Show me your own evidence of one single example, recorded anywhere, of a successful, long term, society (not some isolated few families that were massacred as soon as they ran up against the real world) brought about by, and based on, voluntary association.
Iceland.
Read Kropotkin. He was a Russian aristocrat who went into Siberia to find out what people were doing without any semblance of "governance" to tell them what to do and how to live together. He returned enlightened.
That should be enough to counter your "whole recorded history" illusion. Let me guess, you went to government run school? Talk about a conflict of interest in teaching peaceful human history.
If someone could come up with a consistent and appetizing set of principles to reconcile the libertarian small government and de minimum personal conduct rules with a pro-environment stance...
Have you read the Libertarian party platform on the environment? How is enforcement of private property rights inconsistent?
More to the point, I think, is that simple enforcement of property rights is far more effective as a means of pollution control than the arbitrary setting of standards that the EPA uses. People and companies will have to come up with clean processes just to keep from polluting other peoples air, water, and soil for which the polluter can be held absolutely responsible.
There's also no consistently powerful orator these days on these issues anywhere in sight
I agree with you on this one. The mass media has been able to keep the message contained. Have you heard Michael Badnarik speak? The only time you could have is either in person, or if you're fanatical enough to stay up late watching C-SPAN.
Against a media blackout like this, how is a great orator to be heard even when found?
which restricted very large companies was _good_ for capitalism.
Since capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, all regulations can do is restrict capitalism. There are things I am forced not to do, or forced to do. Either way, I am no longer the owner of my property. Regulation is the opposite of capitalism.
Without this regulation (allowing data to travel over phone wires via local telephone calls), the Internet would have been squashed.
You obviously have no idea about the origins of the Internet. It was de-regulation on many levels which created this free-for-all. Private peering, private backbones (remember the thankfully never enacted Federal Information Superhighway plan? Guess you don't), private peering facilities, commercial reselling of routing and address space, all of which happened only as a result of government changing their policies to no longer prevent them.
Regulations are what prevented such innovation from occurring years earlier. The retraction of those regulations is what allowed diversity and innovation to flourish in packet communications.
The "breakup" of Ma Bell was an illusion, only partially effecting interstate long distance. The "Baby Bells" still have a monopoly on local telephone service, just like Mom used to have. All that was ever needed was removal of the government mandated monopoly that Ma Bell enjoyed. So long as those monopolies remain, real innovation in the last mile will be slow and ponderous.
The EPA keeps me from dumping shit into rivers, air, and other stuff that you would have to drink and breath.
That's it? The only reason you don't kill others with your wastes is because of fear of punishment by the Fed.gov? That's not high praise you give yourself.
The fact is that enforcement of simple property rights solves pollution problems quite well. To dump toxins into a water supply is to infringe in the property rights of everyone else on the water way. All the EPA does is set levels for permitted pollution that protect polluters from prosecution. Even when, like with Love Canal, later it's found that those same regulations were inadequate to the task, it is impossible to punish anyone in the bureaucracies even if they knew the regulations to be faulty at the time.
Private individuals have no such limited liability.
it released Unix, pretty much for "free" to Universities. Most of its 'internal' tools -- which it was restricted from selling -- form the basis of your Linux box!
Do you work for SCO? Your complete ignorance of computer history is astounding. Linux was written to adapt to published standards, nothing in it is from "UNIX".
The GNU tools and compilers are, explicitly and absolutely, written from scratch by Richard Stallman and the other wonderful people at the Free Software Foundation, specifically because they wanted tools unencumbered by restrictive copyright like UNIX has.
capitalism by itself, without a set of rules for its behavior, will always run amuck. It's not Black vs White world.
Yet history repeatedly shows that, where people are allowed to be secure with their private property, lawfulness, respect and peace are the rules rather than the exceptions. You should look up "Kropotkin", a Russian aristocrat, who went into the wilds of Siberia to see how people could live without even a semblance of government regulation.
Putting it mildly, he returned enlightened.
It is where private property, "capitalism", is not respected that there is famine, war, and people "run[ning] amuck".
It is indeed a black and white world. There is respect for individual property and individual rights. Opposed to this is the institutionalized use of force against peaceful people, better known by the fascist word "Regulation", and the violence and criminality it engenders with its continuously changing rules and environment of fear of being found out by "The Man".
You haven't noticed, then that both Kerry and his trusty side-kick have been gung-ho for the war this entire time both in word and Senate voting record?
Go ahead, look it up. Kerry is on record saying he will NOT stop this war if elected.
That's false. Both faces of the Boot On Your Neck party hate the Libertarians, which is why they both cooperate to ensure Libertarians are never included in debates, that the mass media simply ignore the Libs as much as possible, etc.
Have you never read the Libertarian platform? Democrats hate it as much as Republicans to.
Far more often I read people spewing how Libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke pot, than how Libertarians are Democrats who have been mugged.
What's surprising is how many people don't realize that in order for the Senate to "lean" in this direction, it requires DEMOCRATS to be in favor of it too.
We've both faces of the Boot On Your Neck party smiling with this bill of Control Over Information.
The error in regulation is the assumption that people as individuals can be served by one regulation. This is why central planning always fails.
It is impossible for the planner to know all the details, to account for all the information and changes. By the time a planner has evaluated and adjusted their plan to match a change, there are already more changes.
This is why ITT doesn't exist any more. Not because it was "regulated", but because it didn't serve its customers. It got too big and couldn't adapt to the changing market. It is what is happening to Microsoft right now, and what happened to the old IBM.
Government regulations restrict change, allowing megalythic companies to exist and flourish. Enron was trying to build a business model on buying and selling government pollution credits, and leveraging regulatory changes that it knew about before hand by buying politicians.
If you enplace regulators and regulations, those regulators become the customers and us little folks remain completely out of the loop.
With changes in technology the "little guy" can adapt faster than the big companies. That is one of the great things about the 'Net. After all, Time Warner doesn't own Slashdot.
The Big Three, which I must assume you don't remember, ABC, CBS, NBC, were all there was for 40 years of Television, and Radio before that. But they couldn't control ShortWave, so instead the government created a difficult license process to restrict access and prevent competition with the moneyed Networks.
The reason I don't have any interest in creating yet more media regulations is because I don't want MY access restricted. I like being able to post articles where anyone can see them without worrying about language or subject content. I can even advertise my business (if I had one).
Once in place, regulators and regulations serve their customers, which are the politicians and bureaucrats who control their budget, and not you, or I, or any nebulous "consumer".
That's why John Stossel is such a breath of fresh air.
Oh, sorry, just to comment on your last sentence, I think you mean you were on your way to becoming one of those people who revel in chaos, like the ones who violently protest WTO meetings.
Maybe a good middle ground, like Libertarianism, would suit both your desire for choice and your desire for peaceful institutions.
How very interesting. Can you explain how crime happens, then, in such ordered societies as New York City, London, and Chicago?
I submit that chaos happens anyway, just like proton decay. It is the vast majority of us who are peaceful and respectful of others that end up paying the price of such "order" as drug prohibition, income tax and elimination of Habeas Corpus.
All for our own good, of course.
The Austrian School of Economics philosophers and Nobel Lauriates point out that it requires government to create lawlessness, since the majority of individuals tend to come together to create order, rather than chaos. It follows that the overwhelming majority of private uses of firearms are in preventing crime. Spontaneous Order.
In the real world, the difference is simply one of choice.
One of the important aspects of voting for a 3rd party is that when the percentage of voters gets substantial, both of the major parties begin to look at the 3rd party platform for issues which they can use to lure the 3rd party voters back.
Thus the Democrats have changed over time to take on more of the Green Party platform. My hope is that Republicans will see that there are a bunch of so-called "conservatives" who are upset enough to vote for someone else, and will begin to actually follow through with their fiscal responsibility talk.
There's no need for a 3rd party candidate to win, just that the 3rd party candidate has to get enough votes to make the the oligarks nervous.
One of the errors I often see is people confusing "anarchy" with "chaos". They two do not equate. There is no assumption of disorder or destruction with anarchy, unlike chaos. Anarchy is simply the individual choosing rather than having those choices made for them.
One of the more interesting aspects of Libertarian politics is a dedication to the principles of the constitution of the US, the Declaration of Independence, and other such things. As "The Importance Of" points out, this is a middle ground.
The original copyright and patent, for example, was enacted for only a limited time. This bears little resemblance to todays unlimited copyright. The abuse is based on the fact that politicians have only one motivation: Election. They sell law to the highest bidder.
This looks like a good book, and I hope to find a pirate e-version on the P2P networks soon.
Too bad it's Verizon. Oh well, more ethical companies will follow in their footsteps. When I was living in Tokyo two years ago, fiber to my apartment was $5/month on top of service. But DSL was 8Mbps, who cared to pay the extra?
It's online in many places, a quick search will find it for you.
Unfortunately, none of the enumerated powers have anything to do with the discussion. That is actually the problem with the poster I was replying to, since the Fed.Gov doing the monitoring is explicitly un-constitutional. They Have No Warrant.
Thank you, at last. I agree that those internal protections have indeed been bypassed more and more over time, unless we go back to the Lincoln administration that made the statutes necessary.
I'll even gladly pass on all the left, right, line, dot stuff, since it's obvious that we have no reconciliation. It may be, as you say, semantics.
However, socialist means initiating force for some purpose. I see no reconciliation with "libertarian" which means not initiating force.
Unfortunately, I personally agree with you. However, I'm not ready to give the alternative to voting a try yet, since the alternative is violent revolution.
Please quote the part of your constitution that grants you the freedom to move around in public without being monitored by the government.
You have that completely backwards. If you would read the US Constitution, you would discover that it is a list of enumerated powers which have been granted to government. The 9th and 10th amendments explicitly spell this out, for anyone who missed it the first time.
Reading. It's not just a good idea.
On the other hand, what Metropolitan Boston does has nothing to do with the US Constitution, so I cannot speak for them.
You do both of us a dis-service, sir, by assuming that there is a libertarian "type" that I hate, and by insulting a bunch of people who wish you no ill will what so ever.
My objection to anyone is based on their choice to use force against people who have done them no harm. That's all.
If you do not advocate the initiation of force, then what is there to which I can object?
I may disagree with choices you make for yourself, but so long as you do not force those choices on others it really is your decision. My disagreement is irrelevant. It's your life.
Your use of "Conservative" does confuse me. A few days ago here on Slashdot, a gentleman who identifies himself as a "Socialist-Libertarian" engaged me in discussion about how awfully far "right" of political center the US government is. Now you bring up "Conservative-Libertarian", which means nothing to me except you and he really should get together and compare notes.
So what makes you "Conservative" as compared to simply "Libertarian"? What policies do you consider so important that you would initiate force against people to impose those policies?
If you have no such intention to initiate force, why distinguish yourself by watering down "Libertarian"?
Thank you for the history lesson, but I was not being particular in my prior posting. If I had I would have given proper attribution for the various quotes as well.
Actually, I did indeed start using Win3 (actually Win2 first) just because. I wanted to try something new, and I could get it for nothing by copying floppies from work. So I did.
Win95 I got the same way, except it was by copying a pre-release build CD from work, again to try it. I liked running more than one program at a time, but since I'd already gotten used to SunOS (unix by any other name) at my previous job, running more than one program well was something I knew could happen. Win95 ran them badly. No worries about copyright violations, when I was done kicking the tires I erased them and put Linux on the PC. It ran very well indeed.
I agree with you that capitalism leads to evolving products, simply because peoples tastes change constantly. What satisfies today is tomorrow garish or not good enough any more. You would like the writings of Ludwig von Mises. www.mises.org An economist who got exactly what you're saying.
Bob-
If you don't vote Libertarian, you ASKED FOR THIS
on
1984 Comes To Boston
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Yep. For your own good.
Only following orders. We had to destroy the village in order to save it.
Protect and Serve, with fries on the side. Don't film the cops, however, they HATE that.
Those who give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty, nor safety.
I wonder how Paul Revere and the Sons Of Liberty would like it if the "lawful government" of Boston had been able to watch their every move...
The mighty American constitutional republic lasted, what, 4 score and 7 years? Naa, not even that long.
All hail the great Empire of the United States! Unfortunately, the wonderful article "America's Empire of Bases", Freedom Daily, April 2004, is not yet online. It will be, and you will be able to read it here:
http://www.fff.org/toc/fr04.asp
As the US governments do to others, we find they also do to Americans. And it sucks.
The beauty here is that I agree with your recap almost entirely. Had you "recapped" sooner, much wasted effort would have been avoided.
I have re-read your postings, and I have yet to see you propose any program or policy which you define as "left" that the US government is on the "right" of in anything except inertia. Your one attempt reads to me to say that any program which is not actually enacted may be "left", but once enacted and functioning becomes "right".
Also, since as you said, "put all those programs together in one platform and it becomes 'right'", the Democratic party in the US is very much on the right of your definition. But then, so is the socialist party.
Your "line" and "point" thing is rather absurd, as anyone who looks at the Nolan chart will see. Any combination of economic or social control is defined by a point, unless your definition means that someone is continuously changing their mind which could indeed create a line.
Wait, I get it! Democrats are constantly waffling, so their position is exactly as you state! A line! Ok, you're right.
However, a constantly changing "line" also reinforces what I said about principles in the first place. Principles define a steady point, so the politicians you mention therefore have no principles.
I think we actually only have two disagreements. One, we disagree about your assertion that lines mean points, that principles mean pragmatism, that right means left.
The other disagreement is that there is any difference between Democrat and Republican. One of my favorite writers, Vin Sprynowicz, calls them "The Stupid Party" and "The Evil Party", so I guess there are other people who see a difference too.
To me, they both want control, and that makes them dangerous. I don't care just how dangerous, neither deserves office.
Please reconsider your self-defined "libertarian socialist", since I see no reconciliation of the two opposed terms.
it wasn't Darwin that said survival of the fittest, it was a stupid libertarian.
Evolution is actually survival of the fit, not just the fittest.
As such, since before government took over colleges there were grants, loans and scholarships, and since there are lots of non-government grants, loans and scholarships around today, you would have nothing to worry about if libertarians were to repeal the government ones....unless, of course, you are not fit to receive a private loan, grant or scholarship. Is that what you're afraid of?
Slashdot Mirror
Show me your own evidence of one single example, recorded anywhere, of a successful, long term, society (not some isolated few families that were massacred as soon as they ran up against the real world) brought about by, and based on, voluntary association.
Iceland.
Read Kropotkin. He was a Russian aristocrat who went into Siberia to find out what people were doing without any semblance of "governance" to tell them what to do and how to live together. He returned enlightened.
That should be enough to counter your "whole recorded history" illusion. Let me guess, you went to government run school? Talk about a conflict of interest in teaching peaceful human history.
Bob-
If someone could come up with a consistent and appetizing set of principles to reconcile the libertarian small government and de minimum personal conduct rules with a pro-environment stance...
Have you read the Libertarian party platform on the environment? How is enforcement of private property rights inconsistent?
More to the point, I think, is that simple enforcement of property rights is far more effective as a means of pollution control than the arbitrary setting of standards that the EPA uses. People and companies will have to come up with clean processes just to keep from polluting other peoples air, water, and soil for which the polluter can be held absolutely responsible.
There's also no consistently powerful orator these days on these issues anywhere in sight
I agree with you on this one. The mass media has been able to keep the message contained. Have you heard Michael Badnarik speak? The only time you could have is either in person, or if you're fanatical enough to stay up late watching C-SPAN.
Against a media blackout like this, how is a great orator to be heard even when found?
Bob-
I do so wish the USA would go back inside its own borders and leave the rest of us alone.
Heck, I live in the US and feel exactly the same way.
I wish the US government would go back inside its "Ten Mile Square" own borders and leave the rest of us alone.
The GPL isn't a cancer, GOVERNMENT is.
Bob-
which restricted very large companies was _good_ for capitalism.
Since capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, all regulations can do is restrict capitalism. There are things I am forced not to do, or forced to do. Either way, I am no longer the owner of my property. Regulation is the opposite of capitalism.
Without this regulation (allowing data to travel over phone wires via local telephone calls), the Internet would have been squashed.
You obviously have no idea about the origins of the Internet. It was de-regulation on many levels which created this free-for-all. Private peering, private backbones (remember the thankfully never enacted Federal Information Superhighway plan? Guess you don't), private peering facilities, commercial reselling of routing and address space, all of which happened only as a result of government changing their policies to no longer prevent them.
Regulations are what prevented such innovation from occurring years earlier. The retraction of those regulations is what allowed diversity and innovation to flourish in packet communications.
The "breakup" of Ma Bell was an illusion, only partially effecting interstate long distance. The "Baby Bells" still have a monopoly on local telephone service, just like Mom used to have. All that was ever needed was removal of the government mandated monopoly that Ma Bell enjoyed. So long as those monopolies remain, real innovation in the last mile will be slow and ponderous.
The EPA keeps me from dumping shit into rivers, air, and other stuff that you would have to drink and breath.
That's it? The only reason you don't kill others with your wastes is because of fear of punishment by the Fed.gov? That's not high praise you give yourself.
The fact is that enforcement of simple property rights solves pollution problems quite well. To dump toxins into a water supply is to infringe in the property rights of everyone else on the water way. All the EPA does is set levels for permitted pollution that protect polluters from prosecution. Even when, like with Love Canal, later it's found that those same regulations were inadequate to the task, it is impossible to punish anyone in the bureaucracies even if they knew the regulations to be faulty at the time.
Private individuals have no such limited liability.
it released Unix, pretty much for "free" to Universities. Most of its 'internal' tools -- which it was restricted from selling -- form the basis of your Linux box!
Do you work for SCO? Your complete ignorance of computer history is astounding. Linux was written to adapt to published standards, nothing in it is from "UNIX".
The GNU tools and compilers are, explicitly and absolutely, written from scratch by Richard Stallman and the other wonderful people at the Free Software Foundation, specifically because they wanted tools unencumbered by restrictive copyright like UNIX has.
capitalism by itself, without a set of rules for its behavior, will always run amuck. It's not Black vs White world.
Yet history repeatedly shows that, where people are allowed to be secure with their private property, lawfulness, respect and peace are the rules rather than the exceptions. You should look up "Kropotkin", a Russian aristocrat, who went into the wilds of Siberia to see how people could live without even a semblance of government regulation.
Putting it mildly, he returned enlightened.
It is where private property, "capitalism", is not respected that there is famine, war, and people "run[ning] amuck".
It is indeed a black and white world. There is respect for individual property and individual rights. Opposed to this is the institutionalized use of force against peaceful people, better known by the fascist word "Regulation", and the violence and criminality it engenders with its continuously changing rules and environment of fear of being found out by "The Man".
Bob-
Anything less is just Socialism, rather than Communism.
You haven't noticed, then that both Kerry and his trusty side-kick have been gung-ho for the war this entire time both in word and Senate voting record?
Go ahead, look it up. Kerry is on record saying he will NOT stop this war if elected.
Bob-
That's false. Both faces of the Boot On Your Neck party hate the Libertarians, which is why they both cooperate to ensure Libertarians are never included in debates, that the mass media simply ignore the Libs as much as possible, etc.
Have you never read the Libertarian platform? Democrats hate it as much as Republicans to.
Far more often I read people spewing how Libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke pot, than how Libertarians are Democrats who have been mugged.
Bob-
I couldn't agree with you more.
What's surprising is how many people don't realize that in order for the Senate to "lean" in this direction, it requires DEMOCRATS to be in favor of it too.
We've both faces of the Boot On Your Neck party smiling with this bill of Control Over Information.
Bob-
The error in regulation is the assumption that people as individuals can be served by one regulation. This is why central planning always fails.
It is impossible for the planner to know all the details, to account for all the information and changes. By the time a planner has evaluated and adjusted their plan to match a change, there are already more changes.
This is why ITT doesn't exist any more. Not because it was "regulated", but because it didn't serve its customers. It got too big and couldn't adapt to the changing market. It is what is happening to Microsoft right now, and what happened to the old IBM.
Government regulations restrict change, allowing megalythic companies to exist and flourish. Enron was trying to build a business model on buying and selling government pollution credits, and leveraging regulatory changes that it knew about before hand by buying politicians.
If you enplace regulators and regulations, those regulators become the customers and us little folks remain completely out of the loop.
With changes in technology the "little guy" can adapt faster than the big companies. That is one of the great things about the 'Net. After all, Time Warner doesn't own Slashdot.
The Big Three, which I must assume you don't remember, ABC, CBS, NBC, were all there was for 40 years of Television, and Radio before that. But they couldn't control ShortWave, so instead the government created a difficult license process to restrict access and prevent competition with the moneyed Networks.
The reason I don't have any interest in creating yet more media regulations is because I don't want MY access restricted. I like being able to post articles where anyone can see them without worrying about language or subject content. I can even advertise my business (if I had one).
Once in place, regulators and regulations serve their customers, which are the politicians and bureaucrats who control their budget, and not you, or I, or any nebulous "consumer".
That's why John Stossel is such a breath of fresh air.
Bob-
That is the absurdity of prohibition in a so-called "free" society.
Either an individual is free to choose, and to face the consequences of that choice, or they are not.
Hands are used to kill people, too.
Bob-
Oh, sorry, just to comment on your last sentence, I think you mean you were on your way to becoming one of those people who revel in chaos, like the ones who violently protest WTO meetings.
Maybe a good middle ground, like Libertarianism, would suit both your desire for choice and your desire for peaceful institutions.
Bob-
How very interesting. Can you explain how crime happens, then, in such ordered societies as New York City, London, and Chicago?
I submit that chaos happens anyway, just like proton decay. It is the vast majority of us who are peaceful and respectful of others that end up paying the price of such "order" as drug prohibition, income tax and elimination of Habeas Corpus.
All for our own good, of course.
The Austrian School of Economics philosophers and Nobel Lauriates point out that it requires government to create lawlessness, since the majority of individuals tend to come together to create order, rather than chaos. It follows that the overwhelming majority of private uses of firearms are in preventing crime. Spontaneous Order.
In the real world, the difference is simply one of choice.
Bob-
One of the important aspects of voting for a 3rd party is that when the percentage of voters gets substantial, both of the major parties begin to look at the 3rd party platform for issues which they can use to lure the 3rd party voters back.
Thus the Democrats have changed over time to take on more of the Green Party platform. My hope is that Republicans will see that there are a bunch of so-called "conservatives" who are upset enough to vote for someone else, and will begin to actually follow through with their fiscal responsibility talk.
There's no need for a 3rd party candidate to win, just that the 3rd party candidate has to get enough votes to make the the oligarks nervous.
Bob-
One of the errors I often see is people confusing "anarchy" with "chaos". They two do not equate. There is no assumption of disorder or destruction with anarchy, unlike chaos. Anarchy is simply the individual choosing rather than having those choices made for them.
One of the more interesting aspects of Libertarian politics is a dedication to the principles of the constitution of the US, the Declaration of Independence, and other such things. As "The Importance Of" points out, this is a middle ground.
The original copyright and patent, for example, was enacted for only a limited time. This bears little resemblance to todays unlimited copyright. The abuse is based on the fact that politicians have only one motivation: Election. They sell law to the highest bidder.
This looks like a good book, and I hope to find a pirate e-version on the P2P networks soon.
(oh no, I'd never do that. really.)
Bob-
Just another example of how corruption flows to power the way water flows downhill.
Bob-
Too bad it's Verizon. Oh well, more ethical companies will follow in their footsteps. When I was living in Tokyo two years ago, fiber to my apartment was $5/month on top of service. But DSL was 8Mbps, who cared to pay the extra?
Boycott of Verizon Communications, by Carl Bussjaeger
North American Samizdat - BOYCOTT VERIZON! Free Hunter!
End the War on Freedom - Verizon Must Die
Bob-
It's online in many places, a quick search will find it for you.
Unfortunately, none of the enumerated powers have anything to do with the discussion. That is actually the problem with the poster I was replying to, since the Fed.Gov doing the monitoring is explicitly un-constitutional. They Have No Warrant.
Bob-
Thank you, at last. I agree that those internal protections have indeed been bypassed more and more over time, unless we go back to the Lincoln administration that made the statutes necessary.
I'll even gladly pass on all the left, right, line, dot stuff, since it's obvious that we have no reconciliation. It may be, as you say, semantics.
However, socialist means initiating force for some purpose. I see no reconciliation with "libertarian" which means not initiating force.
Sorry. Have a nice day.
Bob-
Unfortunately, I personally agree with you. However, I'm not ready to give the alternative to voting a try yet, since the alternative is violent revolution.
Bob-
Please quote the part of your constitution that grants you the freedom to move around in public without being monitored by the government.
You have that completely backwards. If you would read the US Constitution, you would discover that it is a list of enumerated powers which have been granted to government. The 9th and 10th amendments explicitly spell this out, for anyone who missed it the first time.
Reading. It's not just a good idea.
On the other hand, what Metropolitan Boston does has nothing to do with the US Constitution, so I cannot speak for them.
Bob-
You do both of us a dis-service, sir, by assuming that there is a libertarian "type" that I hate, and by insulting a bunch of people who wish you no ill will what so ever.
My objection to anyone is based on their choice to use force against people who have done them no harm. That's all.
If you do not advocate the initiation of force, then what is there to which I can object?
I may disagree with choices you make for yourself, but so long as you do not force those choices on others it really is your decision. My disagreement is irrelevant. It's your life.
Your use of "Conservative" does confuse me. A few days ago here on Slashdot, a gentleman who identifies himself as a "Socialist-Libertarian" engaged me in discussion about how awfully far "right" of political center the US government is. Now you bring up "Conservative-Libertarian", which means nothing to me except you and he really should get together and compare notes.
So what makes you "Conservative" as compared to simply "Libertarian"? What policies do you consider so important that you would initiate force against people to impose those policies?
If you have no such intention to initiate force, why distinguish yourself by watering down "Libertarian"?
Thank you for the history lesson, but I was not being particular in my prior posting. If I had I would have given proper attribution for the various quotes as well.
Bob-
Actually, I did indeed start using Win3 (actually Win2 first) just because. I wanted to try something new, and I could get it for nothing by copying floppies from work. So I did.
Win95 I got the same way, except it was by copying a pre-release build CD from work, again to try it. I liked running more than one program at a time, but since I'd already gotten used to SunOS (unix by any other name) at my previous job, running more than one program well was something I knew could happen. Win95 ran them badly. No worries about copyright violations, when I was done kicking the tires I erased them and put Linux on the PC. It ran very well indeed.
I agree with you that capitalism leads to evolving products, simply because peoples tastes change constantly. What satisfies today is tomorrow garish or not good enough any more. You would like the writings of Ludwig von Mises. www.mises.org An economist who got exactly what you're saying.
Bob-
Yep. For your own good.
Only following orders. We had to destroy the village in order to save it.
Protect and Serve, with fries on the side. Don't film the cops, however, they HATE that.
Those who give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty, nor safety.
I wonder how Paul Revere and the Sons Of Liberty would like it if the "lawful government" of Boston had been able to watch their every move...
The mighty American constitutional republic lasted, what, 4 score and 7 years? Naa, not even that long.
All hail the great Empire of the United States! Unfortunately, the wonderful article "America's Empire of Bases", Freedom Daily, April 2004, is not yet online. It will be, and you will be able to read it here:
http://www.fff.org/toc/fr04.asp
As the US governments do to others, we find they also do to Americans. And it sucks.
But don't blame me, I vote Libertarian.
Bob-
The beauty here is that I agree with your recap almost entirely. Had you "recapped" sooner, much wasted effort would have been avoided.
I have re-read your postings, and I have yet to see you propose any program or policy which you define as "left" that the US government is on the "right" of in anything except inertia. Your one attempt reads to me to say that any program which is not actually enacted may be "left", but once enacted and functioning becomes "right".
Also, since as you said, "put all those programs together in one platform and it becomes 'right'", the Democratic party in the US is very much on the right of your definition. But then, so is the socialist party.
Your "line" and "point" thing is rather absurd, as anyone who looks at the Nolan chart will see. Any combination of economic or social control is defined by a point, unless your definition means that someone is continuously changing their mind which could indeed create a line.
Wait, I get it! Democrats are constantly waffling, so their position is exactly as you state! A line! Ok, you're right.
However, a constantly changing "line" also reinforces what I said about principles in the first place. Principles define a steady point, so the politicians you mention therefore have no principles.
I think we actually only have two disagreements. One, we disagree about your assertion that lines mean points, that principles mean pragmatism, that right means left.
The other disagreement is that there is any difference between Democrat and Republican. One of my favorite writers, Vin Sprynowicz, calls them "The Stupid Party" and "The Evil Party", so I guess there are other people who see a difference too.
To me, they both want control, and that makes them dangerous. I don't care just how dangerous, neither deserves office.
Please reconsider your self-defined "libertarian socialist", since I see no reconciliation of the two opposed terms.
Bob-
it wasn't Darwin that said survival of the fittest, it was a stupid libertarian.
...unless, of course, you are not fit to receive a private loan, grant or scholarship. Is that what you're afraid of?
Evolution is actually survival of the fit, not just the fittest.
As such, since before government took over colleges there were grants, loans and scholarships, and since there are lots of non-government grants, loans and scholarships around today, you would have nothing to worry about if libertarians were to repeal the government ones.
Bob-