X-Message-Number: 23115 Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 02:41:10 -0800 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Funding Jerry's non gov gov/Orwellian act irony References: <> Sorry for the lateness of this post as it is now a couple days from the original post but I wasn't feeling well after two days in a row being up and about for xmas shopping. >Message #23100 >From: >Subject: Message # 23089 (Mike Perry) >Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 09:24:13 +0000 > > > <snip> >Again you use the term "radical" Libertarianism. I don't understand what is radical about the ideas outlined by the Libertarian >National Committee. I also fail to see how a Libertarian government would decay into anarchy. It would still contain a defense >department, a supreme court, probably the C.I.A. and on a local level we would still have the criminal justice system. > Umm, ok, and without taxes these will be supported how? Will we, for instance, pass the hat to cover the expense of a new B2 Stealth Bomber? When it becomes necessary for someone to do the job of passing the hat will we resent him as the tax collector? Will this B2 funds collector hat passer be paid for the job or in order to not have another useless parasite living off the people's money he will have to do so as a volunteer for free on his otherwise free time away from providing for his own needs and family? Will everyone have to pay into the passed hat or can anyone opt out? Of course if anyone can opt out what's to prevent too many opting out and not enough funds for the B2 being collected? Or should it be ok for only a few support the defense of the entire country, this seems unfair at best? Will a new law/regulation then need to be passed that says everyone must pay into the passed hat for the B2, or else what, some kind of coercion to see to it everyone does? At some point this seems to start looking a lot like what we have now. > To >descend into anarchy would require an armed revolt by a large sector of the population. > Not exactly. It only requires an in general lack of respect for the needs of others than oneself and the lack of adequate law enforcement. The problems that Mike and I and others see with anarcho Libertarianism is that on the one hand there is a total disdain for taxation and yet on the other hand somehow almost if by magic either everyone will obey unwritten laws (since regulations are also held in disdain and laws are regulations) and have complete mutual respect for all thereby alleviating a need for law enforcement, a highly unlikely scenario, or there will be minimal law enforcement but supported how if not by taxation? Privately? So if I have a pile of money I can hire police protection and have the police as my own security guards and body guards but someone without my means cannot. I suppose the one with means has more to steal but it seems to me and anyone with a logical mind that the path of least resistance is the easier path for criminals to take. Easier to steal from many with no protection and little to take from but still something, than taking from a few of means possessing private armies. > That would be a bloody event >indeed! I will concede that could happen under any system including the present one, so I fail to see that as a reasonable >argument against Libertarianism > >You seem to defend the present system by pointing out that it prevented Josef Stalin from annexing the U.S. That is the >primary (if not only) function of the federal government. Under the libertarians that would remain the primary function. > Funded how if not by taxation by coercion? >Again, >I fail to see that as a reasonable argument against the Libertarian party assuming control over the federal government. > >You make reference to the "natural way" of people. I tend to agree with you on this point. Most people I know if ask would >agree that government should control building decisions, zoning, should provide welfare (just make it "fair"), should require >people to attach metal plates to their vehicles and pay extortion before driving on roads, should build and operate schools, >roads, fight a war on drugs and prostitution, should provide housing for the poor. I could go on and on. The fact that there >are several thousand registered libertarians in the U.S. and in other countries, that there exist in Washington the Cato >institute and a large volume of libertarian literature exist by several different authors should suggest that the "natural way" >might not be universal. > >You say things might not work the way libertarians imagine. This cannot be proved but if Thomas Jefferson, etal were >returned to life and introduced to our current government, they would probably feel that something went wrong. It could be >said that government the way they imagined "didn't work" and I would strongly agree! It was because people with the >"natural way" you mentioned learned that they had the power to live off other people's earnings. > I suppose this includes the proposed minimal government you seem to think will prevent degradation to lawlessness in libertarian world? Or should they act as government people only on their free time away from their real job? Maybe only the independantly wealthy could afford to govern without, as you say, "live off other people's money". Then we could have a truly Republican administration, hmm, somewhat like GWB and company. > >It is true that Socialism doesn't jibe with human nature, but the system survived in the U.S.S.R. for 70 years and still survives >to a greater or lesser degree in most countries. Does the fact that it still exist mean that Socialism "works"? > >The Federal Government is in your life from the time you lie down on a government approved mattress to the time you >awake and take a shit on a government mandated toilet. The fact that you can send these messages without censorship >means nothing. You should listen to talk radio from time to time and learn what the feds. have tried. So far they have been >defeated but they will NEVER stop trying! They would like nothing better than to monitor everyone's e-mail and the "Patriot >Act" i.e. the Orwellian Act has just made that goal a lot easier!! > I'm almost at a loss for words reading this. I suppose it is upon me again to point out to you Jerry how illogical you are yet again being. Let me remind you that the "Patriot Act" that you apparently revile, as do I -- your use of the term "Orwellian Act" to describe it so well points this out -- was proposed by the G.W. Bush administration and if elected to another term will certainly attempt yet again another expansion of said act as they did with "Patriot act II". Fortunately people like me and other members of the ACLU helped put a stop to that piece of human and individual rights violating nonsense. How is it that you cannot see that the man you have said that you WILL VOTE FOR is again the very one that would if he could impose yet more encroachments upon your and our personal freedom, probably even enact a law against cryonics. Don't forget Ms. Farrel's appeal to GWB, and the fact that TW was supposedly such a friend of the Bush family, for him to do something just like that. I dare say if it were possible to today reanimate a cryonaut this administration would with the blessing of Leon Kass immediately enact a law against cryonics on the grounds only GAWD is supposed to resurrect people. Jerry, "friend", please take a good look inward and readjust your thinking. It is not reasonable to object so strongly to things done by this usurper GWB and still propose to support him. It is anathema to your personal survival and that of this group, cryonicists/immortalists, that you claim allegiance to. The small prize of the tax cut and whatever homage that is to Libertarianism (let's face it that is its real value to you, yes?) that GWB managed to pass is in no way worth more loss of personal freedom and individual human rights. It is especially not worth the absolute banishment of whole areas of science that we need for our goal as immortalists. Sure, these areas of science will be brought back eventually, probably by a Democrat administration or maybe even a Libertarian one if the incredibly long odds against a Libertarian being elected are brought to zero, but by then it may well be too late for you and I. We cannot afford another four years of this luddite imbecilic administration. <more snippage> >You say if coercion was eliminated we would have anarchy. A Libertarian government would not completely eliminate coercion. >It would use severe coercion against foreign aggressors and locals when an attempt to violate someone's personal freedom >occurred! > Please explain in detail how this is to be affected without taxation voluntary or otherwise. > >I would like to see a national L.P. revolution, you would not...we disagree. Have you heard of the Free State Project? If it >succeeds in becoming a reality, we will see the Libertarian experiment tried. Best wishes, I will see you Monday Dec. 12th, >Jerry > > I, with Mike, am not in any way against the ideal of Libertarianism. I just think it has been tried and failed. What we had before 1900 was in many ways quite laissez faire. With Mike's kevlar comment I get a vision of the wild west and it's ironic that in the wild west the system of government was basically Libertarian. When local societies got tired of people treading on the rights of others willy nilly with their guns they enacted laws/regulations outlawing the ownership of unregistered guns in the city limits without permits and registration of said guns thus identifying the owner as a potential user of said gun and first to investigate should an incident occur in said individual's proximity thus infringing on individual rights for the greater good of society's other members, case in point among many is New York City in the 1890's. I'm not an advocate of gun regulation, quite the opposite, I'm only pointing out that society will tend to make laws when they feel that all else has failed. I agree with Mike 100%. I would love for the libertarian system of non governance to work. I've always lived my personal life in means very close to it. I've always been anti authoritarian, lived by my own rules but respecting those of society that make sense to me and out of self interest to stay out of prison avoided countermanding too many of some of society's rules that I disagree with philosophically while trying where possible to affect change in them. I can definitely see where the minimal set of laws would work, basically one, 'don't tread on me and I won't tread on you', if everyone were moral, agreed upon one set of morals and perpetuated such morality in their offspring. The problem is that right now we are not all moral and do not agree upon one set of morals. Furthermore, the single law of, 'don't tread on me and I won't tread on you', breaks down as soon as someone immorally tries to get around it for either greed or insanity or necessity and does so in a unique manner that exceeds the bounds of the one law. When this happens a rider to the one law must be adopted which says, 'don't tread on me and I won't tread on you, recognizing that X manner of treading is exceptionally egregious'. This rider then is a regulation and in creeps the regulations all over again. In other words a list of all things that if perpetrated would violate someone's rights directly or indirectly in some manner is a list of laws and there's no difference between such a list and regulations. A case in point would be the Clean Air Act. Violation of this act violates my personal right to breath untainted, as far as possible, clean air for the benefit of my health and to simply continue living. Some see the Clean Air Act as a violation of some businesses right to conduct business freely without hindrances from excessive government regulation. Some feel that a free market would lead to these businesses self policing in effect a Clean Air policy of their own. The fact that their exists a Clean Air Act at all is proof that one had to be enacted because there was need and no business was self policing in the absence of said act. Further proof is the huge amount of money spent every year by these businesses in lobbying the government to reduce the Clean Air Act to nothing if they had their way. How can individuals protect their right to breath clean air without the help of a rule for businesses to follow and a government to coerce compliance with the rule? Boycott? You proposed boycotting as a means to oppose monopolization, that people could band together and sacrifice a little by doing without certain goods to place pressure on the monopoly to do as the group wished. Did you consider that this might be difficult to do if the monopoly was for basic needs such as food and water? I wish we could live without government coercion and that there was no need for hugely expensive defense against whatever outside threat there may be. I just don't think now is when that will be possible. We are not yet born with a fully intact set of morals and an instinct for abiding by them or being naturally honest or naturally good. Until we are, and I fully believe one day we will be, I find it doubtful that we will have true anarcho self governance any time before such a time as our intellect is modified upwards and insanity and irrationality in all forms cured and whatever else expunged that impedes us all acting morally with respect for ourselves and all others James -- Member: Cryonics Institute of Michigan http://www.cryonics.org The Immortalist Society http://www.cryonics.org/info.html The Society for Venturism http://www.venturist.org Immortality Institute http://www.imminst.org MY WEBSITE: http://www.davidpascal.com/swayze/ Signature Memetic Virus--The worst enemy of those who now or will need medical care is the uninformed politician or moral fanatic who proscribe what doctors are allowed to prescribe and research, with the consent of their patients. Those who understand this are strongly encouraged to modify this to fit their personality, and add this to their signature file, and organize to recover our freedom from Big Brother. For those who wait until they are sick, it will be too late. Those who suffer from diseases which might have been cured by advanced medical research or schedule 1 drugs banned by Big Brother, have the right to hold accountable those who sat on their hands or worse, deferred their responsibility for personal and humanity's survival to unseen mystical agents, while they remained ill and dying. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23115