[tame_deuces]

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1)If you say ACists are in favor of slightly coercing some ppl to reduce the coercion of poor kids then nvm my critique.
2)Here is my biggest disagreement with you all, you say that goverment helps corporations etc,etc. Even if that is [censored] up and could be fixed on a goverment, I still prefer the current situation over what I would think would happen on AC, you are just HOPING things will work out they way you say it will, not everyone has the time to go through a lenghty consumer report( a consumer report thay may not even be that accurate and if the consumer report is any good u bet its going to be quite expensive)
3)The point is that I think that issue will almost certainly be a deal-breaker if it doesnt get down to violence.

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Well, here is the solution to #2. No one will ever have to read a Consumer Report on anything. No one has to be competent or spend enough time to make any sort of difficult decision: save one. They only need to spend time choosing a Chooser. Someone that they will then trust to make decisions for them.

If you are saying they are incompetent or dont have the time to even do this then I hope you realize how horrible democracy is.

[/ QUOTE ]Why does that lead to ACism? Or say anything about democracy being bad?

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The point that I was trying to make is that nothing LEADS to ACism, it seems self-evident to me that people should be able to make their own choices in life. This is my starting point. I am willing to listen to arguments about exceptions to this or problems with this or places where this might not apply. What eventually (inevitably) ends up happening is someone makes a point that we dont have enough time and we are all too stupid (although its usually "they" are all too stupid, obviously everyone here is brilliant) to make all of these choices all day long. No way could I be reasonably expected to choose a restaurant that doesnt serve arsenic. No way could I be reasonably expected to research which drugs I wanted to take to take care of my hypertension. Without regulatory bodies and without elected representatives to make our choices for us, we'd all be overwhelmed intellectually and we'd run out of time.

But the problem is, that isnt any kind of argument. Of COURSE we couldnt make expert decisions on everything. But why would we need to do that? All you need to do is pick a chooser. So the way I usually argue this is to start out subtly. I suggest Consumer Reports or something like that. I get predictable responses. "Well, they cant make all your choices for you" or "Well they cant be trusted to make accurate, unbiased choices" which leads me into selecting a Chooser to choose my Choosers. At some point we have a string of arguments where the statist has just claimed over and over again that people have no chance of ever intelligently selecting ANYONE to represent them about ANYTHING in a way that wont lead to bias and corruption and them consistently being taken advantage of.

So they've just demonstrated how immoral and evil and corrupt democracy is, and most of the statists I talk to are Americans and so love democracy, and they usually get angry and the conversation is over at this point.

It isnt an argument FOR AC. Its a deflection or a refutation of an argument AGAINST AC.

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Even if you propone a free society you can oppose AC because in its foundation is a principle for division of absolute authority in the form of property rights. This begs a few practical questions, two of which comes immediately to mind:

1. How do you divide up (if at all) existing property between free citizens in an transition period? The currently divided property is at least partially a result of mechanisms ACists claim to vehemently oppose.

2. I don't think capitalism is evil, I think its good. However I have some experience working within corporations and capitalism is fairly pyramidical. I just have to say this seems to be at odds with the free society. If property rights are next to absolute and can be traded, how do you stop the gathering of unhealthy amounts of authorative power in corporate entities with sharp pyramids gathering the power on the hands of a few? And the only checks&balance is supposedly by the marke - is that really enough?

I have to admit that the ideas that put more emphasis on fluid cooperation, less stringent terms and where authority can't be legitimately bought&sold (but trade&property can still exist) seems much more like the 'ideal' way to build a free society to me.