# A Challenge to Modern Liberals Regarding their Fealty to the Principles they Espouse **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693 "2013-06-11T02:57:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/81 "2013-06-11T23:00:05Z")
[If Libertarianism is so great, why has no country anywhere in the world ever tried it?](http://www.salon.com/2013/06/04/the_question_libertarians_just_cant_answer/) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/82 "2013-06-11T23:06:36Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > Do you know what happened to the Liberty Dollar? > > [http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/nov/15/liberty-dollar-office-raided/](http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/nov/15/liberty-dollar-office-raided/) Yes. [It was a scam.](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar) > [@](#): > > **The Scam** > > The Liberty Dollar is backed by silver and is issued in silver one-ounce rounds, paper currency, and an electronic “e-Liberty Dollar” version. There is a slight problem with it: one ounce of silver is assigned a $20 face value. Silver is currently trading at about $36 an ounce.[1] One of the ideas behind the Liberty Dollar is to promote a return to silver-backed currency. Yet if one trades in their Liberty Dollars for silver rounds, they will receive the current spot price worth of silver for every $20. The Liberty Dollar was originally pegged at $10/ounce when it was introduced during the late 1990s when silver was trading for under $5. When the price of silver went over $10, von Nothaus simply cut the amount of silver backing each dollar by half (and offered to trade older $10/ounce Liberty Dollar paper currency and silver rounds for an equivalent face value of the $20/ounce stuff.) _Forbes_ magazine summed it up nicely in an article panning the Liberty Dollar concept: “How to lose half your dough? Trade it for silver.”[2] Some libertarians were rightfully also dubious about the concept, noting that Liberty Dollar’s distribution was set up in the same manner as a multi-level marketing company and if you want to trade in silver, use the current spot price and not an arbitrarily designated value. > > There is another slight problem with it: few legitimate businesses accept it. Indeed, most of the sale of Liberty Dollars has been to coin collectors, and the largest secondary market for Liberty Dollars is people selling the Liberty Dollars they were earlier suckered into buying to collectors on eBay. Perhaps realizing this, von Nothaus began introducing many variations and commemorative Liberty Dollar silver rounds: one of them honoring Ron Paul, another opposing the Iraq War, and another honoring chiropractors. > > The United States Mint issued a consumer warning about the “Liberty Dollars”, stating they were “not genuine United States Mint bullion coins and they are not legal tender”, adding, “…prosecutors with the Department of Justice have determined that the use of these gold and silver NORFED ‘Liberty Dollar’ medallions as circulating money is a Federal crime.”[3] > > \*\*That’s just a little bit mo’ than the law will allow \*\* > > A bigger problem: U.S. federal law allows for _local_ alternative currencies to circulate (the Ithaca, New York “Ithaca Hour” is one such currency), but prohibits alternative currencies intended to circulate nationally if they are misrepresented as legal tender.[4] Bartering using silver rounds is legal (some of the more radical anarcho-capitalist fringe do this) but the Liberty Dollar silver rounds were designed in such a way as to mimic real U.S.-minted coins, right down to an image of Liberty on the face of the coin and a dollar value of $10 or $20 on it. This caused several cases of confusion when store clerks accepted a Liberty Dollar $20 silver round thinking it was legal tender, then finding it wasn’t and finding it was only worth half that in silver. For this reason, the Federal Bureau of Investigation after repeated warnings that the Liberty Dollar as currently minted was illegal, raided the Liberty Dollar headquarters in November 2007. Much of their mintage stored at their Evansville, Indiana headquarters was confiscated along with computers and files. Von Nothaus was later found guilty of counterfeiting.[5] Liberty Dollars has a pending lawsuit seeking the return of the confiscated items, which has also not yet gone to trial. > > Bernard von Nothaus “retired” from Liberty Dollars in October 2008 to found the “Free Marijuana Church” in Hawaii.[6] The Liberty Dollar website is no longer online. Tip, Mr. Nothaus: If you want to create a metal-based currency you don’t express the values in “dollars,” you express them in **ounces** (or grams if you’re some kinda Commie). A coin containing one ounce of silver is worth one ounce of silver, simple; meaning its purchasing power is determined by today’s market-value of silver, which fluctuates daily, but so do all currencies, and that metal-value relationship is the whole point of a metal-based currency, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/83 "2013-06-11T23:06:49Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > That is not the case at all. Yes, it is. Every so often someone come up with an alternative currency and at most it’s never anything but a niche market, like bitcoin. You are offering something that the vast majority of people simply do not want. Do you intend to force it on them at gunpoint? > [@jayarod7](#): > > Even IF it was technically legal to have private currencies, the fact is that gold and silver are TAXED therefore they cannot be used as currency. If a competing currencies is taxed and you MUST pay the taxes in another currency, Federal Reserve Notes, then how is that a real currency? :dubious: Federal currency is _also_ taxed, unless you want a visit from the IRS. ---
**Author:** ![jayarod7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@jayarod7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayarod7)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/84 "2013-06-11T23:13:42Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I’m not a libertarian and hardly an opponent of reasonable regulations on businesses by government, but saying that “monopoly is the natural state of being in capitalism” is simply ahistorical. > > Historically, monopolies usually depend on government intervention to crush the competition usually through tariffs, which stifles foreign competition or regulations which are far more onerous on emerging businesses than on well-established businesses which can influence what regulations get pushed through and how they’re enforced. > > I suppose if you want to argue that monopoly is the natural state of being under “crony capitalism” you’re right, but libertarians aren’t advocating that. Precisely. Some of the things Der Trihs says seem to display almost a knee jerk reaction against any sort of logic or linear thought process regarding objective historical reality. The fantasy that without our wise overlords at the Federal Government we would all be corporate slaves making 10 cents an hour, working 72 hour work weeks, getting our limbs blown off by exploding computer monitors and so forth is simply taking unsubstantiated hyperbolic propaganda to an absurd level. Some of these concepts I am presenting take only a little logical thought to understand. Corporations would not have the power to enslave all of society if there was no government to prevent the entrepreneur from competing with the existing power structure. Also to say that the free economy requires the State is abjectly ahistorical as well. Governments rise and fall and yet people continue to engage in transactions with each other. What are we to make of the underground economy that continues to exist outside of government laws and regulations? I am completely fine with fair criticism of the free market and a case can certainly be made for some regulation by government, but the absurd hyperbole of Der Trihs is not helpful in furthering debate. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/85 "2013-06-11T23:16:04Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’ve never quite understood why “fiat” money (ostensibly representing confidence in the economic strength of a nation - the value of the goods and services it produces, and the desirability of those goods and services to other nations) is considered a less desirable concept than money tied to the **arbitrary** value of shiny rocks. The emphasis of mine I added above is the key, from what I can tell. Those who love the gold standard always say how UNarbitrary gold’s INTRINSIC, UNCHANGING value is. It’s nonsense, of course, but that’s how they see it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/86 "2013-06-11T23:16:35Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > Do you know what happened to the Liberty Dollar? > > [http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/nov/15/liberty-dollar-office-raided/](http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/nov/15/liberty-dollar-office-raided/) The story you’re linking is light on detail and from 2007 so… no, not really. I had to do some follow-up research, i.e. go to wikipedia: > [@wiki](#): > > In May 2009, von NotHaus and others were charged with federal crimes in connection with the Liberty Dollar and, on July 31, 2009, von NotHaus announced that he had closed the Liberty Dollar operation, pending resolution of the criminal charges.[4] On March 18, 2011, von NotHaus was pronounced guilty of “making, possessing, and selling his own currency.” Huh. I wouldn’t have thought that was a crime, in and of itself. I kinda hope SCOTUS eventually tosses out the convictions, though I can imagine legislation that requires all private currencies to be prominently labeled as such, or carry phrasing like “no cash value”, to make entirely certain there be no confusion with Federal legal tender, confusion the Feds are claiming von Nothaus tried to cultivate and exploit. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/87 "2013-06-11T23:17:31Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > The fantasy that without our wise overlords at the Federal Government we would all be corporate slaves making 10 cents an hour, working 72 hour work weeks, getting our limbs blown off by exploding computer monitors and so forth is simply taking unsubstantiated hyperbolic propaganda to an absurd level. Or else based on observation of countries where they don’t have an accountable democratic nanny-state government, and what happens to workers there is often far worse than what you describe. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/88 "2013-06-11T23:20:49Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Huh. I wouldn’t have thought that was a crime, in and of itself. See post #82. “Bartering using silver rounds is legal (some of the more radical anarcho-capitalist fringe do this) . . .” The point of a metallic currency, ISTM, is to make all transactions just that, bartering with silver rounds (or financial instruments representing same – in ounces, not dollars). Don’t try to get cute with it. Nothaus tried to get cute with it. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/89 "2013-06-11T23:26:02Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > The fantasy that without our wise overlords at the Federal Government we would all be corporate slaves making 10 cents an hour, working 72 hour work weeks, getting our limbs blown off by exploding computer monitors and so forth is simply taking unsubstantiated hyperbolic propaganda to an absurd level. No; actually that’s being optimistic and assuming that we wouldn’t be either slaves or dead. > [@jayarod7](#): > > Corporations would not have the power to enslave all of society if there was no government to prevent the entrepreneur from competing with the existing power structure. Who would stop them? Your fetishized independent, government-free individual would get crushed like an ant. > [@jayarod7](#): > > Also to say that the free economy requires the State is abjectly ahistorical as well. Governments rise and fall and yet people continue to engage in transactions with each other. What are we to make of the underground economy that continues to exist outside of government laws and regulations? :rolleyes: You are _actually_ holding up the _black market_ as your idea of a free market? So, your libertarian paradise includes human trafficking and the murder of competitors? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/90 "2013-06-11T23:27:21Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Just to satisfy my curiosity, what voluntary, peaceful interactions are you presently prevented from pursuing, which ostensibly this whole Statism-facade-smashing business will liberate you to pursue? So, no interest in addressing this? Thusfar you’ve presented a lot of rather lofty generalities; it would be nice to hear a few specifics before I commit to the revolution. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/91 "2013-06-11T23:28:04Z")
Welcome. Holy Shit. Post something shorter, and I’ll read it. ---
**Author:** ![jayarod7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@jayarod7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayarod7)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/92 "2013-06-11T23:29:05Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’ve never quite understood why “fiat” money (ostensibly representing confidence in the economic strength of a nation - the value of the goods and services it produces, and the desirability of those goods and services to other nations) is considered a less desirable concept than money tied to the arbitrary value of shiny rocks. > > I can picture more _useful_ industrial commodities to which a currency might be tied, like sulfuric acid or hydroelectric kilowatt-hours. I just figured “fiat” was a composite representation of a nation’s ability to produce commodities in general, enhanced by its efficiency (or reduced by lack thereof), add its ability to export commodities, subtract its requirements to import them, take into account inflation within the country… > > I would think a stable nation with a growing population that has free markets and many natural resources and the skillsets to exploit said resources, with a stable banking system and a stable political system guided by rule of law would have the most valuable currency. Looking at various lists, I see the top ten is heavy on small oil-rich states. Good for them, I guess, as long as oil remains a desirable commodity and I expect it will for quite some time. > > Heck, why not oil instead of gold, as a currency basis? Its pricing is stable and predictable, right? Just like gold, right? No market shocks or international price adjustments that could totally torpedo a nation’s economy, right? I wonder why Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Azerbaijan haven’t officially replaced their currencies with the petrodollar. > > Basically… gold, schmold… Why would you desire sound money? For one thing, you might consider the unchecked expansion of State power without limits to be a dangerous proposition. If all you care about is the fastest expansion of government power, you would want paper money with no restraints. But let me ask this question in all seriousness. The Federal Reserve has printed nearly twenty trillion dollars and passed it out in secret since the crises of 2008. Does that bother you at all? The growth of the national debt and the rate of monetary inflation are expanding exponentially. Where do you suppose it all ends? Is this the way to a progressive future? A secret central banking printing trillions and causing inflation? You still seem to ignore that our dollar was linked to gold until 1971. Look at our national debt before that year. Look at the health of the middle class. Look at the abuse of the corporate state before 1971 versus after. Why is college tuition and medical care so expensive when it was so affordable prior to 1971? Why does it take two or three jobs to make ends meet for families now whereas a family could do quite well with one income before 1971? Leaving aside government debt, do you think it is good for American families to have huge amounts of debt? Or would you prefer that families could get by on savings and not accrue huge sums of debt to pay their bills? Well, if we had sound money where inflation is held in check, then people can save and the money will maintain its value. Savings becomes encouraged and debt becomes far less tempting. Don’t you care about those on fixed incomes? What about the value of their savings being destroyed through debasement of the monetary units? There are many reasons to support a sound monetary system. It remains to be seen whether or not you actually care about those vulnerable citizens who are devastated by this inflationary monetary system however. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/93 "2013-06-11T23:34:56Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > Why would you desire sound money? The gold standard isn’t “sound money”. Going to the gold standard would destroy the American economy, plunge it into a depression that would be irrecoverable until we got rid of it. No one would do business with us and most of the American money now existing would vanish. There would be starvation and chaos in the streets. > [@jayarod7](#): > > For one thing, you might consider the unchecked expansion of State power without limits to be a dangerous proposition. If it was actually happening, yes. Since it isn’t, no. Nor does having a gold standard restrain the government, except as far as it’ll be collapsing like everything else. ---
**Author:** ![jayarod7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@jayarod7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayarod7)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/94 "2013-06-11T23:37:20Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > So, no interest in addressing this? Thusfar you’ve presented a lot of rather lofty generalities; it would be nice to hear a few specifics before I commit to the revolution. Well all sorts of things some consider to be “vices”, smoking pot, gambling, prostitution, buying certain kinds of food and drinks, etc for a few quick examples. But my point is not that we prevented from interacting peacefully in ways we want on a day to day basis, but that we are subject to coercive violence from the State apparatus for no just reason. That is the problem. I am saying that the ways in which we feel we need the State to violate the non aggression principle, we instead merely substitute the peaceful cooperation that we use in every other aspect of our lives. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/95 "2013-06-11T23:47:26Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > I am saying that the ways in which we feel we need the State to violate the non aggression principle, we instead merely substitute the peaceful cooperation that we use in every other aspect of our lives. Which we use because the government protects us from the threat of force by others. Eliminating the government like you want means that society degenerates into rule by brutality. Whomever is willing and able to apply the most force gets what they want, whether it’s your property or your girlfriend. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/96 "2013-06-12T02:36:36Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > You still seem to ignore that our dollar was linked to gold until 1971. Look at our national debt before that year. Look at the health of the middle class. Look at the abuse of the corporate state before 1971 versus after. > > Why is college tuition and medical care so expensive when it was so affordable prior to 1971? Why does it take two or three jobs to make ends meet for families now whereas a family could do quite well with one income before 1971? I’d say OPEC was a more likely explanation than going off the gold standard. OPEC called its first oil embargo in 1973 and the price of crude oil began rising. Check the [record](http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp) of oil prices by year. And when the price of oil rises, the cost of everything related to oil (which is pretty much everything) rises with it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/97 "2013-06-12T02:43:57Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > But my point is not that we prevented from interacting peacefully in ways we want on a day to day basis, but that we are subject to coercive violence from the State apparatus for no just reason. That is the problem. Could you give some examples of this happening? I, for one, haven’t been subjected to coercive violence from the State apparatus so far this year, much less on a day to day basis. Maybe it’s just because I’m a sheep. But what things is it that free-spirited rebels are doing that gets them beat up on a daily basis? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/98 "2013-06-12T03:36:28Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > Why would you desire sound money? For one thing, you might consider the unchecked expansion of State power without limits to be a dangerous proposition. I might, indeed. I don’t see how a gold standard would prevent it, though. > [@](#): > > If all you care about is the fastest expansion of government power, you would want paper money with no restraints. So paper money _with_ restraints is okay, then? > [@](#): > > But let me ask this question in all seriousness. The Federal Reserve has printed nearly twenty trillion dollars and passed it out in secret since the crises of 2008. Does that bother you at all? The growth of the national debt and the rate of monetary inflation are expanding exponentially. Where do you suppose it all ends? Is this the way to a progressive future? A secret central banking printing trillions and causing inflation? At a quick glance [here](http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/), the U.S. inflation rate hasn’t topped 10% since 1981. I don’t know what the basis is for your claims of secret money printing, but the rate of monetary inflation (at least, as the term is generally used) is certainly not growing exponentially. > [@](#): > > You still seem to ignore that our dollar was linked to gold until 1971. Look at our national debt before that year. Look at the health of the middle class. Look at the abuse of the corporate state before 1971 versus after. Inflation rate in January of 1971: 5.3% Inflation rate in January of 2013: 1.6% Assuming the national debt, middle-class health and abuse of the corporate state are all massively worse than before 1971, shouldn’t inflation also be, y’know… worse? > [@](#): > > Why is college tuition and medical care so expensive when it was so affordable prior to 1971? Why does it take two or three jobs to make ends meet for families now whereas a family could do quite well with one income before 1971? > > Leaving aside government debt, do you think it is good for American families to have huge amounts of debt? Or would you prefer that families could get by on savings and not accrue huge sums of debt to pay their bills? It’s unclear to me how going back to gold standard would help any of these. Rather, I expect they’d get significantly worse. > [@](#): > > Well, if we had sound money where inflation is held in check, then people can save and the money will maintain its value. Savings becomes encouraged and debt becomes far less tempting. Well, why _is_ gold “sound”? It’s a shiny metal. It only has what arbitrary value we assign it. If someone discovers a large gold mine and begins mining it aggressively, the value of gold drops, doesn’t it, even if the people who already own gold are working just as hard as they always did. > [@](#): > > Don’t you care about those on fixed incomes? What about the value of their savings being destroyed through debasement of the monetary units? > > There are many reasons to support a sound monetary system. It remains to be seen whether or not you actually care about those vulnerable citizens who are devastated by this inflationary monetary system however. If you think a gold standard is immune to inflation and panics and crashes… you need to read more about gold standards. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/99 "2013-06-12T03:51:28Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Which we use because the government protects us from the threat of force by others. Eliminating the government like you want means that society degenerates into rule by brutality. Whomever is willing and able to apply the most force gets what they want, whether it’s your property or your girlfriend. Spot on mate, first thing I do is get a big gun, round up all my martial arts and police mates, take/steal a nice defend-able fort and well bring on liberty. Assuming I am smarter and can apply well directed force, life would be OK for me. If you are not as smart and weak then you deserve to get shafted. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/100 "2013-06-12T04:14:11Z")
Hello again, **jayarod7**. A question I like to ask about proposed political systems which seem untenable is: _ **What real-world example country comes closest to your ideal?** _ I ask you this question. Please come up with something; even a poor approximation would be better than no example at all. (Some proposed “libertarian” societies seem impossible unless the idea is that everyone would have a brain implant that changes human nature.) I do agree with parts of your OP, but draw almost completely opposite conclusions. I would agree with you that the U.S. government has been corrupted to support oligarchs rather than the common people, but see the key problem as **de** -regulation, not regulation. The antique thinkers you approve of weren’t arguing for anarchy; they were arguing for _republics_. To call them advocates of laissez-faire capitalism is at best misleading; John Stuart Mill actually went so far as to espouse “the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.” I do see that you have utilitarian ideals, and are probably annoyed to be lumped with other “libertarians.” _ **What real-world example country comes closest to your ideal?** _ I doubt if yours would be the Friedmanist examples like Pinochet’s Chile or Cheney’s Iraq. Another Libertarian Doper presented medieval Ireland as a paradigm, though later retracted it. When I mention lawless Somalia as a libertarian utopia, I’m not being sarcastic: it’s very hard to imagine a society without law enforcers, lawlessness, or brain implants. _But where you really lose much of your audience is in blaming the Federal Reserve and fiat money._ You’ve latched on to a fringe conspiracy theory that has nothing to do with your other ideals. I am amazed that people blame America’s social and economic problems on inflation. First of all, there’s been little U.S. inflation except during the 1970’s oil shock. I do hope you’re well read enough to know that economists consider inflation of 2% or so _to be better (more stimulative) than zero inflation_. Use of gold as money would be _deflationary_ due to the metal’s finitude. I’m not sure what you mean by “printed nearly twenty trillion dollars and passed it out in secret,” unless you’ve bought in to a Rothschild-Illuminati theory. I’m not happy about mounting government debt, if that’s what you’re referring to, but that can be blamed on credit crises prompted by **de** -regulation, and America’s peculiar love affair with Tea Party idiots. True, U.S. governments would have less to spend on schools, food safety, etc. if its employees and suppliers stopped accepting paper as payment and insisted on gold bullion. Do you really think that would be an improvement? In many ways, your ideals seem opposite to those of the _Greed is Good, Market is God, Property over People_ fanatics. It strikes me as bizarre you’ve bought into the same fantasies about fiat money as those thinkers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693.md?page=6)