But I didn’t, did I? Libertaria can be a democracy.
Failure of parents to provide for the welfare of their children is breach.
Libertarian wrote:
And what is the remedy for this “breach,” pray tell?
Loss of liberty.
No Lib, what’s the remedy for the children?
(Won’t somebody think of the childre---- ouch…)
I’ve no doubt that you could have fielded the question, as you interpreted it, adequately, Xeno, given your more than adequate grasp of the Noncoercion Principle. But I reckon that you’re acquiescing to me since I’m here and have gotten sucked into yet another pissing contest with RT.
Of course, that question has been answered so many times (as has nearly all of this). The children are examined to determine whether they are capable of giving meaningful consent. If they are, then they may elect to be governed by Libertaria (in which case, the liberties of their parents pass to them as victims of coercion) or not. Otherwise, they are cared for by whoever has liberty and is willing to assume the unary contract. That might be family, friends, neighbors, houses of worship, private charities, or, who knows — maybe even you or me. Because we care, right?
“Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”
They are for the parents who breached contract.
Well, you were mentioning the Florida case to score some sort of rhetorical point. Since you were kinda cryptic, I ran through what I considered the obvious possibilities. Admittedly, I still can’t figure out what it was, so I guess I’ll let it drop.
Speaking of cryptic, that needs a hell of a lot of filling in to constitute anything approaching a rebuttal.
BTW, do parents in Libertaria have to inform their GSP that they even have a child? If the GSP doesn’t know that the child even exists, the parents are presumably in a position to abuse it any which way without consequences to the parents.
Funny, I thought we’d been debating. My mistake.
And some questions have been asked many times. Like, how do you know? As you just said, Libertaria could be a democracy. (Or a theocracy, or a benevolent (or malevolent) dicatorship, or a monarchy, or an anarcho-syndicalist commune, or whatever.) What Libertaria is for you, depends on what GSP you or your landlord has subscribed to. And each GSP might have vastly different rules. Yet you once again get quite detailed about how Libertaria works, despite your repeated implication that the nature of Libertaria makes it impossible to make such statements.
Am I misstating your position(s)? I feel like I’m trying to nail Jello to the wall here.
Sure, we care. But if you know anything about adoptions, everybody wants a bright shiny new baby, and few prospective parents want to take over the troubled kid who’s been messed up by bad parenting. (And I’m not just talking about screwed-up adolescents; I’m talking about screwed-up 2- and 3-year-olds as well.) Because people care, but usually not enough to disrupt their lives to take care of such a kid.
And charities? There’s no guarantee that they’ll have the resources to meet the needs. But if a charity turns out to be unable to provide for its charges, maybe they can be jailed too.
The trouble I have with libertarians is that they have forgotten the lessons of history. The Dickens references have a point, Lib, which you seem to be missing.
If private charities and the efforts of concerned individuals are adequate now to protect and care for unwanted children, then why wasn’t that so when Dickens wrote?
See, we have already experimented with libertarianism in the realm of child care. It didn’t work. (Though it sure inspired some great literature, no?)
RT
I was making a debating point, but not about democracy. Your claim that politicians are somehow mystically imbued with compassion and responsible behavior above and beyond our own is capricious and worthless, as the Florida case proves.
What is a GSP? Because the contract is unary, the responsibility for enforcing its terms on behalf of the child falls to government. Children are incapable of giving meaningful consent. You presume an awful lot. That’s why I hate entering these discussions with you, just as I would with anyone else equally both uninformed and hostile.
Am I not to take Libertaria as a hypothetical? And must we suppose only the way you say to suppose? If that’s the case, it doesn’t seem like a fair debate.
Everybody? I think Poly can tell you how wrong that is. Don’t you know, RT, that all this speculation can go either way? You suppose that everybody is evil, lazy, and hopelessly stupid (except, of course, when they elect their governors — then they are enlightened, judicious, and infinitely wise). What I’m supposing, in this case, is that people forced to be good stewards of their liberty will make decisions much differently than people who aren’t.
Spoke
I get your point, but I think that it’s ad logicam.
respice et prospice
How do you say “speak English” in Latin? :wally
I must’ve missed this claim. Since I know you wouldn’t fight strawmen, Lib, I have to assume you’ve misinterpreted what was claimed, by others as well as by RT. (I happen to agree with them.)
Let me 'splain: The claim is that a system in which government is charged by the electorate with a responsibility to monitor and enforce the welfare of children is inherently more likely to result in positive action to aid children who have been abandoned or abused. Note that “positive action” means informed action intended to ameliorate or prevent abuse or endangerment of children.
Before you say it, Lib, yes I know Libertaria is charged with the welfare of children. The point is that Libertaria doesn’t take responsibility for their continued well-being after their contract-breaching parents have been jailed, other than [possibly] looking for willing takers of the unary contract —who will, I presume, not be vetted by any government agent for suitability.
Forgive me, Xeno. I shouldn’t have gone there.
But if that is your claim, then I agree with you 100%. Of course, where we disagree is that I think Libertaria has a government that is charged, not just by an electorate but by its definition, with a responsibility to monitor and enforce the welfare of, not only children, but of all peaceful and honest people.
I believe that strict enforcement of parental responsibilities by a Libertarian government will go far in preventing hurting children. You and RT are entitled to disagree. You’re entitled to believe that Libertaria would not work as well in that regard. (Note that that’s why Spokes’s point is ad logicam, because even though it’s true that Scrooge was a miser, that is no bearing on whether government will protect children.)
Another reason that I hold you in such high regard, apart from your intellectual honesty, is the respectful way you treat me. On so many levels — from my Cherokee heritage to my faith in God to my love of libertarianism — there are people who address me like I’m some moron at best or a danger to society at worst. I just get weary of it after a time, and I fall into name calling and spinning people’s words. I need to stop that.
(Saw your addendum on preview)
But the new contractors are just as beholden to the same charge, so yes, Libertaria does continue to take responsibility. Their suitability is demonstrated by the fact that they have their liberty. I would reject requirements of subjectively derived litmus tests beyond that that so often fail anyway.
“Mystically imbued,” huh?
Glad you still have your sense of humor.
Needless to say, I claim no such mystical attributes; as usual, you’re stuffing words in my mouth, and I will thank you to keep your hands away from my face. 
As I said last night:
You know, Lib, you should take the personal comments to the Pit.
But your point: assuming a Libertarian GSP, there is no government agency to take the initiative in monitoring childrens’ well-being; the government can presumably only react when a case is brought before it.
So unless you can make rebuttal, it seems that it would be easy for a parent to conceal the very existence of a child from the GSP, and quite possibly no one would know that a child existed to be abused.
I’m letting you say whatever you want about Libertaria - so long as it’s consistent. But if you say we don’t know something basic, such as whether Libertaria is a democracy or a benevolent dictatorship, how can you say we know the minute details of its court system that you describe?
That doesn’t seem like a fair debate.
No, I bet he can tell me how right that is, that he’s one of the ‘few’ that I mention after the ‘and’.
I hoped you could understand this simple sentence construction. But if you can’t, why bother?
What a crock.
Lib, I’ll tell you what I assume about our elected and appointed officials. And in small words.
I believe that they are about the same as everybody else. That’s why America has a system of checks and balances - so the avarice of one group would be balanced against the greed of another.
Over time, its government seems to have done OK, IMHO.
I believe government bureaucrats will do the job they’re given - inefficiently, slothfully, and over budget, perhaps, but they’ll do what they have to do to cover their asses, because that’s what bureaucrats do. And usually that requires doing some semblance of the task they’re given.
So in Florida, for instance, the child care bureaucracy did, by my standards, a lousy job: they only were able to keep track of 98% of the kids in their system. But that’s 98% better than no system, and nobody keeping track of the well-being of any kids until it’s become a court case. (Child services frequently jumps in well before that point.) And the other 2% are pretty much where they’d be anyway, absent the bureaucracy.
So (by my standards) this sucks, and by the FL governor’s standards, it sucks, and he’s accountable to the voters. Betcha he doesn’t put up with his civil servants losing track of that 2%; that’ll go away fast. And no serious expression of compassion is required from anyone.
As spoke- has pointed out, history suggests that that is indeed the case. But not in the way that supports your case.
Sorry. I was just being a smart ass, responding to Latin with Latin.
respice et prospice = “examine the past and examine the future”
Or more broadly interpreted, it might be understood to be the rough Latin equivalent of the English saying “He who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it.”
Which goes back to my chief complaint against Libertarians.
I’m sorry, but that’s quite enough, RT. I’m done here.
Well, indeed, spoke… that’s sort of why this is a case study. The fact that we haven’t existed in Libertaria doesn’t necessarily mean that certain aspects of Libertaria’s existence don’t apply to our world. A solution to handicapped access could have happened at any time, but it didn’t, and so I was wondering why it didn’t, as I would presume most people would feel that handicapped access isn’t only “not bad” but in fact a “good” thing.
However, that view might necessarily be formed under the weight of our existing society, which is not insignificant. At the dawn of the industrial revolution children were treated terribly, for example, but ask any parent of the time and the result was likely that if the child didn’t help earn income, someone in the family would have to go without. In such a situation I wouldn’t find it unreasonable to send my child to work, either.