The huh? When come back, bring response.
So, as I see it, Boston’s asshole mayor, not the DNC, was behind the idea to 1) move the convention to a protest-unfriendly place and 2) establish the FSZ that kept protestors penned in and unable to distribute literature. OK.
Now, as far as the “private party” line goes: I don’t care how much of the money spent on the convention is taxpayer dollars. If the American people are required by law to pay for part of this “party”, then everyone’s invited. Including the protestors.
Lib: For all the work you put into extolling the virtues of unfettered capitalism, I am highly surprised that you haven’t heard of Adam Smith and his invisible hand (emphasis mine):
I am aware of Adam Smith, and I know what the Invisible Hand is. But it was unresponsive and irrelevant to my post. Also, I have not now, nor have I ever, extolled the virtues of unfettered capitalism. I am not an anarcho-capitalist. I believe that government has a legitimate role in the economy: namely, to suppress initial force and deception. Congratulations on your 100th post. 
It is the essential component of the Iron Fist, comprising as well the Thumb on the Scales and the Fickle Finger of Fate…
There are none. But I see what you mean.
A droll phrasing. Yours? Not any more.
Actually, i don’t think Lib’s apparent confusion was due to an ignorance of Adam Smith. I think it was more due to the fact that the discussion in which he was engaged was really something quite different from the political economy that Smith was describing when extolling the virtues of the “invisible hand.”
Libertarianism, with its roots in classical liberalism, is about more than just free market economics. It’s also a moral and philosophical system about the nature of freedom, the concept of property, and the role of the state in economic and human relations. It relies also upon the writing of many more people than Smith alone, and includes other economists like David Ricardo, as well as broader political theorists like John Locke, Wlihelm von Humboldt, John Stuart Mill, and many others.
I’m not a libertarian myself, although i am fascinated by classical liberalismj. I think that sometimes modern libertarians tend to read classical liberalism out of context in an attempt to justify modern inequities. Whether or not that it the case, however, i also think that even opponents of libertarianism need to recognize that the libertarian worldview is not simply free market economics.
Right to protest & peaceably assemble? Sure. No Problem. Who’s gonna argue?
Should security concerns take the back seat to fringe protest groups who are calling on members to wipe gun powder on themselves to throw off the K9 scent?
The DNC in Boston goes first: Hopefully nothing will go wrong.
The RNC goes second @ MSG. In my opinion, if (dare I say when) something goes terribly astray, Federal Judge Robert Sweet will be the one with blood on his hands.
Whatever. Whilst not endorsing unfettered capitalism per se (though he is, really - there’s no (physical) coercion in unfettered capitalism, and no libertarian I’ve ever heard of takes issue with economic exploitation based on unequal bargaining positions), Lib’s long apologetic boils down to this: In a libertarian society, people will find it in their own (economic) self-interest to be nice, just, and fair. This, if not exactly what Smith was talking about, is nonetheless the same basic form of argument. And it’s bullshit. What’s in one’s best interest is to appear nice and just and fair, and be fucking people over in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. And no, this doesn’t (or needn’t) involve coercion, so it’s all hunky dory. Moreover, it naively assumes that people are more wedded to their own enlightened self-interest than they are to their petty prejudices against people who aren’t like themselves in whatever fashion way they happen to be fixated on.
“Guaranteeing individual rights” is all well and good, but that doesn’t help a person who has no significant property, and who belongs to a group that’s ostracized by most of society. I’m sure that such people will be much consoled by the fact that no one can threaten or coerce them while they stand in the long, long line at the privately funded soup kitchen before they go out looking for a bit of unguarded private real estate where they can sleep for the night. But the government will protect them from anyone trying to rob them of their tattered jackets - assuming it doesn’t arrest them for trespassing, instead.
Things I learned from this thread:
-Free Speech Zones: Bad
-Violent Protestors: Bad
-DtC’s Political Views: Allegedly inconsistent
-Liberal’s Political Views: Difficult to understand by some
-Elucidator: Still funny
Well, now. Ain’t we all skippy?
I agree with you. I was just pointing out that the libertarian arguments being made by Lib in this thread are not simply the product of Adam Smith, but of a broader lilterature, and that reducing the whole thing to “the invisible hand” tends to trivialize some of the important philosophical issues involved.
True enough. The post to which I was responding, however, was arguing that it’s the government that’s perpetuated discrimination (true in some cases), and if it’d just get out of the way, discrimination would diminish dramatically (not true at all, IMO).
That’s exactly the Invisible Hand argument.
Well, just speaking for myself, I find I am quite sufficiently versed in the foundations and principles of Libertarian philosophy. I don’t anticipate any sense of inadequacy in that regard for some time to come. Any curiosity I may have ever had has been satisfied in abundance.
But wait, my dear elucidator – there’s more, much more! There is, in fact, the planned takeover of wee Grafton, New Hampshire by a pack of roving Libertarians, determined to establish a bustling Libertopia amid a sea of repression! Live Free Or Die, indeed.
Yeah, i hear ya.
While libertarianism claims to operate on a general principle of liberty and opposition to tyranny, it often seems, in effect, to adopt the position that the only really unacceptable tyranny is government tyranny. All private forms of tyranny and discrimination are just fine. The assumption that the market will somehow iron out all those kinks tends to go completely unexamined, and is accepted as gospel truth.
On the subject of the gospel, i’m actually surprised that some libertarians are Christians, to tell you the truth. I thought that one of the commandments was worship no other god, and yet the libertarian philosophy seems to raise the entrepreneur to the level of deity, sweeping all injustice away and ensuring everlasting happiness in the (very) material world.
Or maybe it’s that Invisible Hand that’s the deity; entrepreneurs might just be the apostles or missionaries bringing us poor saps to the one true belief.
I absolutely agree. I hope you pressed charges. That is the first step in defeating such tactics.
An interstate loop ran me out of a house. A friend lost her house to Vanderbilt University. It mowed down an entire neighborhood of old homes. Entire streets disappeared, including another apartment I had lived in. Another friend lost a mansion (that had been in the family for generations) to suburban redesign because of urban sprawl. It is happening all the time.
I think there’s a little bit more to it than that. After all, private citizens cannot use physical coercion. Doing so would infringe on the liberty of others, and the government would intervene. So really overt private tyranny is out.
However, this is insufficient on two counts. First, there are lots of people for whom ‘work late tonight or you’ll be fired’ is every bit as coercive as a physical threat would be, and yet libertarianism explicitly denies that economic coercion is coercive at all. And second, liberty ain’t worth jack if you can’t exercise it, and under libertarianism, you’re only truly free to exercise your liberty on your own property. Anywhere else people can restrict what you may do in any way they desire, on pain of being tossed off their property (and of course there are no public areas). Hence, true liberty is directly proportional to wealth.
Which brings us back to how we got off on this Libertarian hijack to begin with. I have been trying to pin Liberal down on this for days, and he keeps dancing away from it with non-answers. If I ask him again, Do the homeless have freedom of speech?, he will accuse me of posing loaded questions, then spin yarns about how everyone has the right to scrimp and save until they can buy a bit of dirt. I am still waiting for Liberal to enlighten us on the status of the homeless in Libertopia.
I’ve already answered Fear’s question, but as for the Invisible Hand, that has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said. The strawman caricature conceived by Gorsnak and attributed erroneously to me — “In a libertarian society, people will find it in their own (economic) self-interest to be nice, just, and fair” — is patently ridiculous. Men would not have competed with Moulin Rouge to be nice; they would have competed to survive. They. Lost. Customers. It was “unfettered capitalism” that closed the Moulin Rouge. A libertarian government would fetter the hell out of capitalism by enforcing peace and honesty. Besides, libertarianism is a political philosophy, and capitalism is an economic one. A libertarian government may be communist for that matter, so long as all are volunteers. Regarding so-called economic coercion, the reason the matter is moot is because every man is free himself to pursue entrepreneurship. If he doesn’t like his job, and for some inexplicable reason no one else is competing for good employees, he can start his own business with his own rules, free of the mountainous bureaucracy and putative legislation that creates exactly the scenario you’re talking about — both the ability of the employer to make unreasonable demands without consequence and the employee’s impotence to do anything about it.
Oh, and regarding Christianity, Jesus was the consumate libertarian — never initiating force or fraud, but staunchly defending His property when it was overtaken by vandals and tresspassers. God Himself is a libertarian: as the owner of the Heavens and the Earth, He has granted man the same rights that He holds, and has given him dominion over His property.
No, you haven’t. It is abundantly clear that you believe that people without land have no freedom of speech, but to articulate that belief would expose you as unenlightened. I suggest you grow a pair and take a stand, and address this weakness of the Libertarian manifesto.
crickets chirping