What do you like about the State?
 

Statists,

We know you can make ad hominem attacks against anarchocapitalism. We know you can construct elaborate strawmen where Wal-Mart monopolizes every good and service and eventually acquires every resource on earth, or aliens from Neptune nuke AC-land into oblivion, or the much-maligned Bill Gates hires a death squad or burns down all the forests or dumps cyanide in the drinking water. Lately, we've even seen you defend theft as a moral practice.

However, even though many of you mock AC as irrelevant fantasy, a pipe dream, a waste of time, accepting the state as an obvious necessity to all but the most delusional...not very many of you actually spend much time defending government!

So here's your chance. Let's be positive, for a change. Tell me what you like about the state. Tell me what the state does that is so moral and upright and good for all that Shake, BCPVP and I will be won back to statism, that HMK will buy a poster of FDR for his bedroom wall, that Nielsio will enlist in the Army, that even Borodog and pvn will weep with shame that they have long persecuted the fine institution that is the State.

Any government in the history of the world is fair game - I'll try to make this as easy as possible for you. The modern US gov't is probably the most relevant since it's what most of us know best. Some of you, presumably, are [censored] proud to be an American. Tell me why.

Arguments I'll consider weak:

1) Gov't is good because it defends us/fights fires/builds roads etc. You mean gov't is the best at something it monopolizes? Really? I guess you could make some sort of a case here but it won't be easy.

2) Gov't does (thing which a large portion of statists don't agree with). When the state is such a no-brainer, it should be easy to come up with good deeds that a consensus of statists can agree on.

ACists,

If you think some of these good deeds might not be so good, the ORLY owl is strongly recommended where appropriate. As is the YARLY owl for the statist rebuttal.

That's it. Go.

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

-uniform and generally fair criminal laws
-ditto business laws
-badass taxing power avoids free-rider problems
-ability to enact egalitarian programs protects society and capitalism from revolt by the underclasses

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

So wait, people's defense of government has to inspire someone to want to join the army to be valid? Interesting.

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

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So wait, people's defense of government has to inspire someone to want to join the army to be valid? Interesting.

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Joke much?

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

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...that Nielsio will enlist in the Army...

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Lol'd at this.

Anyway, I'm not sure how many of us are state lovers. I view it as a necessary evil that is guilty of many of the things you guys bring up. I don't feel like proclaiming its greatness, I'm just of the opinion that a stateless society without a drastic change in human nature will worsen the human condition.

You're dismissing #1 for the wrong reasons that we argue it. It's not about the inefficiency of state monopolies, it's the free-rider and competing authority issues. Some of us think they're relevent, and are skeptical that a market solution would work. You guys don't. Been there, done that.

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So wait, people's defense of government has to inspire someone to want to join the army to be valid? Interesting.

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Joke much?

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Back at ya! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

I like the state for its consistency and uniformity.

I also like compromising a preference for the sake of having more combined force to defend the set of preferences. If states did not exist, people would still desire to defend their preferences. People would recognize that coalitions are the best way to do this. People would still have to compromise. The state provides a simple and effortless way for this to happen, and despite its inherent inefficiency, I like that this is taken care of for me. It allows me to worry about other things.

I'm about as libertarian as they come. I make a living playing poker, smoke ***, jack off to the thought of capitalism -- basically any demographic you can point to, that's me. But I recognize that stuff as nothing more than my preferences. Even if I can argue that the free market is inherently more efficient than a regulated market, I'm still making the assumption that efficient production is more important than equality. Someone who values equality would have an easy answer to "love" the state -- without uniform standards and regulations, their ideal of equality could not be met.

I don't personally like anything that the state happens to do, but that's because I prefer a total lack of interference in my life and don't care much what other people do with theirs. So there is nothing the state possibly *could* do that I would appreciate. Human nature though, is to coexist. Other people's preferences will be forced upon me. And I'd rather it be done with a state than without one (for the aforementioned convenience and consistency). It doesn't bother me that the state exists because I benefit a lot from coexisting with other human beings, and I see the state as simply a loose reflection of the preferences that would be exerted on me anyways.

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

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1) Gov't is good because it defends us/fights fires/builds roads etc. You mean gov't is the best at something it monopolizes? Really? I guess you could make some sort of a case here but it won't be easy.

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Also...

If you're going to dismiss that stuff as a weak argument of why the state is good, then you have to weaken stuff like taxation and war violence in an argument of why the state is bad. The state has a monopoly (or at least, a saturated market share) on those things too. You can't assume that in the absence of a state privatized theft would not increase to satisfy the preference that taxes are currently reflecting.

I don't disagree with your point that these are weak arguments, but just pointing out the other side of the standard you are proposing.

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

I like the state because it gives a bit of rigidity and more permanent status to the solution to common goods problems. That's about it.

Re: What do you like about the State?
 

[ QUOTE ]
1) Gov't is good because it defends us/fights fires/builds roads etc. You mean gov't is the best at something it monopolizes? Really? I guess you could make some sort of a case here but it won't be easy.


[/ QUOTE ] Why would this be hard? Why would we even have to make the case when experience has lead every democratic society in the world to do it this way, and have the majority prefer it done by gov't? Why, when people prefer the market alternative, are their preferences sacred, but when they prefer the gov't alternative, their preferences must be demonstrated to be correct by your standard? Why do we have to defend these things when it is unlikely, to say the least, that all small businesses and individuals would be able to afford private fire or police and the myriad costly kinds of property rights protections that are currently provided by gov't?