No. I don't think I do read too much into this. It is a stupid analogy that conveys no real truth while slandering the institution of democracy. It is an evil, misguided analogy that in essence tells the sheep, "Do not band together in a democratic government to protect yourselves, get yourself a gun." As I mentioned, even if you arm the sheep, you have one armed sheep against two armed wolves and the sheep loses, which I fear is the point, because this analogy was crafted by wolves in order to convince the sheep to give up the one real form of protection they have: banding together into a strong, democratic government. It calls democratic government the problem, but the real problem is the wolves.
The problem is not that the wolves are armed and the sheep is not, in reality we are talking about people who all have the same natural armament, who live in a society where we can all arm ourselves. So why do we hire a police force and army instead of all of us walking around armed all the time? Because that doesn't work. Historically, it just doesn't work. You get sheep who think other sheep are wolves, and shoot them. You get wolves ambushing sheep. The problem is not that wolves are armed and lambs are not. The problem is that wolves enjoy the taste of lamb, while lambs do not enjoy the taste of wolf. Wolves want to fight. Lambs do not.
If there was any way an individual sheep could protect itself from two wolves without the help of other sheep, then the original statement "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch" is false, as the sheep could just say "No. None of us are eating sheep for lunch" and there would be no need for the analogy in the first place. That the sheep can not say that is misstated as a problem with democracy. It has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with the nature of sheep and wolves. And the means by which the sheep protects itself are either not stated (in c64's original quote) or attributed to individual defense of the self by gunplay. That won't work. It never works, because a sheep is not a wolf.
A democracy of sheep is what protects the sheep from the wolves. Arming all the sheep won't cut it, because, as I mentioned, sheep do not like to fight but wolves do. The wolves will take the sheep out, one at a time. Governments exist to protect the weak from the strong. They do not exist to protect the strong from the strong. If everyone were a wolf, there wouldn't be a problem, and if everyone were a sheep there would be no problem.
The problem is that we have a large group of people who just want to live and let live, while we have a small group of people that want to eat everybody else alive. If we had no sociopaths, tyrants or bullies, we wouldn't need government. If we were all sociopaths, tyrants and bullies, we wouldn't want others to be protected by government. But most humans do not care to go around armed and ready to kill at any moment. It's a bit stressful. We would rather band together, pool our resources, and hire some sheepdogs. To do that requires a fair decision making process, and democracy fits that bill perfectly.
Okay, I'm rambling a bit so allow me to summarize: the wolves want the sheep to stop banding together and hiring sheepdogs, so they want to convince the sheep that sheepdogs and the sheep who hire them are tyrants, and the only answer is for every sheep to look after itself, by itself, without participating in any group dynamic that might give a group of sheep an edge over the wolves.
The sad thing is that the wolves have convinced a bunch of sheep to act as their spokessheep. These deluded sheep believe they can become wolves too, but once their work is done, they will be dinner.
The guards are required to check on PFC Manning every five minutes by asking him if he is okay. PFC Manning is required to respond in some affirmative manner. At night, if the guards cannot see PFC Manning clearly, because he has a blanket over his head or is curled up towards the wall, they will wake him in order to ensure he is okay.
Look, I'm done here, sorry if you wanted to chat more but I'm not really interested in arguing with you anymore. Look stuff up yourself if you are interested in the truth. If you aren't, then you can just make up some pleasant stories in your head. Whatever, I'm out.
The Minutemen, KKK, Huffington Post, and other hate groups DO have the right to vote.
You watched Sesame Street right? Then sing it with me! "One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just isn't the same!" To be specific, one of these things is not actually a hate group, and I challenge you to provide evidence that would convince an impartial observer that it is a hate group. I'll wait. But I won't hold my breath.
One well armed lamb versus two well armed wolves? Still a dead lamb, maybe one dead wolf, but the lamb is not going to kill both of them before they kill it. The problem is that the lamb is outnumbered. Arming him won't fix that problem any more than giving him a vote or letting him bleat about his rights will. If the lamb is to survive, we need to admit other actors into the analogy. In real life, there will always be more lambs than wolves. Therefore, we could easily claim that "Liberty is fifty lambs democratically electing a government, which forms a lamb army and police force, which protects the lambs from the two wolves." Liberty is not two well armed wolves and one well armed lamb in a shootout. That is just stupid, we all know how that turns out. Even one lamb and one wolf, both well armed, would usually end up with a full wolf and a lamb carcass. Wolves are simply better at fighting than lambs, and the lamb has to sleep sometime.
That is why this analogy is stupid. As long as the lamb is outnumbered, and a lamb, and fighting wolves, who are very good at fighting, the lamb will lose. Duh.
Sleep deprivation. It can actually kill you if it goes on long enough, and it can drive you absolutely schizophrenic. Being constantly woken up does not allow REM sleep, and that will eventually drive anyone bonkers.
You don't get it. How does the lamb survive? What, exactly, keeps the wolves from eating it? Who protects the lamb from the wolves? Do we simply tell the wolves not to be wolves? You can't arm a lamb, it's a fucking lamb. The original example was "Two wolves and a lamb" and the solution was "Everybody agrees not to eat the lamb." Yeah, great. How the hell does that actually work? What I see is the wolves agreeing, "Oh, no, we won't eat you." Right up until they actually get hungry.
You see, the problem is always the wolves. If it were three lambs, there would be no problem. The problem is the very existence of wolves amongst the lambs. You can't just tell a wolf not to be a wolf. You have to have an actual method of enforcing that decision. You need a bunch of lambs, who will all say "Eat that lamb and we kill you, too." One lamb won't cut it. One lamb and two wolves ALWAYS leads to a dead lamb and two wolves. That is why this example is so fucking stupid, and why I made fun of it.
All that example does is restate the problem. It does not provide an actual working solution. The solution it purports to provide is "The wolves and the lamb agree not to eat anyone." Yeah, sounds great. How does that work, though? With two wolves and a lamb, it won't. That is why the example is ridiculous. It changes the parameters of the problem without mentioning what is changed or how. Suddenly, for no discernible reason, the two wolves agree not to eat the one lamb. Well, why do they do that?
The change is actually fairly obvious, even if unspoken. The author must assume there is actually more than one lamb. He assumes there are enough lambs to defeat the wolves. Okay, how do the lambs decide, amongst themselves, how they are going to protect themselves from the wolves? Do they, you know, VOTE? Or is it one lamb telling all the others what to do?
Now do you see why this example is unutterably stupid?
I'm not following what "martyr fantasies" refers to. Also, nationalizing everything doesn't work, the free market actually works better in many cases, although the real problem with nationalized control is lack of price signals. I believe we could use telecommunications systems to poll citizens, customers and workers and come up with a replacement for free market price signals, though. Allende started to do that in Chile with project Cybersyn, right before we had him killed.
Are you trying to claim we use the same level of threat of force we always have? Because we used to torture people to death pretty frequently. Now we have trial by jury and laws against cruel and unusual punishment. I'm not buying your hypothesis.
Ten percent of the population currently owns ninety percent of America. Revoking corporate charter will do fuck-all at this point, the ultra-rich will still own everything. They already won, and you are suggesting disarmament?
Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.
- Marvin Simkin, "Individual Rights", Los Angeles Times, 12 January 1992:[8]
So freedom is a lamb yelling "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!" as it is eaten by two wolves?
Was it really "the people" who voted to kill him? Oh, sure, it was SOME of the people. Not women, they couldn't vote. Not poor people, only land owners in Greece could vote. Not slaves, I mean, obviously, right? And another point, a small point: that happened around twenty five hundred years ago. We've matured as a species just a teensy bit since then, don't you think? Okay, I will admit that democracies, like any other group or individual human endeavor, can go horribly wrong and lead to oppression. But you shouldn't judge a style of government by cherry picking a few examples.
Technically, democracies can not be tyrannies in the same sense that apples can not be oranges. They are both fruit, but they are not the same fruit. You could say a democracy could be tyrannical, but a tyranny has a technical meaning closer to autocracy by theft.
How can you even begin to find a synthesis that works for everyone if you don't talk ideology? Ideologies lead to policies, I mean, if you don't have a model of how things work in your head (which is all an ideology is) you will be creating policies basically at random. So, to come up with a synthesis that works, you have to talk about what you are synthesizing. I use ideological labels as a kind of shorthand. When I say "anarcho-syndicalist," for instance, I mean someone who believes in use-stewardship style property rights and democratic control of the means of production. When I say "libertarian" I mean someone who believes in strong individual property rights and free markets, with private ownership of all means of production. Synthesizing those two branches of anarchism will be problematic.
Getting people talking about government is a great idea. You see, we already have a completely open source collaborative form of government, it just requires that people take up the reigns and participate. People don't really seem that interested in participating in the collaborative government we currently have, except for voting occasionally. And in the final analysis if you can not get people interested in the government we have, you can not get the government you want because it is only by working within the collaborative, open source government we currently have that we can change it into the government we want. Revolutions don't generally work, and in any case people generally only revolt when they are starving. Crop failures and increased grain prices set of this latest round of revolutions far more than twitter or e-Anything.
Outside working within our current collaborative, open source, constitutional government to change it into what you want, you have only two things: idle theorizing and open revolt. Both are a waste of time. And "government" is only half the issue. What if ninety percent of people decided they wanted a whole new form of government? It would be the bottom ninety percent that currently only owns ten percent of the planet's resource. The ten percent that own ninety percent of the world like things just the way they are. Go form all the self governing open source governments you want, on your ten percent. If you don't play by the owning class's rules in your shiny new government, they will fuck you dead. Brutally. And playing by their rules means they profit at least a little from everything you do. So, there's that little problem too.
I wish you luck and I will come check out your site. Don't be surprised if I don't stay long. I'm middle aged now and I'm a bit more cynical than I was in my radical youth. But perhaps I simply need a little fresh inspiration, you never know.
Oh no. You are actually polite and apologetic? Now I feel like a dick, and might in fact have to do penance by checking out your site. I've always been afraid that it is some kind of haven for "No government is good government" libertarian free market fanatics. You don't have TOO many "No government is good government" libertarian free market fanatics, do you? Because I can handle a few, it is when they start to form large colonies that they become truly annoying. Do you have any other kinds of anarchists there? Social anarchists, for example? Maybe some Anarcho-Syndicalists? If you have any Anarcho-Syndicalists, I might actually stay for more than five minutes.
Trolling is a form of communication designed primarily to elicit an angry response. Trolls do not believe in what they say, they only say it to piss you off. I don't care if I piss you off, I really think the metagovernment guy is a troll, he puts links to his site into almost every discussion.
ORLY? I won't argue, because that's not the point. The point is, the majority can use the free market to enforce tyranny on the minority. If the White Citizen's Councils could use the free market to destroy blacks, any majority could use it to destroy any minority. Thankfully, we live in a constitutional republic, and the Federal Government stepped in to stop the oppression. I don't want to see the clock turned back on that one.
Did you not read the bit about the White Citizens Councils? People used economic coercion to destroy other people's lives without having to resort to violence. It actually happened, the free market was used to oppress and destroy people, you can't simply rewrite history to agree with your political/economic theories. It amazes me that people can discuss "market forces" and, nearly in the same breath, deny that the market has any kind of force. It astounds me that people will simply deny history in order to make their cherished ideologies seem more plausible.
Fact: White people used the power of the free market to destroy the lives of middle class black business people.
Does your friend have any idea how many modern inventions were spawned from the space program? He only thinks it does not benefit him. He sounds like the type of person who would claim that nothing benefits him, and therefore he shouldn't have to pay taxes at all. But the thing is, he is benefiting. He could always shop around for a better deal. Society is offering him a deal, he is taking the deal, and then complaining that he doesn't want to pay. Well, the first step is NOT TAKING THE DEAL! He is free to find a better one, in any country on earth. We have a free market of governance, and anyone with useful skills and some capital can go nearly anywhere in the world and become a citizen. So why is your friend still here? He must like the deal, and he is simply trying to negotiate a better bargain for himself.
That is not a rationale. It is a simple statement of opinion. In order to be a rationale, you would need to explain WHY the government can only spend money on defense and law enforcement and, presumably, law creation... but what laws? What would actually be illegal in a libertarian society? Harm, obviously, but what is harm? Does it harm me if you pollute? What if you use child labor and my moral code prohibits it, when you undercut me in the market, is that harm? What if you decide to form some White Citizens Councils and drive all blacks out of business? Certainly that would be considered harm, right? Or would it just be the free market at work? In a libertarian society, what would keep a majority from economically coercing and dominating a minority? Or is that considered okay in libertarian society, as long as the majority uses market forces to oppress the minority?
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No. I don't think I do read too much into this. It is a stupid analogy that conveys no real truth while slandering the institution of democracy. It is an evil, misguided analogy that in essence tells the sheep, "Do not band together in a democratic government to protect yourselves, get yourself a gun." As I mentioned, even if you arm the sheep, you have one armed sheep against two armed wolves and the sheep loses, which I fear is the point, because this analogy was crafted by wolves in order to convince the sheep to give up the one real form of protection they have: banding together into a strong, democratic government. It calls democratic government the problem, but the real problem is the wolves.
The problem is not that the wolves are armed and the sheep is not, in reality we are talking about people who all have the same natural armament, who live in a society where we can all arm ourselves. So why do we hire a police force and army instead of all of us walking around armed all the time? Because that doesn't work. Historically, it just doesn't work. You get sheep who think other sheep are wolves, and shoot them. You get wolves ambushing sheep. The problem is not that wolves are armed and lambs are not. The problem is that wolves enjoy the taste of lamb, while lambs do not enjoy the taste of wolf. Wolves want to fight. Lambs do not.
If there was any way an individual sheep could protect itself from two wolves without the help of other sheep, then the original statement "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch" is false, as the sheep could just say "No. None of us are eating sheep for lunch" and there would be no need for the analogy in the first place. That the sheep can not say that is misstated as a problem with democracy. It has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with the nature of sheep and wolves. And the means by which the sheep protects itself are either not stated (in c64's original quote) or attributed to individual defense of the self by gunplay. That won't work. It never works, because a sheep is not a wolf.
A democracy of sheep is what protects the sheep from the wolves. Arming all the sheep won't cut it, because, as I mentioned, sheep do not like to fight but wolves do. The wolves will take the sheep out, one at a time. Governments exist to protect the weak from the strong. They do not exist to protect the strong from the strong. If everyone were a wolf, there wouldn't be a problem, and if everyone were a sheep there would be no problem.
The problem is that we have a large group of people who just want to live and let live, while we have a small group of people that want to eat everybody else alive. If we had no sociopaths, tyrants or bullies, we wouldn't need government. If we were all sociopaths, tyrants and bullies, we wouldn't want others to be protected by government. But most humans do not care to go around armed and ready to kill at any moment. It's a bit stressful. We would rather band together, pool our resources, and hire some sheepdogs. To do that requires a fair decision making process, and democracy fits that bill perfectly.
Okay, I'm rambling a bit so allow me to summarize: the wolves want the sheep to stop banding together and hiring sheepdogs, so they want to convince the sheep that sheepdogs and the sheep who hire them are tyrants, and the only answer is for every sheep to look after itself, by itself, without participating in any group dynamic that might give a group of sheep an edge over the wolves.
The sad thing is that the wolves have convinced a bunch of sheep to act as their spokessheep. These deluded sheep believe they can become wolves too, but once their work is done, they will be dinner.
On whose side, do you think?
I found a link in the first article to Manning's lawyer's description. http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2010/12/typical-day-for-pfc-bradley-manning.html
The guards are required to check on PFC Manning every five minutes by asking him if he is okay. PFC Manning is required to respond in some affirmative manner. At night, if the guards cannot see PFC Manning clearly, because he has a blanket over his head or is curled up towards the wall, they will wake him in order to ensure he is okay.
Look, I'm done here, sorry if you wanted to chat more but I'm not really interested in arguing with you anymore. Look stuff up yourself if you are interested in the truth. If you aren't, then you can just make up some pleasant stories in your head. Whatever, I'm out.
Woken every five minutes by guards. Yeah.
The Minutemen, KKK, Huffington Post, and other hate groups DO have the right to vote.
You watched Sesame Street right? Then sing it with me! "One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just isn't the same!" To be specific, one of these things is not actually a hate group, and I challenge you to provide evidence that would convince an impartial observer that it is a hate group. I'll wait. But I won't hold my breath.
One well armed lamb versus two well armed wolves? Still a dead lamb, maybe one dead wolf, but the lamb is not going to kill both of them before they kill it. The problem is that the lamb is outnumbered. Arming him won't fix that problem any more than giving him a vote or letting him bleat about his rights will. If the lamb is to survive, we need to admit other actors into the analogy. In real life, there will always be more lambs than wolves. Therefore, we could easily claim that "Liberty is fifty lambs democratically electing a government, which forms a lamb army and police force, which protects the lambs from the two wolves." Liberty is not two well armed wolves and one well armed lamb in a shootout. That is just stupid, we all know how that turns out. Even one lamb and one wolf, both well armed, would usually end up with a full wolf and a lamb carcass. Wolves are simply better at fighting than lambs, and the lamb has to sleep sometime.
That is why this analogy is stupid. As long as the lamb is outnumbered, and a lamb, and fighting wolves, who are very good at fighting, the lamb will lose. Duh.
Sleep deprivation. It can actually kill you if it goes on long enough, and it can drive you absolutely schizophrenic. Being constantly woken up does not allow REM sleep, and that will eventually drive anyone bonkers.
You don't get it. How does the lamb survive? What, exactly, keeps the wolves from eating it? Who protects the lamb from the wolves? Do we simply tell the wolves not to be wolves? You can't arm a lamb, it's a fucking lamb. The original example was "Two wolves and a lamb" and the solution was "Everybody agrees not to eat the lamb." Yeah, great. How the hell does that actually work? What I see is the wolves agreeing, "Oh, no, we won't eat you." Right up until they actually get hungry.
You see, the problem is always the wolves. If it were three lambs, there would be no problem. The problem is the very existence of wolves amongst the lambs. You can't just tell a wolf not to be a wolf. You have to have an actual method of enforcing that decision. You need a bunch of lambs, who will all say "Eat that lamb and we kill you, too." One lamb won't cut it. One lamb and two wolves ALWAYS leads to a dead lamb and two wolves. That is why this example is so fucking stupid, and why I made fun of it.
All that example does is restate the problem. It does not provide an actual working solution. The solution it purports to provide is "The wolves and the lamb agree not to eat anyone." Yeah, sounds great. How does that work, though? With two wolves and a lamb, it won't. That is why the example is ridiculous. It changes the parameters of the problem without mentioning what is changed or how. Suddenly, for no discernible reason, the two wolves agree not to eat the one lamb. Well, why do they do that?
The change is actually fairly obvious, even if unspoken. The author must assume there is actually more than one lamb. He assumes there are enough lambs to defeat the wolves. Okay, how do the lambs decide, amongst themselves, how they are going to protect themselves from the wolves? Do they, you know, VOTE? Or is it one lamb telling all the others what to do?
Now do you see why this example is unutterably stupid?
Funny thing, in our democracy it was not the majority that seized power, it was a very small and wealthy minority.
I'm not following what "martyr fantasies" refers to. Also, nationalizing everything doesn't work, the free market actually works better in many cases, although the real problem with nationalized control is lack of price signals. I believe we could use telecommunications systems to poll citizens, customers and workers and come up with a replacement for free market price signals, though. Allende started to do that in Chile with project Cybersyn, right before we had him killed.
Are you trying to claim we use the same level of threat of force we always have? Because we used to torture people to death pretty frequently. Now we have trial by jury and laws against cruel and unusual punishment. I'm not buying your hypothesis.
Oh. So it's not really about Government government, it's some kind of communications/decision making software? Fuck me, I've been trolled.
Ten percent of the population currently owns ninety percent of America. Revoking corporate charter will do fuck-all at this point, the ultra-rich will still own everything. They already won, and you are suggesting disarmament?
Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.
- Marvin Simkin, "Individual Rights", Los Angeles Times, 12 January 1992:[8]
So freedom is a lamb yelling "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!" as it is eaten by two wolves?
Was it really "the people" who voted to kill him? Oh, sure, it was SOME of the people. Not women, they couldn't vote. Not poor people, only land owners in Greece could vote. Not slaves, I mean, obviously, right? And another point, a small point: that happened around twenty five hundred years ago. We've matured as a species just a teensy bit since then, don't you think? Okay, I will admit that democracies, like any other group or individual human endeavor, can go horribly wrong and lead to oppression. But you shouldn't judge a style of government by cherry picking a few examples.
Technically, democracies can not be tyrannies in the same sense that apples can not be oranges. They are both fruit, but they are not the same fruit. You could say a democracy could be tyrannical, but a tyranny has a technical meaning closer to autocracy by theft.
How can you even begin to find a synthesis that works for everyone if you don't talk ideology? Ideologies lead to policies, I mean, if you don't have a model of how things work in your head (which is all an ideology is) you will be creating policies basically at random. So, to come up with a synthesis that works, you have to talk about what you are synthesizing. I use ideological labels as a kind of shorthand. When I say "anarcho-syndicalist," for instance, I mean someone who believes in use-stewardship style property rights and democratic control of the means of production. When I say "libertarian" I mean someone who believes in strong individual property rights and free markets, with private ownership of all means of production. Synthesizing those two branches of anarchism will be problematic.
Getting people talking about government is a great idea. You see, we already have a completely open source collaborative form of government, it just requires that people take up the reigns and participate. People don't really seem that interested in participating in the collaborative government we currently have, except for voting occasionally. And in the final analysis if you can not get people interested in the government we have, you can not get the government you want because it is only by working within the collaborative, open source government we currently have that we can change it into the government we want. Revolutions don't generally work, and in any case people generally only revolt when they are starving. Crop failures and increased grain prices set of this latest round of revolutions far more than twitter or e-Anything.
Outside working within our current collaborative, open source, constitutional government to change it into what you want, you have only two things: idle theorizing and open revolt. Both are a waste of time. And "government" is only half the issue. What if ninety percent of people decided they wanted a whole new form of government? It would be the bottom ninety percent that currently only owns ten percent of the planet's resource. The ten percent that own ninety percent of the world like things just the way they are. Go form all the self governing open source governments you want, on your ten percent. If you don't play by the owning class's rules in your shiny new government, they will fuck you dead. Brutally. And playing by their rules means they profit at least a little from everything you do. So, there's that little problem too.
I wish you luck and I will come check out your site. Don't be surprised if I don't stay long. I'm middle aged now and I'm a bit more cynical than I was in my radical youth. But perhaps I simply need a little fresh inspiration, you never know.
Oh no. You are actually polite and apologetic? Now I feel like a dick, and might in fact have to do penance by checking out your site. I've always been afraid that it is some kind of haven for "No government is good government" libertarian free market fanatics. You don't have TOO many "No government is good government" libertarian free market fanatics, do you? Because I can handle a few, it is when they start to form large colonies that they become truly annoying. Do you have any other kinds of anarchists there? Social anarchists, for example? Maybe some Anarcho-Syndicalists? If you have any Anarcho-Syndicalists, I might actually stay for more than five minutes.
Trolling is a form of communication designed primarily to elicit an angry response. Trolls do not believe in what they say, they only say it to piss you off. I don't care if I piss you off, I really think the metagovernment guy is a troll, he puts links to his site into almost every discussion.
ORLY? I won't argue, because that's not the point. The point is, the majority can use the free market to enforce tyranny on the minority. If the White Citizen's Councils could use the free market to destroy blacks, any majority could use it to destroy any minority. Thankfully, we live in a constitutional republic, and the Federal Government stepped in to stop the oppression. I don't want to see the clock turned back on that one.
The majority can also use the free market to enforce tyranny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Citizens'_Council
What's next, front page coverage of Michael "Your mom's face" Kristlepeet?
Did you not read the bit about the White Citizens Councils? People used economic coercion to destroy other people's lives without having to resort to violence. It actually happened, the free market was used to oppress and destroy people, you can't simply rewrite history to agree with your political/economic theories. It amazes me that people can discuss "market forces" and, nearly in the same breath, deny that the market has any kind of force. It astounds me that people will simply deny history in order to make their cherished ideologies seem more plausible.
Fact: White people used the power of the free market to destroy the lives of middle class black business people.
Oh, no. That would not explain why the pictures look like shit. The "lens" is on the other side. Now, smile pretty for the "camera!"
Does your friend have any idea how many modern inventions were spawned from the space program? He only thinks it does not benefit him. He sounds like the type of person who would claim that nothing benefits him, and therefore he shouldn't have to pay taxes at all. But the thing is, he is benefiting. He could always shop around for a better deal. Society is offering him a deal, he is taking the deal, and then complaining that he doesn't want to pay. Well, the first step is NOT TAKING THE DEAL! He is free to find a better one, in any country on earth. We have a free market of governance, and anyone with useful skills and some capital can go nearly anywhere in the world and become a citizen. So why is your friend still here? He must like the deal, and he is simply trying to negotiate a better bargain for himself.
That is not a rationale. It is a simple statement of opinion. In order to be a rationale, you would need to explain WHY the government can only spend money on defense and law enforcement and, presumably, law creation... but what laws? What would actually be illegal in a libertarian society? Harm, obviously, but what is harm? Does it harm me if you pollute? What if you use child labor and my moral code prohibits it, when you undercut me in the market, is that harm? What if you decide to form some White Citizens Councils and drive all blacks out of business? Certainly that would be considered harm, right? Or would it just be the free market at work? In a libertarian society, what would keep a majority from economically coercing and dominating a minority? Or is that considered okay in libertarian society, as long as the majority uses market forces to oppress the minority?