world's preeminent slaver-state, you're just a hypocrite.

It doesn't seem like you have the legal framework that would provide contractual certainty for a complex armaments industry to work within though.

Yeah, you keep sayin that and keep failin' to demonstrate why this is the case.

you definitely don't have the tax base to fund purchase of drones, satellites, etc for your militia, which appears to be self armed?

Since pop numbers haven't come up: this is baseless. And Musk loves us: we give him and others exactly what they need to develop reliable, robust, and comparatively inexpensive technology to get up and out. that's why we're establishin' a colony on the Moon and have begun capturin' and mining near Earth asteroids. The Orion-drive spacecraft (the whole reason we're on the Moon) we'll build will give us the Solar System.

You folks, you'll still be cryin' cuz you're leaders tell you we fuck dogs and smoke crank.

You'd be more like the Taliban than the Israelis.

Mebbe so.

Nobody would invest capital to build a complex pharmacuetical production facility in your region for the simple reason that you have no regulatory bodies to certify anything

That's exactly why they'd flock to us. We don't hobble and expensify their businesses: we free them up. The regulation is self-imposed cuz they understand if their product kills someone, they're on the hook.

They wouldn't be able to export any product

China, the preeminent slaver-state, has no troubles in that. The Free Zone wouldn't either.

So did you take over a city...

I touched on that up-thread.

Is it not Utopian to assume that as these people face new challenges, none of them would waver in their commitment?

Touched on that up-thread.

new politics...perfected persons

Freedom ain't new; the people aren't perfect (just free).

So far you haven't expanded from your 3 lines of law to cover very much.

Those three lines cover it all. I don't imagine, no matter much I unbox, you'll ever see that.

The role, nature and status of the appeal remains in question.

As I say: you've made me think...appeals is one thing I'm still mullin' over.

Ignoring the bad bits of human nature

I haven't. I've reframed them, put them in proper perspective. They're accounted for.

Your minarchism can admit no greed, malice, deception or cowardice

Sure it can. Your problem is all you see is greed, malice, deception or cowardice.

those are normal components of human nature.

But not the only components, and not the components evidenced by most folks, most of the time.

There is, of course, one slice of humanity dominated by greed, malice, deception or cowardice. I talk a little about them just up-thread, in my response to B. These are the ones who truly can't abide the Free Zone.