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Free State Project 93% Towards Goal (freestateproject.org)
Okian Warrior writes: Long term readers may recall the Free State Project, a plan to gather 20,000 liberty-minded participants and move to a low-populated state, as covered here on Slashdot. The project reached 90% of its 20,000 member goal last year with accelerated growth in recent months, and is on track to trigger the move to New Hampshire before year's end.
Should be entertaining.
I wish them luck. If nothing else, this could be very entertaining. They might even accomplish something.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
So.. 1.5% of the population... that's a powerful voting block?
Are we sure that this isn't just the New Hampshire Chamber of Commerce trying to get wealth individuals? At least in Wyoming, you'd be over 3%...
This is really a lot of hype.
Let them spend a full winter in NH and we'll see just how many stick around.
I've been following their progress from the beginning, and they're already having an effect on local politics.
A number of free staters are already a member of the NH house. They managed to get the law banning switchblades repealed. This made sense, because virtually no one gets injured by switchblades, and there's lots of situations where being able to open a knife one-handed is really useful (such as EMS and rock climbing).
They were just shy of legalizing marijuana in the last round (2 votes short of an override of the Governor's veto), they made it legal to inform juries of their right to nullification, and they've reduced the budget.
(On jury nullification: at least one person was acquitted on cannibus charges by unanimous jury vote.)
All in all, they're really having an effect. I can't wait to see what happens when the entire 20,000 get here.
"Liberty Minded" is US code word for "white male who own guns".
Drug laws are disproportionately directed at blacks. Commercial sex laws are almost exclusively directed at women. Libertarians want to repeal both.
members who sign up should document everything about their experience related to project and especially difficulties they encounter, and their motivations.
then make them publicly available. that way when members fall off, and this probably fails, future planners of this sort of thing can learn.
btw there are have been similar successful 'projects' in past; some of european colonization, cossack settlement in russia, some 19th century nationalist(actually pretty racist germen settlements in south america) etc etc
Right -- white males who want to do drugs and have commercial sex interactions with women. It's not an insult, I'm white and love whores and drugs too, but I'm not a filthy libertarian.
I at least have the common decency to want to pay for a social welfare system for all of the sex trafficked minority women that fall into this system.
I think this is a fascinating idea - but I haven't heard how they are going to address the #1 hurdle to moving to a new state: getting a job.
Do all 20k (or 0.93*20k) people have a job lined up for at least one person in their household?
Lets wait and see how many back out when the move gets triggered. There is a huge difference between signing a non-binding pledge and leaving jobs and home to move to NH.
Pick some pacific island paradise high enough MSL to avoid global warming .if you're a skeptic, consider it an insurance policy just in case you're wrong, because no true libertarian makes absolute declarations otherwise they wouldn't believe in the need for free speech, yes? Buy it outright or take it and be prepared to defend it. My nom nom nominations:
http://whenonearth.net/15-unin...
http://mentalfloss.com/article...
http://webecoist.momtastic.com...
http://www.touropia.com/uninha...
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.u...
http://gregology.net/2010/04/i...
You are a libertarian. You just don't like other libertarians. I don't really like other libertarians for the same sorts of reasons you probably don't. Or maybe you aren't a libertarian. It's just a meaningless label that's been co-opted by the republican party anyway.
In any case there is no reason you can't support a social welfare system and be a libertarian. Libertarians aren't anarchists (or at least they shouldn't be). Libertarians should believe in government doing the jobs that government can do better than the private sector, and libertarians are free to disagree on which jobs those are.
There are plenty of stupid shitty selfish libertarians, and there are plenty of compassionate and thoughtful libertarians, just like every other political persuasion. Although it seems as though lately many of the libertarians I can actually relate to, have started to shy away from that label as it has recently become rather toxic.
In any case, all I want to point out is that "libertarian" is a very broad philosophy that encompasses more than just the dickhead republicans who are the loudest self proclaimed libertarians at the moment. Although I would argue that you aren't a real libertarian if you don't support liberty for people outside your own demographic (e.g. gays, women, minorities, muslims, atheists, recreational drug users, polygamists, etc). It's easy to support liberty for yourself.
May I suggest Dumblandia?
There is no "black drug". Drug choice follows class boundaries. Prosecution of same follows race boundaries.
Apparently "liberty-minded" means "interested in co-opting" someone else's constituency,
" Libertarians should believe in government doing the jobs that government can do better than the private sector, and libertarians are free to disagree on which jobs those are."
That is probably the most sensible statement that I've ever seen a modern Libertarian make. I used to be a classic Libertarian, btw.
These days I'm what may be termed a Pragmatic Socialist. Pragmatic Socialists should believe in government doing the jobs that government can do better than the private sector, and Pragmatic Socialists are free to disagree on which jobs those are. It's the very basis of what the Social Contract _is_.
If you haven't read it yet, I recommend "Letters From An American Farmer", by de Crevecoeur. It is a first-hand account of the period before and during the American Revolution, by somebody who was originally French, and brought up on the principles of the Enlightenment, before it was called that.
de Crevecoeur could have ended up bitter, but he didn't.
Quite apart from the question of whether this is feasible, I think am important question is whether this is morally right? People who have lived in a cplace for generations generally get up in arms if a large group - say, muslims - suddenly stream in and want to change things; the same will apply with any other large group. They are simply newcomers, who want to impose their views on people. And, of course, isn't there something contradictory in trying to impose "Freedom" on anybody?
"Republican who smokes pot."
You should read more about libertarianism/classical liberalism and Austrian economics - I suggest starting with a paper called Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard. He also has a book called For a New Liberty that I recommend. You can download all of his and other influential libertarian thinker's writings for free from the Mises Institute website. While you're at it, read up on the other side - communist manifesto, Marxism/Leninism, neosocialism, etc. Anyway, I think a lot of people confuse Ayn Rand's Objectivism with libertarianism - they are very different things and Rand was explicitly not a libertarian. Most libertarians do believe in a stong social system - just a private one. This may seem crazy to you at first, but you can look at the numbers and see the poor were much better off before the government got involved and that private charity was much more effective. The social security systems in place now are little more than a thinly veiled attempt to buy votes and do little to actually help people improve their condition. Case in point - the standard of living among poor minorities was improving rapidly until the 'war on poverty' was started and has since leveled off. While libertarians just don't agree that forcibly taking money from one group to give to another is really charity, that doesn't make them greedy people who wouldn't freely give. Actually I believe they tend to be above average in charitable giving, but don't feel like looking up any stats. Wanting a state imposed system that takes by force so they don't have to get their hands dirty doesn't make one a caring charitable person. Anyone who thinks libertarians are just greedy Republicans really has no clue and hasn't done an ounce of reading. I started as a libertarian - lite but have moved to the anarchocapitalist side since I'm just not convinced by logic, reason, and actual data that the state can ever produce a better outcome than private interaction, and even in instances where it may, I believe voluntary interactions are always preferable to the use of force and coercion by the state. Many may disagree, but I think one's willingness to have the state take from me by force is a fucking dick who really doesn't give a shit about his fellow man no matter how much he jumps up and down with feigned concern. /rant
Why New Hampshire? What's different about it?
Moving to another state with a real likelihood of no equivalent employment just for an ideological cause, by definition is self-selecting for the upper reaches of the UMC or even higher. Now this crowd will instantly pipe up: "I code from home so no problem". How much _real_ broadband is available in New Hampshire? Where it is available is probably not too cheap, cost of living-wise (see first point).
Libertarian: one with the enough luxuries of time and money to take a bold political stance.
Is to build a fence around New Hampshire and basically turn it into a big jail.
"Liberty Minded" is US code word for "white male who own guns".
And does not want to pay taxes.
The idea sounded nice, but after a visit on the website, it's just a bunch of skinflints who want to evade taxes.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
I checked out their website and saw them asking for donations.
That's enough to know they're full of crap.
You can't claim self reliance while asking for donations.
If they got something so basic wrong, what else are they lying about?
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
In any case there is no reason you can't support a social welfare system and be a libertarian. Libertarians aren't anarchists (or at least they shouldn't be). Libertarians should believe in government doing the jobs that government can do better than the private sector, and libertarians are free to disagree on which jobs those are.
I think you've confused libertarians with social democrats. They're not anarchists, they want the rule of law and enforcement of contracts but that is pretty much it. All public services involve a loss of control, "they" take the money to fund it, "they" decide what, when and how to deliver and some have much bigger needs/wants than others. Even if the government can do better as a whole, there will always be those paying a lot for very little. And the libertarian mantra is that everyone should agree to things voluntarily through private agreements, not be forced into a public system whether they want to or not.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You are very correct, we do not want to pay taxes but are quite happy to voluntarily pay for public roads, water treatment , electrical infrastructure , and education. Something my community does without coercion and 100% voluntarily. Please try to understand that we want to be productive and contributing members of society but we also do not want to fund programs like the NSA spying programs and the military industrial complex. Do we have have a right to not pay for these institutions of corruption and violence or will you support sending armed men to kidnap and torture us for not shouldering the responsibility of ignoring your own constitution's due process provisions and supporting the destruction of villages where 90% of the families killed are innocent targets - https://theintercept.com/drone...
There are many advantages, there are disadvantages too.
Disadvantages go first:
1. Many people do no like cold, period. You cannot change that, unless you are hell bent on warming the planet so much to increase the temperature of the state bordering with Canada.
2. Not central. Meaning too far and too aside. If one does move here transportation expenses would increase. If, however, New Hampshire would become the richest state, I am sure more and cheaper flights would be made available.
3. Property taxes are really high. Stated needs to finance somehow and property tax is the catch. Has anyone seen free staters' intentions to reduce them? On the other hand, if compared to New Jersey, for example, other states have property AND state income tax. In some ways NH is a low income tax state, though.
I could not think of any other disadvantages
1. Too far and too aside and too cold. That also means one thing: only very dedicated people will go there and is a selection mechanism.
2. Lowest taxes. If not the lowest taxes, then probably within top 3 lowest taxation states. If anyone is thinking of opening the business, this is a good place to consider.
3. Does not require automobile insurance. That being said, state has the lowest car insurance rates and, because the rates are low, most of the people are insured voluntarily.
4. Seat Belts are optional.
5. All in all, this is probably one of the states with the statistical highest living standard and lower costs. The concept "Statistical" is meaningless, but in the long term you will probably be better and you will have more savings.
Conclusion:
If you are starting your own business or you found a job, by all means, move there. I can predict that soon pot will be fully legalized, so this is additional bonus for those who are into it.
Say that everything they are seeking for actually happens.
Then what. They live there, they have children. Who is to say the children will want the same things. Each generation has to choose for itself. It is likely that after 1 generation, the starry eyed idealists will be replaced with their realist children who don't understand the core reasons their parents moved. Generations forget.
I was on jury duty last year.
First they show you a propaganda film which states that the oath you take will indeed have to be based "strictly on the law." The actual oath you take, you simply swear to "uphold the Constitution of the United States and of New Jersey."
Ultimately the case was settled before it went to trial.
Most do not have an issue with limited taxes. It's when you're being taxed outrageous sums, and then your politicians hand half a billion dollars to a rich cat so his football team can have a new stadium.
and if you're an intelligent person, you'd do the opposite of what the AC above just said.
Austrian economics and libertarians are a lie, merely anarchy for the poor, and socialism (and power) for the rich.
it's a return to serfdom, something humanity has tried before, and soundly rejected.
As a NH resident, thanks for the warning.
If these people pull off their scheme and succeed in flooding our state legislature with anarchists (whatever label they choose to apply, they're basically anarchists), it's going to be time to move somewhere else where folks still see the value in paving the roads.
Let me tell ya something. Southern California used to be more like Texas. So was Florida. Than all ya New Yorkers and Connecticats moved to those states. Ran most of them into the ground. So now you're fleeing those states....to where?
Colorado, Idaho, etc. It's you liberal big state, stupid !@#$% who do most of the migrating and screwing up the local constituency. So apologies, if a handful of us who want you to leave us alone and quit chasing us, decided to pick one itsy bitsy tiny little place that most held our beliefs and concentrate there.
The truth is, you liberals are more akin to ISIS. Wanting to mandate your laws and morality on everyone else. And sure you deride Libertarians. But it's just how you guys deride Israel, a tiny state surrounded by tons of Arab states. Exclaim the immoral actions of Israel, ignoring the fact that it's neighboring Arab regimes kill 100x more. And also forgetting that they were chased out of pretty much every other part of the world (except the U.S.).
So you deride said Libertarians, but you're the ones that have far more in common with the pan-Islamic state that ISIS is pushing. Versus the Libertarians who simply want to be left alone, and leave alone... .hmmm...
New Hampshire, has always been a strongly libertarian leaning state for the northeast, especially New England area. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire along with Oregon were often referred to as the left libertarian states. As in it tended to be "socially liberal" and "libertarian".
So basically New Hampshire, seemed to be one of those locations where it'd be most easy to say "I support your right to gay marriage, guns, and ganja". It's also a very beautiful rustic state.
Heck, when ALL their license plates exclaim "LIVE FREE OR DIE", of course it's going to be one of the top choice of people who want to live freely.
http://www.plateshack.com/y2k/...
Only half a billion, and only for one stadium, you got off lucky.
Time to offend someone
"LSD and shrooms are predominantly white drugs, and are associated with higher education."
This may be what accounts for the cultural weirdness in academia today. In fact, just pointing this out is probably a microagression.
Except most of the time disagreement is based on emotion and ideology instead of facts. The most obvious being medicare vs private insurance.
I feel sorry for New Hampshire if these right wing nuts move there in mass.
Base principle of effective government right there.
Complexity is the enemy of reliability, and when laws are most numerous, the state is most corrupt (with sincere apologies to Alan Robertson, Tacitus, and Sun Tzu).
The Georgists who moved to Arden, Delaware with the same basic idea as the Free Staters (that is, to go to a small state where their ideas would have more impact on society) had a long-term positive effect on the area, reaching even beyond Delaware's borders. People who are willing to pull up roots and work in order to achieve their ideas - people who are willing to strive towards their goals - sometimes build vibrant, dynamic and productive communities... although not always, as the ruins of Salubria and Icaria attest.
"Liberty Minded" is US code word for "white male who own guns".
Drug laws are disproportionately directed at blacks. Commercial sex laws are almost exclusively directed at women. Libertarians want to repeal both.
Oh, for some mod points!
Ah, but I already commented here. So, #ShanghaiBill, I do my best to say YES YES YES. Their goal is an even playing field —fairness.
"..if you don't support liberty for ... muslims...". I don't think it is at all unreasonable to deny (for example) Freedom of Religion to some persons or group if they don't support Freedom of Religion for others. In the case of muslims, this kind of hypocrisy is clearly documented in their book. None of the other demographics you mentioned do that sort of thing.
Um, no. There is actually a great deal of libertarian thought given to the most effective compromises that can be made since not everyone is on-board with ubermen-against the-world archetype that seems to be in vogue now. In fact, New Hampshire already fits within the geolibertarian model (no sales or income tax, high property tax), which is an anathema to the "taxation is theft" crowd. You can't even set up your corporate structure in the Cayman islands to be rid of it.
Hayek and Friedman already championed the ideas behind basic income as the least destructive way to have social services, and curiously is now being championed by the left. And then there is that whole other left-libertarianism as well.
There has been very considered thought on how to move society in a more libertarian direction without letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The hardline libertarian types are simply ignorant beyond sloganeering, which is a shame really. Libertarianism has some rather nuanced insights beyond "government is bad, m'kay".
Umm.. The whole point of the libertarian is that you *do* pay for what you want, and don't force anyone else to pay for what *you* want. Assuming you are a drug loving whore loving Democrat, the whole point of the public social net is to let people escape without paying -- and I'm not talking about the beneficiaries.
Hey now! Medicare Advantage/Choice proved that the private insurance companies can get patients treated just as cheaply as Medicare if we pay them a 5% bonus on top.
Very nicely stated, including the different between an Objectivist and a libertarian. Conservatives (religious) are an even better example of not wanting a public welfare system, but willingly give to private charities and provide charity themselves.
Another thing people confuse in the same vein is 'Capitalist' and selfish or anti-social.
BTW, Rand was a political liberarian (lowercase l), which is what we are talking about here. She hated the philosophical basis of the Libertarian Party (uppercase l), but her capitalist philosophy and so called 'right libertarians' (the ones who believe in capitalism) were very in sync.
You keep bringing up the NSA and middle east bombing adventures as if other political 'isms' are in favor of such madness.
You assume that the rest of us are happy about it, and only people with your label have any principles or reservations at the hell hole we have created on this globe. At least that is how you sound.
The rest of us don't think a change in tax policies will fix anything. People are the problem and until we choose to stop murdering each other over stupid shit, or evils of the past, nothing you do will change anything other than the name of the philosophy that claims to have the cure for the problem.
But at least you are trying. Regardless of the end result, willingness to try something is better than the alternative.
There is no such thing as a functioning voluntarily welfare. This is either naive or deliberately deceptive. Game theory proves that in a system without constraints, everybody gets screwed by the worst guys in the end.
I'm sure you will provide arguments like gracious donation to public infrastructure. That's bullshit. At best, it's investment to get the non-system in place, at worst taxes optimization. The truth is that in such "voluntarily" system, nobody volunteers for the others very quickly. In other words, the rich agree to pay for the rich, and the poor can die like scumbags.
A bunch of skinflints, nothing to do with liberty.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
Well, you certainly illustrate the point that there are thoughtful libertarians out there. An interesting point on libertarianism along the lines of what you're saying... I once volunteer-taught a class on American politics for some adult ESL students. When I introduced "libertarian versus statist" as a dimension that is distinct from liberal and conservative, it was pretty new to most of them. That is, while almost all societies grapple with the how much control the state should exercise over various kinds of activities, it's only in the US that we have a name for that (Liberty!) and a group that (nominally) wants to minimize state control over everything. The US has a long lefty-libertarian tradition that has fueled many important social advances (freedom to love and marry whoever you please being the most recent example), while our righty-libertarians have also served to keep the US out of some of the worst excess of statist economics (think price controls).
That said, it's pretty hard to line up with libertarianism in it's current form. The three axiomatic views that most turn me off are
1. The private sector does everything better than the government does or might do
2. Everyone can always have everything if they only try hard enough
3. Social well-being can only be maximized by increasing individual well-being
What drives me nuts is how often these are asserted as axioms in spite of numerous and obvious counterexamples. Skepticism that government intervention will solve a problem is necessary, healthy, and frequently true. But there are so many readily available counterexamples that these cannot be axioms.
# 3 might be a little different than the others, and I'd actually be interested in a thoughtful libertarian critique of it. It is what Pope Francis calls "subsidiarity", the idea that humans actually gain meaning and satisfaction from feeling that they are subsidiary to something bigger than themselves. I'm no Catholic, but I see this in a lot of things. An individual who is free of all external obligations is a lonely, disconnected person, and I have a hard time believe that there are many people who are happier this way. Clearly there is such as thing as too much obligation to society, but what about too little?
A potent example of #1 is the lunatic response to Obamacare. This was an idea from 1970s "conservative" think tanks that was a pragmatic compromise right up until someone tried to implement it. And all told the ACA has a pretty non-statist system architecture: the state does not mandate what insurance you get, it does not mandate which company you choose it from (in fact there are standards to ensure a minimum of choice), it does not say what doctor you can or cannot go to ...you are always free (like Liberty, not beer) to go to a doctor that is not in your plan, and Obamacare makes that EASIER not harder.
The mandate components of the law (health insurers have to take anyone who wants insurance ---> everyone has to buy insurance) that elicit all this yelling about "state force" and "FBI marshalls frog-marching me" are just system architectures to deal with real and fundamental problems.
The business of insurance is to collect as many premium dollars as possible, and it's very, very easy for insurers to cheat without some rules (oh, you got cancer in the rain on Sunday... if you look in Appendix R20421.13 subsection 7 of your plan, you'll see that this is not covered). Likewise it's really easy for covered people to cheat without some rules (oh, I rode motorcycle without a helmet for 10 years and now I crashed and am paralyzed from the neck down... pay for all my healthcare). This is what happens in the real world, and we as engineers/technologists are the ones who stick our heads out and find a set of tradeoffs that makes things a little better. And we are also the ones who deal with the sucky parts of the architecture we chose. So I can't understand when this type of thinker can't relate to what Obamacare is about.
Someone hasn't thought their statements through to their logical conclusion: by denying "(for example) Freedom of Religion to some persons or group if they don't support Freedom of Religion for others", you must necessarily also deny Freedom of Religion to yourself and everyone like you, because you are a person or group that doesn't support Freedom of Religion for others!
Or
maybe you aren't a libertarian. It's just a meaningless label that's
been co-opted by the republican party
anyway.
That's incorrect. Co-opted perhaps, but not meaningless. When you
think of "political spectrum", try not to think of just a straight line
from left to right, but rather four quadrants, consisting of liberal
(left half), conservative (right half), authoritarian (upper half), and
libertarian (lower half). Politics makes more sense when viewed this
way, and helps to explain the common authoritarian theme normally seen
with both D's and R's running for office in the U.S (e.g. why they
always seem to be but two halves of the same whole).
Didn't we see what happened the last time someone tried to build Galt's Gulch?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2...
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
Neither libertarians nor social democrats are anarchists, so both should believe in a role for government. The disagreement is on what that role should be.
They're not anarchists, they want the rule of law and enforcement of contracts but that is pretty much it. All public services involve a loss of control, "they" take the money to fund it, "they" decide what, when and how to deliver and some have much bigger needs/wants than others. Even if the government can do better as a whole, there will always be those paying a lot for very little. And the libertarian mantra is that everyone should agree to things voluntarily through private agreements, not be forced into a public system whether they want to or not.
If this were strictly true, as a libertarian I could say that I never consented to being ruled by the government, and therefore I should not be bound to it's laws, and we are back to anarchy.
Clearly if you are not an anarchist, you believe that *some* things should be able to forced on people (i.e. like government itself).
I think your characterization of what a libertarian actually only applies to a narrow (albeit vocal) subset.
I would characterize libertarianism as the desire to have things managed by the private sector unless there is a very compelling reason to have it managed by the government. Many libertarians don't find the reasons for government managed roads and fire departments to be very compelling, but many (hopefully most) do.
This is opposed to the desire to do the opposite, which is to have things managed by the government unless there is a compelling reason not to.
I am not describing Utopian hypotheticals, but real communities I currently live in or have visited in the past. Your statement is largely true for anarcho-communist communities , but not so for many others. You would be surprised how important social ostracism is within small communities. For Example - I have about 8 examples of communities of 10 to 150 homes where participation rate for voluntary road fees is between 67-100% and the remaining who don't pay usually do some manual labor to assist. There will always be those that are selfish and not contribute , but there penalty comes from lack of solidarity with the rest of the community. You have to consider the efficiency differences between the overhead of a coercive system vs a voluntary one that has a few non contributors. Additionally, there are ethical advantages to such a society, if that matters to you.
Thanks for your kind words and yes, I understand that many people aren't exactly happy with the status quo . Unfortunately, voting will not change much of anything. A larger problem is with inflationary monetary policy where the world ends up paying for the military industrial complex because the USD is a reserve currency. This is why many of us are agorists and try to use tools like bitcoin and bartering to starve the beast. Like Noam Chomsky discusses, we are all responsible for the crimes of the state to one degree or another so I am not attempting to chastise you directly. We must be cognizant of these realities and take active steps to reduce this corruption. There is no end Utopian end game to our struggle either, this is something we always must work upon.
One small anecdote should drive the point home. Note that I have had many experiences when I lived there that also might illustrate the issue nicely, but it takes a while to write this all down, so just the one anecdote will have to suffice to prime the palette if you will.
While at the beach I went to "The Cows Ass" leather shop and I was duly impressed with my "freedom" to purchase things such as Nunchaku, Throwing Stars, and various other cool martial arts "toys". A particular cane caught my eye. The lady behind the counter proceeded to demonstrate this it was actually a Sword Cane. I didn't want the sword part, but decided I would buy the thing and use an oxyacetylene torch to cut the sword part off, and then it would actually be able to store things as an added benefit. I was gleeful as I went to the bar, got drunk, and then proceeded to walk home. On the way back home I stopped and sat on a bench where I fell asleep / passed out.
:-( Luckily, or so I thought, a police cruiser was coming down the road so I waved the cop over. When I told him my stuff was stolen he claimed to know nothing about the glasses, but that he confiscated my cane because it was illegal ! I couldn't believe it since I purchased it at a store on the main part of Hampton Beach. Still I told the officer that it was no problem that he confiscated it as I had no intention of owning an illegal item. I asked that he provide me with some documentation that he took the cane so I could return to The Cows Ass and get a refund for my hard earned money. The Cop refused to do so.
When I awoke my glasses and Sword Cane were gone!!!
After a bit of "recovery time" I returned home and proceeded to call the Hampton Police department and asked to speak with whomever is in charge. I was actually told that "nobody is in charge". When I persisted I was told that an officer would be out to speak with me about the incident. When I opened the door the cop immediately arrested me!
Months later, The Cows Ass was still selling the illegal canes of course, though the department was well aware of their practice of selling them.
Do you want to guess who had the money and the power? Both the store and the law had even more money as The Cows Ass got the money for the cane, and the piglice / courts fined me plenty, of course. You can bet their attitude was You ain't rich, and you ain't connected to anyone in power. Die Motherfuckka!. Indeed, though they never expressed those words literally, their attitude, affect, words, and body language were very clear that they would be fine with it if I did die, and actually would prefer it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The fundamental virtue of human activity is to provide for your own life. By taxing efforts to provide for yourself, income taxes discourage productive activity, so they are destructive and immoral.
Government's primary responsibility is the protection of its citizens lives and the means by which they provide for themselves, which requires that the government should protect the fruits of their productive efforts known as property. Add to that a means to handle wrongs (a court system) and the government's responsibilities are covered; and that is the proper limit of "social services."
A basic principle of justice is that "you get what you pay for and pay for what you get". The government protects your life, you pay a head tax. The government protects your property, you pay a property tax. Use the court system, pay court fees. The government has no just basis for taxing income.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
That is no more freedom than being able to choose my own executioner.
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Game theory is not life. People nourish their children, protect their families, and help their neighbors.
It's clear that the "liberty" you want is to steal from people you smear as "skinflints".
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Good riddance if they can pull this off peacefully. If we're lucky they'll build a wall completely around themselves.
Much of the conflict comes from the fact that "freedom" and "liberty" mean different things to different people. From some people, it's being able to carry a gun. For some, it's not having to worry that a loony will buy a gun and shoot them. Unfortunately, these sometimes conflict! For some people, freedom means being able to walk down the street without the police stopping them and asking what they're doing there. Or being able to see a doctor when they get sick. Or send a private email without the government monitoring what they say in it. For some people, liberty means doing drugs. For others, it's not having to worry that someone will give drugs to their kids.
We could say, "Libertarians want to maximize liberty," but it's an empty statement. Almost everyone thinks liberty is a good thing, but there are many kinds of liberty, and different people prioritize them differently. At least in the U.S., "libertarianism" is strongly associated with a specific set of priorities: gun ownership, recreational drug use, low (or no) taxes, and an explicit rejection of any role for the government in promoting liberty. If you use the word "libertarianism" to mean something different from that, just be aware that your definition is different from the most widely used definition, and that you're using the word to mean something different from what most other people mean by it.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
1. The private sector does everything better than the government does or might do
I think anyone that truly believes this should just be an anarchist, but even in that case I think it's problematic because any kind of group decision making process in an anarchist world becomes a sort of pseudo government.
The split between public and private sectors is not always so clear. The private sector is full of little micro governments (e.g. board of directors at a company, voting shareholders, etc). One could argue that these governments are voluntary, but even national governments are voluntary in the sense that you are free to move (at least many people are).
2. Everyone can always have everything if they only try hard enough
This idea that we are all blank slates is a popular philosophical meme, that is certainly more embraced by "libertarians" than "social progressives", but I think any thoughtful examination will show that this idea is just false and should be abandoned. I think the related train of thought of "1. We as a society are better off if individuals are successful. 2. Individuals trying hard results in more success. 3. Incentives are a good way to foster trying hard." is less controversial.
3. Social well-being can only be maximized by increasing individual well-being
Honestly I am not sure exactly what this means. I am not sure what social well-being is if it not simply an aggregate of individuals' well-being. Maybe I'm just blinded by my libertarian mindset.
Being an atheist I guess I don't really see any causes more worthy than increasing the well being of individuals. As grand a cause as something might be, it doesn't really seem worthwhile to me unless I can see how it would ultimately lead to individuals being better off.
A potent example of #1 is the lunatic response to Obamacare.
There are some issues where I turn into a social progressive, and preventing people (and children) from dying in the streets is one such issue for me. Part of what makes the free market efficient is people learning from their mistakes and making better decisions. If you make the poor decision not to get health insurance, and you end up needing some kind of expensive cancer treatment to save you life, you can't learn from this mistake when you are dead.
So I actually support universal single payer healthcare. I think this is actually more important than government run schools.
And given all the restrictions we put on health insurance companies under the ACA in terms of who they must cover, what they must cover, and how much they can charge, I don't think that we are really getting the benefits of a true free market anyway. I think we are just getting a government healthcare system with more middlemen.
The mandate components of the law (health insurers have to take anyone who wants insurance ---> everyone has to buy insurance) that elicit all this yelling about "state force" and "FBI marshalls frog-marching me" are just system architectures to deal with real and fundamental problems.
It's clearly just a tax carefully worded to not seem like a tax. State force to compel someone to buy insurance is functionally no different than state force to compel someone to pay taxes.
And really I am not even sure what we have now with the ACA is health insurance. What kind of insurance allows pre-existing conditions to be covered? What kind of insurance has coverage that can't be denied? If I get in a car accident, I can't just show up to Mercury and demand they offer me coverage for my car that was totaled the day before.
I think the ACA creates a healthcare system that is basically universal healthcare, but one that has the facade of a private system. In reality you have the choice of deciding which private company you want to handle your billing. I see this as being about as useful as the freedom to choose which private company can process my DMV forms or something.
Much of the conflict comes from the fact that "freedom" and "liberty" mean different things to different people. From some people, it's being able to carry a gun. For some, it's not having to worry that a loony will buy a gun and shoot them. Unfortunately, these sometimes conflict!
Absolutely. In fact they always conflict.
We could say, "Libertarians want to maximize liberty," but it's an empty statement.
It is. It certainly needs to be explained a little better than that to have any meaning.
Almost everyone thinks liberty is a good thing, but there are many kinds of liberty, and different people prioritize them differently.
true
At least in the U.S., "libertarianism" is strongly associated with a specific set of priorities: gun ownership, recreational drug use, low (or no) taxes, and an explicit rejection of any role for the government in promoting liberty, just be aware that your definition is different from the most widely used definition, and that you're using the word to mean something different from what most other people mean by it.
Yeah it sort of has come to mean those things. And that's unfortunate because that's not what it used to mean. I am trying to resist these hostile takeover of this label because I don't like the idea that any label can be made toxic by a group of idiots self describing themselves with it.
Look at what the republicans did to the world liberal. Republicans proclaimed that liberals were bad, and democrats then decided that they were actually progressives. I would argue that the democrats should not have agreed to the premise that liberals were bad, except that maybe "liberal" was not actually a great term for democrats considering they support a lot of statist policies.
There are a lot of very politicized issues where being on a particular side comes with a lot of baggage.
The clearest examples I can think of that highlight libertarian vs. non-libertarian viewpoints are the following:
1. Supporting the right to your own body including what you put in it (i.e. anti-prohibition).
2. Supporting the right of consenting adults to do whatever they want together. (e.g. employment, premarital sex, prostitution, etc). The freedom of association.
A good specific example is anti-smoking laws. I would like to point out that it seems that anti-smoking laws were incredibly effective at lowering rates of smoking and probably saved lot's of lives. That said, as a libertarian, I support people's right to smoke, and people's right to allow smoking on their property. I think philosophically if a restaurant owner wants to have a restaurant where smoking is allowed, then he/she should have the right to do that. I don't think anti-smoking patrons should have the right to demand a restaurant ban smoking. I think they should have the freedom to go to any non-smoking restaurant they choose.
I think it's great that peoples' lives were saved, but I don't agree with the method used to do it.
Let's consider smoking bans, then, since they illustrate a lot of the issues that come up in real situations. One of their main goals is to protect restaurant employees from second hand smoke. Sure, the owner can say, "I want to allow smoking on my property." But can they also say, "If you want to work here, you have to subject yourself to dangerous chemicals. If you don't like that, go work somewhere else?" And where do you draw the line? Can they refuse to put in sprinklers, thus putting their employees and customers at risk, because they don't want to spend the money on it? Is there a point where the government can say, "You must provide a safe environment for your employees?" If so, what is that point? Is it different for a restaurant than other types of businesses?
Then there's the question of protecting the customers. In a city you can reasonably say, "If you don't like smoke filled restaurants, go eat somewhere else." But suppose it's a small town and this is the only restaurant around. Ok, I suppose you could say, "Eating in a restaurant is a luxury." But what if the only grocery in town also wants to allow smoking? Buying food isn't a luxury.
I suppose a libertarian would say, "The market will solve everything. If there are enough people who don't want to get cancer from eating out, someone will start a non-smoking restaurant." But that's getting into the realm of fantasy. There are all sorts of reasons that might not happen: too small a town to support another restaurant, no one in town who wants to start one, etc.
Take a more extreme example: can you sell yourself into slavery? You could say, "It's your choice and the government shouldn't prevent you from doing it." But in practice, people would almost never do it unless they weren't given any other realistic options. In theory it would be your choice, but in practice slave dealers would get very good at manipulating people into situations where they didn't have any real choice. (I know, this is actually a controversial question in libertarian circles. Many people say it's over the line. But you said you support prostitution, which in practice is often just slavery under a different name. It's something people do because they don't have any choice about doing it.)
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Porc barrelling.
Let's consider smoking bans, then, since they illustrate a lot of the issues that come up in real situations. One of their main goals is to protect restaurant employees from second hand smoke. Sure, the owner can say, "I want to allow smoking on my property." But can they also say, "If you want to work here, you have to subject yourself to dangerous chemicals. If you don't like that, go work somewhere else?" And where do you draw the line? Can they refuse to put in sprinklers, thus putting their employees and customers at risk, because they don't want to spend the money on it? Is there a point where the government can say, "You must provide a safe environment for your employees?" If so, what is that point? Is it different for a restaurant than other types of businesses?
A line obviously needs to be drawn. Should the government be able to prohibit smoker from smoking in their own house if they are going to have guests like friends and family come over? Why is it important to protect employees and customers, but friends and family are free to decide to accept risks to their own health? Why is smoking itself legal (i.e. a person risking their own health)? Why is eating unhealthy food legal?
I agree it's a spectrum. It's not easy to find a good place to draw the line.
Then there's the question of protecting the customers. In a city you can reasonably say, "If you don't like smoke filled restaurants, go eat somewhere else." But suppose it's a small town and this is the only restaurant around. Ok, I suppose you could say, "Eating in a restaurant is a luxury." But what if the only grocery in town also wants to allow smoking? Buying food isn't a luxury.
I don't really buy into this small town argument. If it was so important that this restaurant be accessible because it;s the only restaurant in town, you could also rationalize prohibiting the owner from deciding to close the restaurant.
I suppose a libertarian would say, "The market will solve everything. If there are enough people who don't want to get cancer from eating out, someone will start a non-smoking restaurant." But that's getting into the realm of fantasy. There are all sorts of reasons that might not happen: too small a town to support another restaurant, no one in town who wants to start one, etc.
I would never say "The market will solve everything". The market is very good at solving certain things. I believe it is good at solving *this* thing.
And as I said. If it is wrong for the only restaurant in town to decide to allow smoking because it denies certain patrons access. Then it is also wrong to close the only restaurant in town because it denies all customers access. I also find this example to be very narrow as it only seems to apply to towns with exactly one restaurant and not towns with 0 or 2+ restaurants.
The economist in me would say that a town that can support exactly one restaurant is not a good example of an efficient free market, and one shouldn't expect free market principles to to be efficient in solving the problem. That said, I still think the free market is the best solution even if it is not a good solution. In that case, I don't think there is a good solution.
Take a more extreme example: can you sell yourself into slavery? You could say, "It's your choice and the government shouldn't prevent you from doing it." But in practice, people would almost never do it unless they weren't given any other realistic options. In theory it would be your choice, but in practice slave dealers would get very good at manipulating people into situations where they didn't have any real choice. (I know, this is actually a controversial question in libertarian circles. Many people say it's over the line. But you said you support prostitution, which in practice is often just slavery under a different name. It's something people do because they don't have any choice about doing it.)
This quickly becomes a question of cynicism versus faith in humanity. And in this corner we have the "oh poor me everything is ultimately meaningless" flavor of Nihilists and in that corner some variation on the Marxists. And we're off to the races folks - look at them go! It's a battle as old as politics and yet somehow they still go head and head every week for your amusement!
I have a very elegant solution to this problem. As there is no tangible irrefutable evidence of likely failure that either side seems capable of producing under this time, why not simply try it? For better or for worse, at least then the data will be present for future endeavors.
Is it really that hard to participate in absurdly rudimentary science? We need evidence based reasoning and lack the necessary evidence; therefore one option is to take motions which would generate the necessary evidence to reason upon in the future.
Both "extremes" have been tried unsuccessfully.
If you want "no rule" based community, you can go right now to Libya and if you want to see what it looks like after a few years, you can go to Syria and see that "no rule" get rapidly transformed into dictatorship of the guys that had the least ethic.
If you want to see the "total collective control" society, take a look at the former GDR (where I was born). People had a house, a job, free welfare and yet they collectively decided it wasn't the good thing. Most thought they could keep their possessions while gaining additional things (rights, more possessions).
To me, both are exactly the same gradient only applied at different spots on the scale between control and freedom.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but there's a good chance greed is the ultimate engine of humanity, which makes you refuse any rule imposed onto you up until the point where you want to impose yours onto the others.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
Many people nourish their children, some protect their families, few help their neighbors. Don't be naive.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
Re: previous comments: no, we're not all white or male. In fact, our biggest legislative stars are state reps Amanda Bouldin, Jenn Coffey, and Elizabeth Edwards. (Two of them are Democrats, BTW).
We've cut the state taxes, passed a school choice scholarship plan, legalized microbreweries, and legalized microbreweries. We have three marijuana-legalization bills in the statehouse this year (it's been passed six times, Democrat governors keep blocking it).
I've been in NH since 2008. It's a great place to live: no crime, good economy, beautiful for kayaking and hiking. Head over to nhliberty.org and check out our efforts to "Live Free or Die" ;)
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20140115/OPINION02/140119643
My earlier comment mentioned our star legislators Jenn Coffey, Elizabeth Edwards, and Amanda Bouldin (one R and two Democrats, respectively). I forgot about Jody Underwood, who has singlehandedly brought town-level school choice to NH. Here's one of my op-eds about it (I've been in NH since 2008): http://www.concordmonitor.com/...
Often, I read libertarians as saying that the proper way to enforce things is for people to sue when they think they've been hurt, financially or physically. Aside from the fact that it didn't work well in ancient Athens, there's the fact that it doesn't work too well now. It's expensive to sue someone, and expensive to defend against a suit. Court proceedings are often slow, sometimes require things like discovery with detailed protocols, are uncertain, and it may be impossible to collect from the person losing the case.
What I'd like to see from those people is specifics on how they propose to change the court system to make it more practical.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It is possible to believe that social well-being is the sum of the well-being of all individuals in that society (pretty much my view), and to think that everyone selfishly maximizing their own well-being is going to lead to disaster. The tragedy of the commons is one way this works. There is something that you can call social well-being, involving things like low crime rates, freedom from persecution, that sort of thing.
You're taking a more narrow view of the ACA than I do. The idea, as I see it, is that we're all one big risk pool, those of us who will sail through life with minimal health-care costs and those who will cost lots and lots of money. If insurance companies can throw sick people out of the risk pool, or offer incomplete coverage, they get to lower their rates and make more money while people with assorted medical conditions are left to die in the street.
The ACA is far from perfect, but I consider it a great improvement over what we had.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Hi! I live in a reasonably large city in an urban area with millions of people. We need roads as much as the small towns do. In fact, we need more stuff like water and sewer systems, while a small community may be able to just have private wells and septic systems. There really isn't all that much solidarity in here, at least for the whole city, and if taxes for local services were voluntary the whole system would collapse.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It is possible to believe that social well-being is the sum of the well-being of all individuals in that society (pretty much my view), and to think that everyone selfishly maximizing their own well-being is going to lead to disaster.
Sure. That becomes an issue of fairness, and one of the roles of government is to ensure a "fair" society through laws and courts etc. Form a certain point of view that's ultimately the only thing an effective government is doing.
The tragedy of the commons is one way this works.
A situation that can be characterized by tragedy of the commons is a situation where government is more suitable solution than a free market.
There is something that you can call social well-being, involving things like low crime rates, freedom from persecution, that sort of thing.
Sure, but I don't see this as separate from individual well being. For example you can't have high social well being if individual well being is low. For every society that is experiencing bad things like violence and injustice, it is individuals actually experiencing those things. To put it another way, you can't increase social well being without increasing the well being of individuals. It is arguable that you might not increase social well being even if you increase the well being of individuals (e.g. if you do it unfairly), but I would argue this increase is at the expense of decreasing well being for others. So I would still count this as a net decrease of well being to individuals even if some small group is better off.
You're taking a more narrow view of the ACA than I do.
I don;t think I am
The idea, as I see it, is that we're all one big risk pool, those of us who will sail through life with minimal health-care costs and those who will cost lots and lots of money.
I agree.
If insurance companies can throw sick people out of the risk pool, or offer incomplete coverage, they get to lower their rates and make more money while people with assorted medical conditions are left to die in the street.
Right. I don't see any disagreements yet.
The ACA is far from perfect, but I consider it a great improvement over what we had.
Yep. That's what I keep saying.
Maybe I wasn't clear, but when I say that the ACA doesn't work like normal insurance, I mean that in a positive way. I think it is inhumane to treat healthcare under a standard insurance model. For cars, this model incentivizes people to make better decisions. For healthcare, this model would incentivize good decisions if the bad decisions one would normally learn from, weren't fatal.
My opposition to the ACA, is that it tries to retain aspects of the private insurance model that I don't think are worth preserving. They got rid of all the risk analysis part of traditional insurance market (regulations dictate what decisions insurance companies must make), but they are keeping the middleman aspect, which I think is pretty pointless.
Yes , there is no disagreement. Cities with high population densities would need to be designed radically different (without perverse and unethical incentive structures). I am under no allusion this will happen quickly and probably not within my lifetime.
The number of FSPers who have moved to New Hampshire pales in comparison to the number of moderately conservative white middle class suburban folks emigrating from Massachusetts. That voting bloc -- and yes, they do vote -- tend to lean law and order and are anti broad social spending, but are definitely not anti-government or libertarian. They're not after some government philosophy; they just want lower taxes for their single family home and 2 SUVs.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Sorry about misunderstanding you about the ACA.
There are ways in which individuals are well off. I have plenty of money, reasonably good health, a family I love, and I'm working at a job I like. This is good. Crime rates are also declining, which I consider part of my well being. There's a difference there. First, my good individual good fortune doesn't translate well into others' good fortune. I have very good friends who are or have been on or over the financial edge, and there's not a whole lot I can do without putting strains on the friendship. An attractive city benefits everyone who lives or works in it. Second, my money, health, family, and job are to a large extent about choices I've made, while I can't do much about reducing pollution.
I agree about the effects of social well-being, but increasing some individuals' well-being can have disproportionate effects on other people, which is why I consider that social well-being. If we can get half the criminals doing something productive instead, we have increased everyone's well-being.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
When I say I don;t see social well being as separate from individual well being, all I mean is that you could come up with a math formula for well being it be a formula with 7+ billion variables for the individual well beings of the individuals on earth. I'm not saying this formula would be a simple average, but I think all other variables like crime, poverty, etc can be dissolved into 7+ billion individual well beings.
Basically I think you could do this...
W = social well being
A, B, C, D .... = well being of individual people
a, b, c, d, .... = other factors like climate change, and crime.
I think any formula that looks like this... W = 2*a + 3*(d+c) + 7/e + 37 * f
Can be converted into something like this:
A = a + B + f...., B = 6 * f * e ...., W = A + B + C + D .....
Sure. I'm not arguing against that. What I'm saying is that trying to help everyone to greater well-being (which is the basis of my ethical theory), will require at least a two-pronged approach. I'd be better off if I exercised more, but I'd also be better off if the rest of the people in my city got more money so we could drop property taxes some. I'm disagreeing with you on the operational details.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'm not even sure what we disagree on.