Why Im no longer an ACist

[Luxoris]

"Axiom: individuals own their bodies"

Oops. Back to square 1.

[TomCollins]

valenzeula-

It was pretty clear from the beginning that you never really understood ACism. Your arguments for it were always incredibly weak. I am not the least bit surprised that you have fallen for the arguments of people like moorobot and Phil153, who while are misguided, are fairly intelligent. I have my doubts that keep me from being a true ACist, but your arguments against it are among the weakest I have ever seen.

[foal]

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1) Acists love to talk about how goverments coerce us into doing stuff we dont like, however they dont like it that much when somebody points out that there really isnt much freedom is youre born in a poor family get an horrible informal and formal education and you are never able to develop any significant skill you are preety much screwed , its basically work on something you hate or die, yes I know youre not dying because a moral agent is stabbing you but ure still dying, the problems are not going to go away because theyre not made by a moral agent. Society as a whole has to make the desition wheter its worth to increase “the coercion done by moral agents” in order to decrease the negative impact of “ the coercion not done by moral agents”, I cant really show my calculations but I can intuitively recognize that perhaps the ideal amount of coercion isnt 0, its called common sense.

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This is a very well made and interestingly put point.

[pvn]

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1) Acists love to talk about how goverments coerce us into doing stuff we dont like, however they dont like it that much when somebody points out that there really isnt much freedom is youre born in a poor family get an horrible informal and formal education and you are never able to develop any significant skill you are preety much screwed , its basically work on something you hate or die, yes I know youre not dying because a moral agent is stabbing you but ure still dying, the problems are not going to go away because theyre not made by a moral agent. Society as a whole has to make the desition wheter its worth to increase “the coercion done by moral agents” in order to decrease the negative impact of “ the coercion not done by moral agents”, I cant really show my calculations but I can intuitively recognize that perhaps the ideal amount of coercion isnt 0, its called common sense.

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This is a very well made and interestingly put point.

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No ACists here are advocating any actions to prevent people from helping other people. This is an emotional argument. People are in crappy situations, they need help. Government is (supposedly) a method to help them.

Well, some people don't agree with the method. This doesn't imply that they think the *goal* is bad. It's the same "put ponies in a cannon and fire them into a mountain to end world hunger" debate. Someone will propose it, and if you say this is a stupid idea, someone will *instantly* accuse you of "hating starving kids".

[plzleenowhammy]

The op is a level right? I haven't read the whole thread but it seems like a level.

[foal]

Not that my opinion will be taken seriously, but I strongly agree with Kaj. ACers (here at least) hurt their own position by dogma, refusal to concede points and absolutist thinking. I've seen people make ridiculous claims like akin to "no business could ever want to rip off customers in the abscence of a government" on the one hand and then on they'll accuse statists of "holding ACism to a higher standard than statism". You hold it to a higher standard yourselves when you defend unreasonable claims. I'm not saying all ACists here do that, just some. The absolute morality and legitimacy things are hard sells too. These attitudes would be off putting to me if I was a strong supporter of libertarian principles (should be your target audience). I'm not though so I'd be unsympathetic to AC either way.

[foal]

Another thing I don't get is how you can have such an absolute notion of property rights, with no government to enforce them. I mean it doesn't really matter what you think is legitimate or not if you can't make everyone else agree with you under the absence of government.

[tomdemaine]

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Another thing I don't get is how you can have such an absolute notion of property rights, with no government to enforce them.

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[foal]

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Another thing I don't get is how you can have such an absolute notion of property rights, with no government to enforce them.

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lol. I apologize, that was off topic.

[owsley]

Concerning issues like #1 and poverty, I think it is worth noting that in my mid teens I was a pretty vocal socialist who cared a lot about inequality and the disadvantages that so many people are born with. Over the couple years it took to transform me to an ACist, I never stopped caring about those issues, but I saw just how much the government hurts poor people and creates poverty by interfering with the free market. I would say there were two main things that made me a voluntaryist/ACist, one would be valuing people's freedom and opposing state coercion and the other was believing how much economic suffering our government creates. I would love to believe that some universal entity could provide healthcare and food and education and clean water to everyone, but I can't.

I am not saying that ACists are universally correct but I think a lot of people would be well served by taking a step back and realizing, "Hey, the ACists I am arguing used to be statists/socialists like me who started out thinking about politics because they were sickened by the poverty they saw on an everyday basis, they used to strongly hold the positions I hold now but then were exposed to a different theory of human government and became convinced by that, and no where along the line did they start hating poor people or want to abolish the government so the rich could continue raping people." Just something people should consider.

I just turned 20, I was raised in a very politically conscious academic family and have holding strong views about political issues since I was 11. Since then I am probably on my 3rd political worldview, I have abandoned beliefs I was %100 confident were true multiple times, and I have zero reason to believe that in as short as 2 years from now I will look back on my posts today and thinking "Wow, what the [censored] was I thinking?" Over thanksgiving break I saw some old friends who I used to talk about politics with, they have hardly changed their views one bit in their years and college and I certainly have. One of them said to me, "So are you admitting your arguments you used when we were 17 we wrong?" That is a completely backwards way of thinking about things in my opinion. I am proud that my views have been able to evolve and I think it reflects negatively on them that theirs have not. I consider myself a very intelligent person and have the academic credentials as proof to back that statement up (imo), but the more I think about things the more I am still pretty young and stupid. Less young and stupid as when I was 16, but if I am not less young and stupid by the time I am 25 I will be pretty [censored] pissed off. I think that in the format and clientele of internet messageboards almost directly blocks the concept I am talking about, and while it is a useful tool and a lot can be learned here, I think the majority of posters here have fallen into a rut of sorts. I find this fault in many people I agree with 90% of the time. Just an idea that I think is wildly underrepresented here and too often forgotten due to people just being eager to tell the other side how much of an imbecile they are.