When you talk about Libertaria, are you talking about a real world? If then you express your opinions and views on things imaginary, why may not I?
I assert that allowing peaceful honest people to pursue their own happiness in their own way is a good and reasonable ethic. I know of no theory of ethics that is proved, and frankly I think that it is rather snotty to ask someone to prove an ethic.
You and I are not far apart. In fact, I endorse the idea that government cannot be perfectly inflexible.
I’ve defined in another post what I mean by peaceful and honest, but you raised a different issue about who will keep the government in check. You answered your own series of rhetorical questions by saying that “society” will do the job. And that might be where we diverge if, by society, you mean an anthropomorphized synthetic entity. A libertarian government governs only by consent. Therefore, even a single individual may take his own life, property, and rights into his own hands by refusing to give consent to be governed.
People have understood for thousands of years how this works. See the thread that Dewey linked. In the post that was my final appeal to him for decency, I explained the establishment of ownership and its three levels: claim, possession, and title.
The ocean is nothing but land with water on it. Perhaps there are many people who desire to live underwater, to provide underwater (or above water) recreation, to mine resources, or simply to own the land.
What exactly is economic coercion? Is an offer-you-can’t-refuse sort of thing, like, “I’ll pay you a million dollars for your wristwatch.”? Is it any general, noncurrency transaction like, “I’ll feed you if you’ll be my servant.”? Can you give an example?
Perhaps you were just being tongue-in-cheek–the thread’s in MPSIMS, at least at the moment–but in this post you said you scored a 160 on this test. Do you really agree with such statements as “all legislation [should] be replaced by judge-made law, arbitration, and other private rule-suppliers”, “government [is] an unnecessary evil”, “police”, “courts”, and “the law itself” should be “privatized”, and the “state” should be “abolished”?
I’m not just trying to play “gotcha” here; I often honesty don’t know what is meant by “Libertarianism”. Sometimes it seems to mean “greatly reduce taxes and government regulation, eliminate victimless crimes, and pursue a policy of non-interference in foreign affairs”–sort of a return to an 18th or 19th century classical liberal view of government; other times it seems to be identical with anarchism.
Definitely not revolution. “Every revolution evaporates, and leaves behind the slime of a new bureaucracy.” — Franz Kafka
Libertaria as I envision it cannot come out of the same old conquer-and-steal methodology that has been used for millenia to establish nation-states. It must come from a land-owner who is self-sovereign or else can defend himself from usurpatious tyrants who presume sovereignty over him.
I have to ask, what do you want, a list of names? The person who owns the lighthouse is the person who built it or bought it. Will “Mr. Smith” do?
Op. Cit.
Op. Cit.
Op. Cit.
Ah, so at last you ask your real question — not who owns them, but how do they come about. And even that question is loaded with fluff. The “rich old men” are not a part of the government.
Name me a nonprofitable “public good” that concerns you, and I’ll hypothesize how it might come to be established.
Well, people who believe that they are capable of defending their own rights ought to be allowed to do so. But people like me ought to be allowed to give my consent to a government to defend my rights. For that, I am obligated to pay and it is obligated to defend.
[…looking admiringly in the direction of Neurotik…]
They can “use” a lighthouse in the same sense that they could use someone’s porch light. But a lighthouse still could be profitable if it is strategically located, offers tours, is a feature of a theme park, or any of other uncountable ways.
Lib, dude, in this thread you wisely and properly counselled another Doper to avoid a potentially disastrous situation. The other Doper took your advice.
I don’t want you to take my advice, but maybe you should take you own?
Although libertarianism is incompatible with socialism when it is defined as government ownership of goods and services, it is not incompatible with communism when it is defined as a communal economy. So long as all are volunteers in the political system, the economic system is arbitrary with respect to whether the system operates on libertarian principle.
Its flaw is that it denies a man his right to consent to be governed.