Retaliatory force against those who initiate violence is fine with me. What's not fine with me is the murder of innocent civilians because it is convenient to kill large blocks of people. If someone robs from me, I don't get to nuke all of the city.
even if you have such a shallow one-dimensional belief about the way people operate (which is on par with the belief's Sade held), that hardly means that libertarianism doesn't work. Quite the opposite, it means that Statism can't work. On the free market, money does not grant individuals the harmful powers that The State has (the territorial monopoly on the initiation of violence). If they fail to do whatever it is that got them the money in the first place (good investing, serving consumer well), they will cease making it, and their money will slowly deteriorate. They have no real ability to abuse their power in any significant way, as if they initiate violence against other's, free market law-enforcement agencies will arrest them, and they will be trialed in private courts and punished.
is usually because they make a product the consumer buys. Which means that -- considering the desired quality, price, and value -- the customer likes it. Or maybe they're rich because they invested their money well, thus funding fruitful and productive private enterprises, which ultimately must serve consumers. Possibly they just inherited it, which means their parents (or their parents parents, etc) did one of the above things well. In any case, they will have to do something with their money. Even if it's just sitting in a bank, it is being invested by the bank. Most likely, it will be invested; if they make poor investment decisions, they will be punished by the loss of money, that money which will flow to those who make more intelligent investments.
The point is, rich people have a "boss" as well, at least if they want to continue making money and stay rich: consumers. They also have to satisfy employees, for otherwise employees will go to other business'. If they fail to serve the consumer, they will lose market share and lose money; if they fail to treat their employees well, the future of their company will be at stake. They will keep the money they've already earned or inherited, but it will slowly wither away unless they do something productive.
Even for those who inherit their money, there is nothing wrong with this, unlike what most flaming liberal nutcases will say. Individuals work hard not only for themselves, but also to set up the security and comfort of their children and those they love. Sorry, but I'm not working hard so that the parasites that the government feeds can get 50% of my money (that's why intelligent individuals put their money in some kind of trust). Just as I earn my money, so should I be allowed to decide who it goes to.
What I meant is that it should be illegal, not that it is immoral (there is a difference between what is immoral and what should be illegal).
As for your assertion that libertarianism hands power to the wealthy, that's non-sense. They earn money by satisfying the consumer; if they stop doing that, they stop earning money. Because of private courts, they cannot abuse that power.
appealing to what you think a Zen-monk would accept hardly verifies the validity of your arguments. The simple fact of the matter is that it is Statists who are naive (or simply evil and corrupt). To hand over large amounts of centralized power to individuals and then ask them not to abuse that power -- using some worthless piece of paper, such as the Constitution, which is interpretted by those same individuals -- is laughable.
A true fundamental axiom is indisputeable. The non-aggression axiom fits that category (and from the non-aggression axiom can be derived the homesteading principle, and all the other facets of libertarianism:
It is illegal to initiate violence against anyone else.
This axiom is indisputeable by argumentation. Simply by arguing, you verify this argument. For if you didn't accept it, you wouldn't bother arguing, but would simply assault or murder all those who disagreed with you.
Fundamental aspects of libertarian economics (Austrian Economics) are also indisputeable, such as the axiom that man acts to replace a less satisfactory situation with a more satisfactory one, or the axiom that all individuals have a certain degree of time preference (a preference for goods now, as opposed to in the future).
I suggest you take a look at For a New Liberty, by Murray N. Rothbard. Libertarianism is very much oriented towards reality. Anyone who reads Mises.org could easily see that.
Articles discussing an important problem with any State (the need to tax, which always distorts the free market and reduces wealth by redirecting investment from fruitful free-market entreprise to wasteful government operations like the export of murder on a mass scale):
as for your self-righteousness, your position boils down to the traditional socialist line. You claim to be a philantrophist because you use other people's money -- that you stole -- to help those you deem in need. Sorry, the motives for thievery and robbery do not change the fact that that's what it is. If I steal from you, it doesn't matter whether I'm stealing from you to buy food for a starving person or buy myself a CD. It's still stealing, and I should go to jail.
logically impossible. Such an argument is self-contradictory and thus self-defeating. No thinking person could possibly accept such an argument. I need say no more.
as the article said, law-enforcement agencies would likely protect the poor anyways. It provides good reputation. Likewise, not only would individuals have protection, but store, street, and apartment owners would have protection for their businesses. They would be protected simply by living on the land of those who pay for protection, for the sake of their business.
"Big corporations do whatever they want"? Yea, sure. That's bullshit. Firstly, there would be private law-enforcement, so they couldn't violate the non-aggression axiom without being held accountable. Secondly, what exactly do you mean by "whatever they want"? Last time I checked, anyone who bought MS software agreed to their licenses. No-one's forcing you to buy software from MS, or to buy from OEM's that pre-install MS. Goto Linux.org. There are plenty of vendors that sell Linux pre-installed (Craigweb even offers to install the distribution of your choice).
Libertarianism is about property rights. Respecting property rights results in greater prosperity for all and a higher overall standard of living. As for all the individuals you think need help, individuals would be welcomed to help them in an anarcho-capitalist world. Without the government stealing 20%-50% of people's income, you'll find that people may be more generous with charity (and their money will go to efficient, productive operations, not wasteful inefficient State non-sense).
As for your self-proclaimed righteousness, how exactly is The State helping anyone? The State has caused all sorts of disasters in international affairs. As for the "needy" individuals that you say The State helps -- namely, the poor -- all it really does is create an unhealthy attitude of dependence and entitlement. Minimum wage laws, for example, merely illegalize jobs at below minimum wage rates, which otherwise would have existed, thus benefitting union workers at the expense of young and inexperienced individuals. Welfare, for example, creates demand for laziness and ungainfulness. In NY, a woman on welfare with two kids gets $32,000 dollars in non-taxable money. What woman in her right mind would go out and get a job when she can get $32k for nothing? We can have exactly as much welfare as we're willing to pay for (namely, we create unemployment via welfare).
Practical concerns do not negate moral reality. If a 6' black man living in a certain area rapes my daughter, it would be expedient and 'practical' for me to just go about and kill every 6' tall black man in the area who met that description. However, that does not justify it morally. Likewise, neither do your claimed practical concerns justify murder on a mass scale.
Any country with nuclear weapons that felt like attacking a "morally right" country could just give their leader a cell-phone and let him call in a nuclear attack
You present that as if it is a certainty to occur. There is no reason why any nation would want to launch a nuclear attack against a libertarian "area" (you could not call it a State) that did not nose into everyone else' affairs. Furthermore, there is little use for nuclear weapons during the invasion of a non-aggressive area. The only reason to invade a non-aggressive block of land would be to control it's resources and benefit from them, including the people, who you would enslave. You cannot do that if you level everything to the ground, destroying all resources.
Since the "US" would not be a nation -- would have no centralized power structure -- any occupying force would have to occupy all territory to effectively exert control, and then set up a central power-structure. This would be made exceedingly difficult by a population which would oppose with guerilla warfare (the only justified form of war). The meaningful way to invade such a nation would be with ground forces (soldiers). Aerial attacks would serve no function, as there would be no military targets to take out.
The only fear they'd have is that we might shoot the 15 or 20 people directly responsible for the missile launch, if we could find them.
And, of course, themselves. The assasination of leaders who order mass-murder is justified. However, murdering civilians who they also happen to oppress is not justified.
I am starting to suspect that you are (1) still in junior high, (2) not too bright, or (3) IHBT. HAND.
A lame ad hominem attempt to discredit me by presuming that your position is right, and anyone who disagrees with you is either young and naive or stupid. Btw, whatever IHBT/HAND means, I don't know.
I would suggest that you read National Defense (search for National Defense).
The best system is anarcho-capitalism, which would eliminate all centralized blocks of power, and allow the free market to operate without any harmful interference from States. See Rothbard's For a New Liberty
If we have to choose between the evils of various forms of The State, the least harmful form would most likely be monarchy. See Democracy: The God That Failed
defensive. Retaliation is also justified, but only against they who initiated the aggression. "Japan" did not bomb Pearl Harbor. Specific air-force officers of Japan, under the orders of the leaders of Japan, bombed Pearl Harbor. Retaliation against those specific individuals -- and only those specific individuals -- would have been justified. Murdering those not involved -- as we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and any other initiation of violence -- was not justified.
No, actually, Democracy is not a beatiful thing. Democracy creates a situation where the best liars will compete with one-another for the priviledge to steal from and exploit the taxpayer (that is, for the priviledge to be the net receiver of taxes).
The actions of the military consist of the murder of men, women, and children. You can say it was "collateral damage" or "during war", but that doesn't change the fact that murder is murder.
Hitler, WWII: Caused by the short-sighted and ignorant actions of the victors of WWI. WWII was made inevitable by the politicians who set up the treaty after WWI.
WWI: WWI would have been forced to resolve peacefully, as it was at a standstill, had not the US intervened. Btw, the British weren't "good guys". They formed an illegal blockade around Germany, and were starving millions of civilians. Meanwhile, the US was sending weapons to them on the Lucitania, the sinking of which (for that reason) we later used to justify our entry into the war.
Somalians starving: I don't see how the plight of starving people can be solved by murder. In fact, pretty much all starvation and other miseries of the world are caused by The State.
Taliban, Afghanistan, WTC, and terrorists: The US is only a target of terrorism because of our imperialistic invasion in everyone else' business. Fanatical religious nutcases wouldn't give a shit about the US if we weren't interfering in everyone else's business.
In short: All of the problems that The State claims we need military force for were in fact caused by The State, or the combined effect of several States (which are nothing more than geographical blocks of centralized power). The solution is not for these various power-blocks to demolish eachother and murder the opposing State's citizens, but to eliminate The State.
FYI, you stupid shit, the US hasn't fought a defensive war -- a war to defend our freedom -- since the Revolutionary War. Every other war we have either initiated or joined in in a hostile basis. All of those soldiers fought and died for the alterior motives of various Presidents, politicians, and special interest groups -- not to preserve our freedom, despite what you may have been brainwashed into thinking.
Of course Freedom isn't free. Ideally, in an anarcho-capitalistic world, it takes money to pay law-enforcement agencies to protect us from random criminal acts. However, you cannot preserve Freedom or increase Freedom by murdering thousands of individuals (which is all that war is).
Now Linux users, too, can take joy in a game simulating the export of murder taken on by the United States.
PS: Does anyone else think the commercial for MS' game, Rainbow Six, is fucked up? "Freedom isn't free". Iow, to be free, we need to murder lots of people in other countries. What abhorrent bullshit.
This guy is a loser, folks. He wasted millions and millions of dollars that investors gave to him on some half-cocked pipe-dream. He had no real business model. This guy really defaulted on all of his moral and legal obligations to his shareholders.
Government was not created by individuals acting of their own free will. Government was created by certain individuals violently imposing their will on others, via the initiation of force. It was then expanded by conquest. It is being maintained by the violence employed by those who hold State positions.
The idea of libertarianism is that once freedom -- the unhampered free market -- is established in a large enough area, it will be inherently resistant to Statist-invasions, either internally or externally.
Your entire argument is bullshit because it depends on the false assumption that State's were created voluntarily by individuals acting of their own free will. The State was no more created by individuals acting of their own free will than was slavery: it was created by a few men choosing to violently impose their will on others.
So, what would I do if the road-owner said "I cliam no responsibility on what the car-owners do on my road"? Or if he said "It's not the cars, it's that factory few kilometers away that's harming your forest"?
Neither claim gets him off the hook. The simple fact is that he is allowing individuals to pollute your property while on his. He has no more right to allow others to pollute your property while on his property than he does to pollute your property himself. His choices are simple: (1) Compensate you accordingly; (2) Pay to have your property de-polluted; (3) Erect a barrier around his road, making it a tunnel, so that the surrounding ground is not polluted; (4) Not allow certain individuals to drive on his road, who will then pressure their car companies; (5) Anything else he can think of to solve the situation.
Note: An alternate libertarian view, contradictory to my own in some ways, is presented here (Christian viewpoint).
what if there was no clear source of the pollution? What if there was no one thing I could point my finger at and say "that is the source of the pollution"? Who would I sue then? My property is being damaged by pollution, and I have no idea who's doing it.
In that case, you can't even prove that the pollution is being caused by another person, so you can't hold anyone else liable for it. You need to establish liability to hold someone else accountable. It should be noted that State-mandated action in this case solves nothing, as in the case you mention, the source of pollution is unknown. Even more so than in other cases, in the case you mention, State-mandated action is indeed trying to pin the asses tail while blindfolded.
I am not maintaining that an the unhampered free market is a perfect Elysia. Indeed, it's part of the challenge in life that various free-market companies would come about trying to solve various problems, some successful, other's not. The search for perfection is, among other things, pointless for living beings -- for perfection can only be found in death, as perfection implies a state in which nothing changes (as any change would detract from perfection).
While some of the articles regarding MS might over-state their role in innovation and popularization, none of the articles contain blatently factual errors. They are addressing precisely the lines of evidence that dimwit liberals use to discredit the free market, and explaining why they do not do so, or are only half-truths.
If you actually have any specific points to make about any of the particular articles, you're welcomed to say them.
Of course, "factual evidence" can no more contradict economic truths than could observations contradict the statement that 2+2=4, or that if I like the taste of vanilla ice-cream I cannot at the same time dislike that taste. Nor can any obsservation contradict the fact that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs that would have existed otherwise. Simply put, reference to historical fact can neither prove nor disprove any economic statement; historical events can, however, be interpretted through various economic theories.
Correct economic theory states that there can be no such thing as "monopoly prices" on an unhampered free market. This is because corporations always face some form of competition. The only real monopolies that exist are those created by the coercive force of the State.
Unless you have an actual, working example, then this is not how the free market solves the problem, it's all theory. How does the free market deal with companies that pollute and then go out of business?
Firstly, without government, there would be no bankruptcy laws. There would be no way to shield yourself from the financial and legal consequences of your actions in an anarcho-capitalist society. In that particular case, it is likely that private courts would force those responsible for the tort in that company to pay off the damages, irrelevant of how long it took. Alternatively, they could be punished as criminals (for the polluter is just as much a criminal as he who assaults another, and can be punished likewise).
Or the libertarians' beloved property rights. Is there a square inch of land owned on earth that cannot trace ownership back to one guy with a big stick taking it from another?
Originally, all owned land had to be homesteaded. Of course, that's too far back to trace. But the point is any currently unowned land is subject to homesteading. As for the problem you suggest, yes, almost all private land today, and land that the State controls, can be traced back to the violent deprivation of property from one individual by another. However, there needs to be specific claims in courts for any land to be returned to those it's stolen from. The presumption is that the current land-owner is the legitimate owner of that resource.
A specific claim can be made by a specific individual that that land was stolen from him, thus could not have been rightfully acquired by the current land-owner (in which case, the current land-owner would lose his land and sue whoever sold him that stolen land). However, you cannot just say "that land was stolen by someone at some point, thus we will deprive you of it". We need to start somewhere. Since it's likely all of our ancesters were stolen from, it would make sense to just wipe the slate clean, rather than trying untangle thousands of years of thievery in what would ultimately be a couter-productive venture.
(1) It is only in the current over-complicated legal system that you would need a lawyer to represent yourself. In a libertarian system, the free market would put pressure on courts to set up proceedings so that normal people could defend themselves without spending thousands of dollars on legal aid. Remember, the only law that is necessary in a libertarian would is "no-one shall initiate aggression against anyone else, or his property". Furhtermore, since individuals would pay premiums to have access to the private court of their choice, they could take the aggressor to a court which did not have such convoluted proceeds as to require lawyers.
(2) A more reasonable course of action would be to sue the road-owner, for allowing those on his property to pollute your property. Road owners would then place pressure on car-owners to pollute less, who would in turn place pressure on car-manufacturer's to make cars that pollute less. For example, a court may rule that the road owner either stop those on it's property from polluting yours, or pay $X for every Y units of pollution on your property. The road owner would then likely take such a course of action as to charge those who use cars that pollute more higher fees for use of that road.
If you haven't already read it, Rothbard's discussion of Pollution is a good explanation of how the current system solves nothing and how privatization and enforcement of property rights would be better. (search for "All right: Even if we concede that full private property").
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Retaliatory force against those who initiate violence is fine with me. What's not fine with me is the murder of innocent civilians because it is convenient to kill large blocks of people. If someone robs from me, I don't get to nuke all of the city.
even if you have such a shallow one-dimensional belief about the way people operate (which is on par with the belief's Sade held), that hardly means that libertarianism doesn't work. Quite the opposite, it means that Statism can't work. On the free market, money does not grant individuals the harmful powers that The State has (the territorial monopoly on the initiation of violence). If they fail to do whatever it is that got them the money in the first place (good investing, serving consumer well), they will cease making it, and their money will slowly deteriorate. They have no real ability to abuse their power in any significant way, as if they initiate violence against other's, free market law-enforcement agencies will arrest them, and they will be trialed in private courts and punished.
is usually because they make a product the consumer buys. Which means that -- considering the desired quality, price, and value -- the customer likes it. Or maybe they're rich because they invested their money well, thus funding fruitful and productive private enterprises, which ultimately must serve consumers. Possibly they just inherited it, which means their parents (or their parents parents, etc) did one of the above things well. In any case, they will have to do something with their money. Even if it's just sitting in a bank, it is being invested by the bank. Most likely, it will be invested; if they make poor investment decisions, they will be punished by the loss of money, that money which will flow to those who make more intelligent investments.
The point is, rich people have a "boss" as well, at least if they want to continue making money and stay rich: consumers. They also have to satisfy employees, for otherwise employees will go to other business'. If they fail to serve the consumer, they will lose market share and lose money; if they fail to treat their employees well, the future of their company will be at stake. They will keep the money they've already earned or inherited, but it will slowly wither away unless they do something productive.
Even for those who inherit their money, there is nothing wrong with this, unlike what most flaming liberal nutcases will say. Individuals work hard not only for themselves, but also to set up the security and comfort of their children and those they love. Sorry, but I'm not working hard so that the parasites that the government feeds can get 50% of my money (that's why intelligent individuals put their money in some kind of trust). Just as I earn my money, so should I be allowed to decide who it goes to.
What I meant is that it should be illegal, not that it is immoral (there is a difference between what is immoral and what should be illegal).
As for your assertion that libertarianism hands power to the wealthy, that's non-sense. They earn money by satisfying the consumer; if they stop doing that, they stop earning money. Because of private courts, they cannot abuse that power.
A true fundamental axiom is indisputeable. The non-aggression axiom fits that category (and from the non-aggression axiom can be derived the homesteading principle, and all the other facets of libertarianism:
It is illegal to initiate violence against anyone else.
This axiom is indisputeable by argumentation. Simply by arguing, you verify this argument. For if you didn't accept it, you wouldn't bother arguing, but would simply assault or murder all those who disagreed with you.
Fundamental aspects of libertarian economics (Austrian Economics) are also indisputeable, such as the axiom that man acts to replace a less satisfactory situation with a more satisfactory one, or the axiom that all individuals have a certain degree of time preference (a preference for goods now, as opposed to in the future).
I suggest you take a look at For a New Liberty, by Murray N. Rothbard. Libertarianism is very much oriented towards reality. Anyone who reads Mises.org could easily see that. Articles discussing an important problem with any State (the need to tax, which always distorts the free market and reduces wealth by redirecting investment from fruitful free-market entreprise to wasteful government operations like the export of murder on a mass scale):
Taxes and Distortion
Hidden Taxes
The Myth of Neutral Taxation
in other words, because you cannot come up with any logically consistent counter-argument to my moral statement, you resort to ad hominem attacks.
as for your self-righteousness, your position boils down to the traditional socialist line. You claim to be a philantrophist because you use other people's money -- that you stole -- to help those you deem in need. Sorry, the motives for thievery and robbery do not change the fact that that's what it is. If I steal from you, it doesn't matter whether I'm stealing from you to buy food for a starving person or buy myself a CD. It's still stealing, and I should go to jail.
logically impossible. Such an argument is self-contradictory and thus self-defeating. No thinking person could possibly accept such an argument. I need say no more.
as the article said, law-enforcement agencies would likely protect the poor anyways. It provides good reputation. Likewise, not only would individuals have protection, but store, street, and apartment owners would have protection for their businesses. They would be protected simply by living on the land of those who pay for protection, for the sake of their business.
"Big corporations do whatever they want"? Yea, sure. That's bullshit. Firstly, there would be private law-enforcement, so they couldn't violate the non-aggression axiom without being held accountable. Secondly, what exactly do you mean by "whatever they want"? Last time I checked, anyone who bought MS software agreed to their licenses. No-one's forcing you to buy software from MS, or to buy from OEM's that pre-install MS. Goto Linux.org. There are plenty of vendors that sell Linux pre-installed (Craigweb even offers to install the distribution of your choice).
Libertarianism is about property rights. Respecting property rights results in greater prosperity for all and a higher overall standard of living. As for all the individuals you think need help, individuals would be welcomed to help them in an anarcho-capitalist world. Without the government stealing 20%-50% of people's income, you'll find that people may be more generous with charity (and their money will go to efficient, productive operations, not wasteful inefficient State non-sense).
As for your self-proclaimed righteousness, how exactly is The State helping anyone? The State has caused all sorts of disasters in international affairs. As for the "needy" individuals that you say The State helps -- namely, the poor -- all it really does is create an unhealthy attitude of dependence and entitlement. Minimum wage laws, for example, merely illegalize jobs at below minimum wage rates, which otherwise would have existed, thus benefitting union workers at the expense of young and inexperienced individuals. Welfare, for example, creates demand for laziness and ungainfulness. In NY, a woman on welfare with two kids gets $32,000 dollars in non-taxable money. What woman in her right mind would go out and get a job when she can get $32k for nothing? We can have exactly as much welfare as we're willing to pay for (namely, we create unemployment via welfare).
Any country with nuclear weapons that felt like attacking a "morally right" country could just give their leader a cell-phone and let him call in a nuclear attack
You present that as if it is a certainty to occur. There is no reason why any nation would want to launch a nuclear attack against a libertarian "area" (you could not call it a State) that did not nose into everyone else' affairs. Furthermore, there is little use for nuclear weapons during the invasion of a non-aggressive area. The only reason to invade a non-aggressive block of land would be to control it's resources and benefit from them, including the people, who you would enslave. You cannot do that if you level everything to the ground, destroying all resources.
Since the "US" would not be a nation -- would have no centralized power structure -- any occupying force would have to occupy all territory to effectively exert control, and then set up a central power-structure. This would be made exceedingly difficult by a population which would oppose with guerilla warfare (the only justified form of war). The meaningful way to invade such a nation would be with ground forces (soldiers). Aerial attacks would serve no function, as there would be no military targets to take out.
The only fear they'd have is that we might shoot the 15 or 20 people directly responsible for the missile launch, if we could find them.
And, of course, themselves. The assasination of leaders who order mass-murder is justified. However, murdering civilians who they also happen to oppress is not justified.
I am starting to suspect that you are (1) still in junior high, (2) not too bright, or (3) IHBT. HAND.
A lame ad hominem attempt to discredit me by presuming that your position is right, and anyone who disagrees with you is either young and naive or stupid. Btw, whatever IHBT/HAND means, I don't know.
I would suggest that you read National Defense (search for National Defense).
Please see For a New Liberty -- The Public Sector: Police, Law, and the Courts.
If we have to choose between the evils of various forms of The State, the least harmful form would most likely be monarchy. See Democracy: The God That Failed
defensive. Retaliation is also justified, but only against they who initiated the aggression. "Japan" did not bomb Pearl Harbor. Specific air-force officers of Japan, under the orders of the leaders of Japan, bombed Pearl Harbor. Retaliation against those specific individuals -- and only those specific individuals -- would have been justified. Murdering those not involved -- as we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and any other initiation of violence -- was not justified.
Democracy is a beautiful thing.
No, actually, Democracy is not a beatiful thing. Democracy creates a situation where the best liars will compete with one-another for the priviledge to steal from and exploit the taxpayer (that is, for the priviledge to be the net receiver of taxes).
The actions of the military consist of the murder of men, women, and children. You can say it was "collateral damage" or "during war", but that doesn't change the fact that murder is murder.
Hitler, WWII: Caused by the short-sighted and ignorant actions of the victors of WWI. WWII was made inevitable by the politicians who set up the treaty after WWI.
WWI: WWI would have been forced to resolve peacefully, as it was at a standstill, had not the US intervened. Btw, the British weren't "good guys". They formed an illegal blockade around Germany, and were starving millions of civilians. Meanwhile, the US was sending weapons to them on the Lucitania, the sinking of which (for that reason) we later used to justify our entry into the war.
Somalians starving: I don't see how the plight of starving people can be solved by murder. In fact, pretty much all starvation and other miseries of the world are caused by The State.
Taliban, Afghanistan, WTC, and terrorists: The US is only a target of terrorism because of our imperialistic invasion in everyone else' business. Fanatical religious nutcases wouldn't give a shit about the US if we weren't interfering in everyone else's business.
In short: All of the problems that The State claims we need military force for were in fact caused by The State, or the combined effect of several States (which are nothing more than geographical blocks of centralized power). The solution is not for these various power-blocks to demolish eachother and murder the opposing State's citizens, but to eliminate The State.
FYI, you stupid shit, the US hasn't fought a defensive war -- a war to defend our freedom -- since the Revolutionary War. Every other war we have either initiated or joined in in a hostile basis. All of those soldiers fought and died for the alterior motives of various Presidents, politicians, and special interest groups -- not to preserve our freedom, despite what you may have been brainwashed into thinking.
Of course Freedom isn't free. Ideally, in an anarcho-capitalistic world, it takes money to pay law-enforcement agencies to protect us from random criminal acts. However, you cannot preserve Freedom or increase Freedom by murdering thousands of individuals (which is all that war is).
Now Linux users, too, can take joy in a game simulating the export of murder taken on by the United States.
PS: Does anyone else think the commercial for MS' game, Rainbow Six, is fucked up? "Freedom isn't free". Iow, to be free, we need to murder lots of people in other countries. What abhorrent bullshit.
This guy is a loser, folks. He wasted millions and millions of dollars that investors gave to him on some half-cocked pipe-dream. He had no real business model. This guy really defaulted on all of his moral and legal obligations to his shareholders.
So, let me get this straight, in Japan, an urchin's pussy is considered a delicacy?
The idea of libertarianism is that once freedom -- the unhampered free market -- is established in a large enough area, it will be inherently resistant to Statist-invasions, either internally or externally.
Your entire argument is bullshit because it depends on the false assumption that State's were created voluntarily by individuals acting of their own free will. The State was no more created by individuals acting of their own free will than was slavery: it was created by a few men choosing to violently impose their will on others.
Neither claim gets him off the hook. The simple fact is that he is allowing individuals to pollute your property while on his. He has no more right to allow others to pollute your property while on his property than he does to pollute your property himself. His choices are simple: (1) Compensate you accordingly; (2) Pay to have your property de-polluted; (3) Erect a barrier around his road, making it a tunnel, so that the surrounding ground is not polluted; (4) Not allow certain individuals to drive on his road, who will then pressure their car companies; (5) Anything else he can think of to solve the situation.
Note: An alternate libertarian view, contradictory to my own in some ways, is presented here (Christian viewpoint).
what if there was no clear source of the pollution? What if there was no one thing I could point my finger at and say "that is the source of the pollution"? Who would I sue then? My property is being damaged by pollution, and I have no idea who's doing it.
In that case, you can't even prove that the pollution is being caused by another person, so you can't hold anyone else liable for it. You need to establish liability to hold someone else accountable. It should be noted that State-mandated action in this case solves nothing, as in the case you mention, the source of pollution is unknown. Even more so than in other cases, in the case you mention, State-mandated action is indeed trying to pin the asses tail while blindfolded.
I am not maintaining that an the unhampered free market is a perfect Elysia. Indeed, it's part of the challenge in life that various free-market companies would come about trying to solve various problems, some successful, other's not. The search for perfection is, among other things, pointless for living beings -- for perfection can only be found in death, as perfection implies a state in which nothing changes (as any change would detract from perfection).
While some of the articles regarding MS might over-state their role in innovation and popularization, none of the articles contain blatently factual errors. They are addressing precisely the lines of evidence that dimwit liberals use to discredit the free market, and explaining why they do not do so, or are only half-truths.
If you actually have any specific points to make about any of the particular articles, you're welcomed to say them.
Of course, "factual evidence" can no more contradict economic truths than could observations contradict the statement that 2+2=4, or that if I like the taste of vanilla ice-cream I cannot at the same time dislike that taste. Nor can any obsservation contradict the fact that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs that would have existed otherwise. Simply put, reference to historical fact can neither prove nor disprove any economic statement; historical events can, however, be interpretted through various economic theories.
Correct economic theory states that there can be no such thing as "monopoly prices" on an unhampered free market. This is because corporations always face some form of competition. The only real monopolies that exist are those created by the coercive force of the State.
Firstly, without government, there would be no bankruptcy laws. There would be no way to shield yourself from the financial and legal consequences of your actions in an anarcho-capitalist society. In that particular case, it is likely that private courts would force those responsible for the tort in that company to pay off the damages, irrelevant of how long it took. Alternatively, they could be punished as criminals (for the polluter is just as much a criminal as he who assaults another, and can be punished likewise).
Or the libertarians' beloved property rights. Is there a square inch of land owned on earth that cannot trace ownership back to one guy with a big stick taking it from another?
Originally, all owned land had to be homesteaded. Of course, that's too far back to trace. But the point is any currently unowned land is subject to homesteading. As for the problem you suggest, yes, almost all private land today, and land that the State controls, can be traced back to the violent deprivation of property from one individual by another. However, there needs to be specific claims in courts for any land to be returned to those it's stolen from. The presumption is that the current land-owner is the legitimate owner of that resource.
A specific claim can be made by a specific individual that that land was stolen from him, thus could not have been rightfully acquired by the current land-owner (in which case, the current land-owner would lose his land and sue whoever sold him that stolen land). However, you cannot just say "that land was stolen by someone at some point, thus we will deprive you of it". We need to start somewhere. Since it's likely all of our ancesters were stolen from, it would make sense to just wipe the slate clean, rather than trying untangle thousands of years of thievery in what would ultimately be a couter-productive venture.
(2) A more reasonable course of action would be to sue the road-owner, for allowing those on his property to pollute your property. Road owners would then place pressure on car-owners to pollute less, who would in turn place pressure on car-manufacturer's to make cars that pollute less. For example, a court may rule that the road owner either stop those on it's property from polluting yours, or pay $X for every Y units of pollution on your property. The road owner would then likely take such a course of action as to charge those who use cars that pollute more higher fees for use of that road.
If you haven't already read it, Rothbard's discussion of Pollution is a good explanation of how the current system solves nothing and how privatization and enforcement of property rights would be better. (search for "All right: Even if we concede that full private property").