What do you like about the State?

[Nielsio]

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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.


[/ 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?

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You're missing a small detail. Namely: the degree that people don't want the state is the degree to which they are threatened and forced to comply.

If people wanted all this stuff, there wouldn't be the need to force people. *Just like voluntary interactions in the market; you don't see Walmart shooting competition*.

[Nielsio]

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that Nielsio will enlist in the Army

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Getting payed to kill people on the other side of the world? Sign me up! I mean: that's an act of heroism right?

[Smasharoo]

Statists,

We know you can make ad hominem attacks against anarchocapitalism.


We all know that any valid criticism will be immediately characterized as this, regardless of content.


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.


We all know any valid arguments will be ludicrously re parsed as such to avoid any actual debate about the massive flaws of a wholly unworkable fringe theory such as AC.


Lately, we've even seen you defend theft as a moral practice.

Quite likely when the word 'theft' is arbitrarily re-defined to encompass things like taxation. Personally, I think it would be more dramatic if you just cut to the chase and decided to refer to taxation as 'puppy rape'.


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!


Not many proponents of anarcho capitalism on this board even vaguely understand the conceptual underpinnings of it beyond "I don't wanna pay taxes."


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.


It allows most people to feel that they have some sort of collective identity and that the collective is looking out for their interests in ways they couldn't individually.

That's it. Most people aren't and could never be individualists. Humans are, by nature, social and crave authority. Removing that authority would lower the aggregate standard of living dramatically.


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.


You're missing the point entirely. It has nothing to do with an individual perception, it has to do with the ingrained basic desire of the vast vast majority of people to subscribe to some authority that will provide answers and largely tell them what to do. This is why religion will always exist, governments will always exist, and class stratification will always exist. It's just human nature. It's as base a drive as greed or libido etc.


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.


Actually it would be preposterously easy. Without some centralized authority in place to control dramatic expressions of violence, like say nuclear weapons, there would be abject chaos and destruction very likely leading to the end of the human race.

The real world examples of this are obvious. If nuclear material and technology had been traded on an open market free of regulation since their discovery it's a virtual certainty that large parts of the Earth would presently be uninhabitable.


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.


This is an argument you'd consider weak? Again, you're missing the point entirely. The relative moral 'goodness' of a state is irrelevant. People just crave authority. Ambitious people want to be that authority. Either way, both of these very base human drives require an apparatus of some sort to express said authority. This is why all forms of anarchy are completely unworkable, be they capitalistic or syndicalist or whatever.


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.

Well that was easy. Commence equivocating at will.

[TomCollins]

That it upsets Neilso.

[TomCollins]

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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.


[/ 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?

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Appealing to the majority, moorobot's 2nd favorite fallacy. Well done sir.

[Nielsio]

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Actually it would be preposterously easy. Without some centralized authority in place to control dramatic expressions of violence, like say nuclear weapons, there would be abject chaos and destruction very likely leading to the end of the human race.

The real world examples of this are obvious. If nuclear material and technology had been traded on an open market free of regulation since their discovery it's a virtual certainty that large parts of the Earth would presently be uninhabitable.

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Wow

[Smasharoo]

Wow

Well put.

[tolbiny]

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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.

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+


=



I wish i had a hundred friends. Then i wouldn't care. I'd say, "who needs you, bills217? I've got a hundred other friends!" Then my hundred friends and I would go do something fun, and leave bills217 alone! Ha! ...


As long as i'm dreaming, i'd like a pony.

[bills217]

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We know you can make ad hominem attacks against anarchocapitalism.


We all know that any valid criticism will be immediately characterized as this, regardless of content.

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Not by the intellectually honest, unless you think everyone on this board is intellectually dishonest, which would make me wonder why you post here.

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We all know any valid arguments will be ludicrously re parsed as such to avoid any actual debate about the massive flaws of a wholly unworkable fringe theory such as AC.

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Oh the irony! An ad hominem attack by its very definition in the very next paragraph!

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the word 'theft' is arbitrarily re-defined to encompass things like taxation.

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Theft is defined as the act of stealing. To steal is defined as "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force." www.dictionary.com Taxation takes my money, without my permission, by force. It is theft by definition. Moorobot basically admits as much in his theft thread. You would need to re-define theft in order for taxation NOT to be theft.

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Not many proponents of anarcho capitalism on this board even vaguely understand the conceptual underpinnings of it beyond "I don't wanna pay taxes."

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Ad hominem attack #2.

FWIW, I may be guilty of this, but I am currently trying to remedy that issue, and borodog, pvn, hmk, nielsio, etc. are obviously not guilty of it to any objective observer, which you clearly are not.

That said, the statists on this board are apparently not very familiar with the conceptual underpinnings of the state when they have to make threads titled "Why is theft wrong?" in order to refute the preposterous theory of anarchocapitalism.

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Without some centralized authority in place to control dramatic expressions of violence, like say nuclear weapons, there would be abject chaos and destruction very likely leading to the end of the human race.

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LOL @ this. No such central authority exists unless it's some ultra-secret one that only you know about. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

The reason nuclear weapons have been used forcefully only twice in history is precisely because there is NOT one central authority with the ability to abuse them at will. Mutually Assured Destruction How ironic - the free market even works among states.

You also assume for the purpose of your argument that the state doesn't exist, and then simultaneously assume that nuclear weapons exist, which is like assuming that Microsoft doesn't exist and yet we still magically have Windows.

This is perhaps the worst argument in the history of the politics forum. Not only is it wrong, but it is diametrically the opposite of right. This is even worse than Steven Bickford's OP about moral clarity, which is no small feat. Congratulations.

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The real world examples of this are obvious. If nuclear material and technology had been traded on an open market free of regulation since their discovery it's a virtual certainty that large parts of the Earth would presently be uninhabitable.

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They have been. And it's not. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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This is an argument you'd consider weak? Again, you're missing the point entirely. The relative moral 'goodness' of a state is irrelevant. People just crave authority.

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I really don't dispute this or the earlier part about people craving authority. But there is no reason that they should. If enough people can be convinced of this, there is no longer a need for the state, which you seemingly admit.

[iron81]

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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.

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Oh, the irony.