Going for the longest strawman argument on the GW boards GZ?

Lets get something strait, Somalia is in a state of Anarchy, and there is a world of difference between Anarchy and Libertarianism.  The key difference is that libertarians still believe in a government, and that the government should be authorized to prevent the use of violence and coercion against its population.  So no violent gangs roaming the streets, no militias charging road tolls, no clans or warlords viaing for power.  Just because Somalia has free enterprise doesn't automatically make it a libertarian state.

The key difference between military/police protections and general regulatory protections is the use of force.  Force is required to defend against foreign invaders, prevent street gangs from ruling the streets, as well as prevent murder, rape and other crimes.  Force is not necessary to purchase quality consumer goods or provide assistance to the poor, although you can still do both with force.

The underlying philosophy behind libertarians is to confine the use of force to a single entity, the government, and otherwise keep it out of all other activity.  Thus, the government is limited as much as possible to only engaging in activities that require the use of force and in those activities necessary to keep the government under our control, and everybody else is prevented from using force.

The end result is an enviroment free from violence, in which people can interact with each other and live their lives as they choose, provided they don't resort to violence, threat, coercion, etc.  This is radically different from an enviroment run by competing military factions.

tell me bucko why is the government any better than private militias?

Well, not every government will be better than private militias.  But a good government will be better than private militias because it will be under, or at least mostly under, the control of the people.  And as long as an individual does not use force to harm another individual, he will never have to fear threats or violence from a good government.  This can not be said of private militia.

where does this inherent trust come from?

It doesn't.  That is why we have things like the Constitution, Seperation of Powers, a court system, limited police powers, etc.

wow... I just went through and skimmed the first two pages of this topic and then sat down and read the last two.... and wow, I forget how differant peoples political views are.

Now I figure its my turn to throw in my two cents and hope I dont get shot by crazy neo-nazi's and their semi automatic weapondry




I just want to say, I love America, I am proud to be an American

But after saying that I will admit we have some serious problems. These problems are long term problems that have been predictiable but have been ignored until now, and it is a short matter of time before they catch up with us and create more serious problems. With an increase in wage in equality and a decreasing middle class we have seen a great tear in political views especially when it comes to taxes and federal programs. Sure many polititions fall in this smaller government, free trade system, however there is a reason for that. Money

We live in a country that has very few formal requirements for any elected office. However we have one major informal requirement, it takes money. It takes millions of dollars to campaign for president, and hundreds of thousands to run for the senate or house. And the people willing to risk this kind of money on an election Generally come from the upper class. They have the resources avaliable to them.

And thats where the main problem lies. People who come from money havnt had to use government programs for assistance. Growing up their families never had to collect welfare, or food stamps or WIC when money got tight. Medical insurance was well within their means, Education costs were less of a burden. But because the way our economy has shifted and because there is this decreasing sector of middle class citizens and increase of people underneath the poverty line, the government needs to take more action.

Look at other countries. Most other industrialized nations have some form of social welfare that involves medical care and education system. Denmark for example ( a country I lived in for 11 months) has one of the strongest welfare systems of any industrialized nation. Free health care for all citizens and long term (non-vacation) residents, free education, Free education training for workers who have lossed their jobs, even a nationaly funded unemployment system that pays workers 60%-70% of their wages for up to 6 months, yet they still keep an unemployment rate of less than 4%

If the US just took a look at this example and the others out there, its obvious, people like Ron Paul have the wrong view about views.

-A decrease in gun laws results in a decrease in gun related violence--FALSE, infact the opposite is shown in every other industrialized nation
-A decrease in government taxes results in a higher standard of living--FALSE, most countries who have a higher standard of living pay much more in taxes, and because our economy is on the verge of a resession, the government should be doing more to prepare citizens
-Getting rid of Social Security will result in lower taxes--TRUE, but this must be taken with more than a grain of salt. Sure the higher income families have less to worry about but what about the 13.9% of Americans below the poverty level?

Take a step back and look at things from a logical, NOT IDEALOGICAL, standpoint. That is where people like Ron Paul and others with similar views have problems. Sure on paper there ideas sound great, but they arent.

Its like communisim, on paper it reads great, but in practice its not only impractical but borderline impossible, this is just the opposite extream.

because of "reputation based" markets the people ultimately control the companies who employ militias much like the free market and self regulation all true libertarians believe in. the same self regulation that will occur 100% no doubt after the fda is disbanded and that will be far superior to the fda which was instituted to steal money from honest companies like my own (doug beachs ecletic remedies incorporated: NEW! chemical soap bars burn through multiple layers of skin for a refreshing clean).

Militias don't require a good reputation to use force against you, as you don't have to approve of someone to comply with their demands under the threat of death.  A reputation is only required by an organization such as a business when they need the consent of the individuals they interact with.  To ensure everbody acts only through mutual consent, force must someone be removed from the equation.  Thus, a government must be established before the market enviroment libertarians desire can be properly maintained.  Before such an enviroment is properly established, the market principles cannot be realied on, and therefore you cannot put them to proper use until some means of controlling violence and establishing peace has been achieved.

who are you to decide what affairs the government meddles in and what they don't? good job dodging the question pal but it's not a suprise considering you are only a Level 5 Operating Libertarian (i am level 17). only the true libertarian market controlled by rational self actors (the population) can dictate this.

That is analagous to claiming that the market being run by supply and demand is a political ideology.  Only its not an ideology, its an economic modeling consideration.  Libertarianism is an ideology, just as Liberalism and Conservatism are, and like those ideologies, we have defined a role for government.  It just happens to be vastly more limited in Libertarianism than in most other ideologies.

by the way i dislike history and i believe it should never be considered this is why i like true ron paul supporters (young rich white people). there is no such saying "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" and i am merely mentioning this seeming jumble of words to give you a vague example of a non-existent quote. for instance ron pauls policy in no way represents a similar time in history at all and my previous reference to setting progress 100 years backwards has no basis whatsoever (p.s. i found this cool link while browsing sexypornowallpapers.com : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age )

Just because some of the changes libertarians would like to make to the government would bring it closer to how it existed a century go does not mean that society as a whole will revert to how it existed in the 1800s.  Libertarians are quite aware of the historical ramifications of the changes they plan to make, and if anything are using history as a guide to better understand how the changes they implement would effect the modern world.

there's a reason the entire civilized world does not run a government in any way shape or form related to libertarianism

For nearly two centuries the U.S. was run fairly close to libertarianism, a benefited dramatically because of it.  Hong Kong was also run in a similar manner before being returned to Chinese control, and derived similar benefit.  If there is any reason why most of the world does not run libertarianism, it is because it requires a delicate balancing act where their is a government with sufficient power to protect its people, but under sufficient control that it doesn't meddle with their lives beyond that protection.

Lawlz, Constitutionalism. Just because some things (like the Federal Reserve) don't exist in the Constitution doesn't mean they are unnecessary. Our country was ridiculously small at the point the Constitution was ratified, and has grown several times its original size since then. Regulation of funds would be... difficult, to say the least, without a federal entity to oversee operations.

And apparently abolishing the Second Bank of the United States didn't help any back in the day. Panic of 1837, anyone? It was also caused by Specie Circular, initiated by Andrew Jackson, which required money to be back up by gold and silver specie. A.K.A gold standard. Didn't work very well. And Ron Paul is (correct me if I'm wrong, please) proposing we do the same thing. Just think of how badly this would end up with the United States population several times the size it was in 1837...

Some things Ron Paul says are very interesting and admittedly may be beneficial to America, but I don't think adhering strictly to the Constitution will get us anywhere. Times have changed, and if we don't change with them, the country will be left behind. Certainly, the Constitution is the basis of our government and provides for liberties for American citizens. That doesn't mean we can't deviate from it where it is "necessary and proper" to do so.

Now, defining the "necessary and proper" clause is a big issue,  but it doesn't change the fact that many of the steps we have taken that were not fundamentally supported by the Constitution have been an improvement on the American society. The reference to The Jungle makes the perfect example. Self-correction is nigh impossible to do when companies throw safety out the window and focus on pure profit. The FDA is certainly expensive, but I think the services it provides allow me to overlook that fact. I like taking a bite out of a homemade hamburger and not having to worry about how many people have gotten sick before the industry "self-corrected" itself to make the burger safe.

Ahahaha, education. Federal standards set for education is the only reason why Florida isn't completely failing at education. Well, I mean, we are failing at education, but I'm pretty sure it would be worse if we weren't forced to met some education requirements set by the government.

I am glad we are back to arguments that both coherent and not condescending.

Lawlz, Constitutionalism. Just because some things (like the Federal Reserve) don't exist in the Constitution doesn't mean they are unnecessary. Our country was ridiculously small at the point the Constitution was ratified, and has grown several times its original size since then. Regulation of funds would be... difficult, to say the least, without a federal entity to oversee operations.

With a gold standard you essentially are not regulating funds, rather a almost constant but slowly growing level of currency is kept in circulation.  If anything, this is easier to managed than dealing with a national monetary policy.  Also, it seems that as the country grows, it becomes increasingly more difficult to regulate anything, including monetary policy, using a single central authority, as that authority must account for the increasingly complex details of the nations economy.  If anything, increased size should make decentralized regulation and self-regulation more desirable.

And apparently abolishing the Second Bank of the United States didn't help any back in the day. Panic of 1837, anyone? It was also caused by Specie Circular, initiated by Andrew Jackson, which required money to be back up by gold and silver specie. A.K.A gold standard. Didn't work very well. And Ron Paul is (correct me if I'm wrong, please) proposing we do the same thing. Just think of how badly this would end up with the United States population several times the size it was in 1837...

That is true, and abolishing the Federal Reserve could cause the same problem if we are not careful.  However, the problem in 1837 didn't simply result from backing currency by gold, it resulted from the near instantenous devaluation of currency.  A similar problem would occur if we demanded that the currency value should immediatly return to its 1913 value, in which case we would have to pull the majority of money out of circulation.  However, if the existing currency in circulation were simply backed by gold at its current value(basically backing each dollar by far less gold than in 1913), this problem can be avoided.  It won't restore the value of the dollar, but it should stop inflation, which has been allowed to proceed for almost a century.

Some things Ron Paul says are very interesting and admittedly may be beneficial to America, but I don't think adhering strictly to the Constitution will get us anywhere. Times have changed, and if we don't change with them, the country will be left behind. Certainly, the Constitution is the basis of our government and provides for liberties for American citizens. That doesn't mean we can't deviate from it where it is "necessary and proper" to do so.

But when is it necessary and proper to do so?  The downside to the necessary and proper clause is that the one clause essentially overrides the rest of the Constitution.  You can either obey all the restrictions listed in the rest of the document, or this single clause can let you disregard any section of the Constitution that is causing inconvenience at a whim.  We are  lucky the elastic clause has as of yet been directed at something fundamental, such as free speech or habeous corpus.

Also, the Constitution provides plenty of means to adapt to changes short of outright disregarding it through the elastic clause.  The Congress still has a fairly broad range of powers, and we have always managed to Amend the Constitution when it was necessary.  Furthermore, the state governments are not restricted by Article I the way that the Feds are, they can perform many of the activities that might be considered unconstitutional by a strict constructionist.  Overall, the Constitution tends to serve one major function, limit Federal government power.  This isn't much of a problem as long as you are willing to keep more of the government on the state and local level, and I would argue that state and local governments tend to be more accessible and accountable to their people.

Now, defining the "necessary and proper" clause is a big issue,  but it doesn't change the fact that many of the steps we have taken that were not fundamentally supported by the Constitution have been an improvement on the American society. The reference to The Jungle makes the perfect example. Self-correction is nigh impossible to do when companies throw safety out the window and focus on pure profit. The FDA is certainly expensive, but I think the services it provides allow me to overlook that fact. I like taking a bite out of a homemade hamburger and not having to worry about how many people have gotten sick before the industry "self-corrected" itself to make the burger safe.

If self-correction is impossible, how do explain voluntary complaince agencies like Underwriters Laboratories, or consumer information groups like the Better Business Bureau, which have performed exceptionally well.  The transition from a dangerous working enviroments in the past is often associated with increased regulation, but what about the rapid increase of wealth from the industrial revolution and continued industrial advances?  Making food safe would require a business to raise its prices, but if the consumer desires safer food, they will be willing to pay the higher prices.  The catch is, the consumer must first have enough money to buy food at a higher price, or at all to begin with.  At the beginnig of the industrial revolution, workers tended to be incredible poor and barely able to make ends meet, and would be unable to pay for these extra premiums.  However, as the revolution progressed and people became wealthier, purchasing higher quality and safer products now becomes possible.  I hold that this is much more instrumental the any form of regulation.  After all, if you can't afford safe found, it doesn't matter if someone is providing it because of a regulation or to attract business, you can't purchase it in either case.

Ahahaha, education. Federal standards set for education is the only reason why Florida isn't completely failing at education. Well, I mean, we are failing at education, but I'm pretty sure it would be worse if we weren't forced to met some education requirements set by the government.

I am not so sure, as you pointed out the education system is failing anyway.  Well parts of it anyway, there are actually many highly quality schools in Florida(my own High School included), but the quality of education often depends on the support of the local community.  That should give you a hint as to who is more effective at maintaining the quality of education. 

I am glad we are back to arguments that both coherent and not condescending.

I like to say "nondescending" because it saves characters and I grew up using DOS so that is important.

(this time is for keeps; we'll make sure those nig-nogs don't start some kind of "civil rights movement" this time)

I'm not racist or anything but I agree.

Protip: If pretty much every skinhead, white-supremacist, gun nut and generally crazy right-wing fuck takes up your banner, there is something wrong with your banner.

If 80% of my support came from pregnant women, I'd become the pregnant woman candidate, despite the fact that I am a man (who is not pregnant). Conversely, if 80% of Ron Paul's support comes from racists he is the racist candidate. Sorry, but if you make no effort to stop blatant racists from supporting you, then you obviously are glad they support you.