A Critique of Rothbardian Natural Rights (sorta long)

[Zygote]

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You can call America a dictatorship, but using such a buzzword (especially, incorrectly) does not help your argument. Call it playing semantics if you want. Like I said, your argument can be made without using false buzzwords.

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no offense but this is non-sense. you get the point. i said you can call it whatever you want. representative mob rule monkeypoo. i dont care

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When did I say that?


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You said that iraq was wrong because the system was forced. The only way you can get around this is to say that government today are voluntary institutions, which isn't true, and if thats the case then you must believe we're in anarchy right now.

why did the taxmen need all those guns if people had a choice?

you and moorobot should also realize that america descended into civil war not long after inception. Do you think all state voluntarily joined the union too btw??

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I don't recall us ever trying to force the Native Americans to adopt democracy. A group of people deciding to adopt democracy is far different from a group of people invading another group of people, forcing them to adopt democracy and then leaving. Trying to equate all governments to the Iraq invasion is ridiculous IMO.


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its not ridiculous if you understand the principled difference we're focusing on is a government of voluntary arrangement and one that is coercive. You really believe the American government was voluntarily formed by all members?

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Not really. I don't claim that democracy would be a good system for everyone. I also don't claim "democracy will be good for solving problem X in every circumstance."


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wat do you claim democracy can do? what is democracy good for?

i never said it had to work in every circumstance, but demcoracy should be able to work in the circumstances that the system is designed to solve, but also my point was democracy has made these situations WORSE.

if democracy only works when people got along before hand then why have democracy? is the system not preached as a just means of solving issues among divided individuals?

[ianlippert]

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its not ridiculous if you understand the principled difference we're focusing on is a government of voluntary arrangement and one that is coercive. You really believe the American government was voluntarily formed by all members?



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It only seems voluntary and peaceful because people know what happens when they get out of line. As stated above, see the natives and the civil war.

[xorbie]

moorebot,

Excellent posting all around. I don't have much to add.

[Zygote]

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moorebot,

Excellent posting all around. I don't have much to add.

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apparently neither does moorobot since much criticism has come of his posts and foal is the only one attempting to stick at it.

[Zygote]

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It only seems voluntary and peaceful because people know what happens when they get out of line. As stated above, see the natives and the civil war.


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I agree. His ideas that democracies are legitimate when the vast majority of people are contained does not justify whether they support the system or not. If they support the system they should have no problem releasing the stranglehold on people and seeing if they rejoin. Voluntarism is necessary to reveal their true feelings.

[foal]

You're going to too much effort to try to make these exaggerated generalizations to make your point, as if everything is black and white. In describing our system you go from "dictatorship" to "mob rule" to "representative mob rule". You claim the terminology is not important, but I'd say those are all pretty significantly different. I'm not sure "representative mob rule" even makes sense. If it's representative then it's not mob rule. If you don't want me "playing semantics" then stop labeling things with attention-grabbing evil/negative sounding words.
And you're making some incorrect assumptions about my position. E.g.:
"You said that iraq was wrong because the system was forced."
No I didn't. I said
"invading countries and trying to force them to have the sort of government we want doesn't work well."
There's a big difference.

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wat do you claim democracy can do? what is democracy good for?

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It's good for countries where the vast majority of the population recognizes the democratic government as having some degree of legitimate authority. It's good for settling political disputes without actual fighting and for preventing any one person or faction from becoming too powerful. I never said "democracy only works when everyone gets along before hand". There are different degrees of getting along. And there's no country where everyone gets along. If a country is in enough chaos and no one recognizes the government as legit then democracy is not going to help much. That is all.
Isn't it ACers who have said that AC will only work in a society with libertarian social norms that respects property rights? If you agree with that then what sort of system would you consider best for societies in which that is not the case?

[Zygote]

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You're going to too much effort to try to make these exaggerated generalizations to make your point, as if everything is black and white. In describing our system you go from "dictatorship" to "mob rule" to "representative mob rule". You claim the terminology is not important, but I'd say those are all pretty significantly different. I'm not sure "representative mob rule" even makes sense. If it's representative then it's not mob rule. If you don't want me "playing semantics" then stop labeling things with attention-grabbing evil/negative sounding words.

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come up with your own label i dont care to keep trying. You keep explaining the difference between the terms but have yet to explain why that matters relative to the debate. Some people force other people into their way by WHATEVER THE MEANS. Stop playing games.

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"You said that iraq was wrong because the system was forced."
No I didn't. I said
"invading countries and trying to force them to have the sort of government we want doesn't work well."
There's a big difference.

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I dont see the difference. Please elaborate.

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It's good for countries where the vast majority of the population recognizes the democratic government as having some degree of legitimate authority.

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What level majority is necessary? Millions of shi'ites, the majority, support democracy in Iraq.

I still dont see why you think that anyone outside of those who find the legitimacy should be forced into the system. Why shouldn't democracies be entirely voluntary? Please defend why the systme must have the coercive element.

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. It's good for settling political disputes without actual fighting and for preventing any one person or faction from becoming too powerful.

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Iraq is an empirical proof that democracy is very ineffective at this goal.

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If a country is in enough chaos and no one recognizes the government as legit then democracy is not going to help much. That is all.

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Iraq was not in chaos. Democracy created the chaos. To say no one recognizes the government is ridiculous. Only those who are getting their political and resource rights stripped from them are choosing to not respect the government because of the inherent failure of democracy to represent all the people rather than just a majority.

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Isn't it ACers who have said that AC will only work in a society with libertarian social norms that respects property rights? If you agree with that then what sort of system would you consider best for societies in which that is not the case?

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They should adopt property rights. Unlike you, i actually have faith in my system to solve some problems somewhere. Anarchy's beauty is it allows for diversity. People can start kibbutz's, they can set up areas of voluntary democracy, watver.

Right now there are not enough property rights in iraq. If property right were presen i dont think its wrong to theoretically assume the society would be rid of the current problems and on a much more prosperous path.

[foal]

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You're going to too much effort to try to make these exaggerated generalizations to make your point, as if everything is black and white. In describing our system you go from "dictatorship" to "mob rule" to "representative mob rule". You claim the terminology is not important, but I'd say those are all pretty significantly different. I'm not sure "representative mob rule" even makes sense. If it's representative then it's not mob rule. If you don't want me "playing semantics" then stop labeling things with attention-grabbing evil/negative sounding words.

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come up with your own label i dont care to keep trying. You keep explaining the difference between the terms but have yet to explain why that matters relative to the debate. Some people force other people into their way by WHATEVER THE MEANS. Stop playing games.

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Hah I'm not playing games. It'd be like if I said "anarchism is marxist communism" and then got upset at you for playing games when you corrected me.

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"You said that iraq was wrong because the system was forced."
No I didn't. I said
"invading countries and trying to force them to have the sort of government we want doesn't work well."
There's a big difference.

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I dont see the difference. Please elaborate.

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Statement one: "Iraq was wrong, because the system was forced.
Statement two: Invading countries and trying to force them to have the sort of government we want doesn't work well.
I don't see how the two statements are equal in any way. Do I really need to elaborate?

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I still dont see why you think that anyone outside of those who find the legitimacy should be forced into the system. Why shouldn't democracies be entirely voluntary? Please defend why the systme must have the coercive element.

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That's a huge topic and I'm not going to get into it right now. I just entered this thread to argue against your more absolutist, black/white statements.

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. It's good for settling political disputes without actual fighting and for preventing any one person or faction from becoming too powerful.

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Iraq is an empirical proof that democracy is very ineffective at this goal.

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Of course Democracy alone isn't going to work miracles. No system of government or lack of government will. To be a good form of government it merely needs to be good in comparison to the alternatives. So for this to be evidence of the lousiness of democracy, we'd have to compare it to something else. Maybe as an experiment we can invade another country with a sectarian rift and force them to have no government. Then we can compare it to Iraq and see which works better. I'm being facetious of course, my point is just that evidence does not work the way you're suggesting it does. We need both an experimental group and a control group to compare to. If you look at History I think you'll find that the "best" societies have been democracies. That's debatable and not certainly not conclusive that Democracy is the ideal system, but it is the sort of empirical evidence you brought up.

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Iraq was not in chaos. Democracy created the chaos.

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I thought invading the country, overthrowing the government, dismantling the army and occupying the country created the chaos.

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Right now there are not enough property rights in iraq. If property right were presen i dont think its wrong to theoretically assume the society would be rid of the current problems and on a much more prosperous path.

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I'm curious how you would bring about these property rights, since they can't be enforceable by your philosophy?

[Zygote]

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Hah I'm not playing games. It'd be like if I said "anarchism is marxist communism" and then got upset at you for playing games when you corrected me.

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your first comment was justified. your continuance is no more than nitpicking.

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Statement one: "Iraq was wrong, because the system was forced.
Statement two: Invading countries and trying to force them to have the sort of government we want doesn't work well.
I don't see how the two statements are equal in any way. Do I really need to elaborate?



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you need to elaborate because i think this will be very telling.

Are you saying going to iraq to instill democracy was right then? If not then why?

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That's a huge topic and I'm not going to get into it right now. I just entered this thread to argue against your more absolutist, black/white statements.


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this is the crux of the debate. iraq was wrong because of the force factor. our government's today are wrong for the same reason.

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Of course Democracy alone isn't going to work miracles. No system of government or lack of government will. To be a good form of government it merely needs to be good in comparison to the alternatives. So for this to be evidence of the lousiness of democracy, we'd have to compare it to something else. Maybe as an experiment we can invade another country with a sectarian rift and force them to have no government. Then we can compare it to Iraq and see which works better. I'm being facetious of course, my point is just that evidence does not work the way you're suggesting it does. We need both an experimental group and a control group to compare to. If you look at History I think you'll find that the "best" societies have been democracies. That's debatable and not certainly not conclusive that Democracy is the ideal system, but it is the sort of empirical evidence you brought up.

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we can already compare saddam's iraq to a democratic iraq. i dont think theres a clear winner and that pretty bad for democracy proponents.

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I thought invading the country, overthrowing the government, dismantling the army and occupying the country created the chaos.

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They didnt dismantle the governmnet. They transformed the government from saddams style governance to democracy. The sectarian violence has nothing to do with the US. they are fighting each other internally for a reason

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I'm curious how you would bring about these property rights, since they can't be enforceable by your philosophy?


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I never said they can't be enforced. The problem today is that they are breached. The US should dismantle the government, return public assets to the citizens in the form of equal equity shares. Taking away the government will stop the social rule and free individuals to run their social and economic lives in their own dynamically unique ways.

[foal]

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your first comment was justified. your continuance is no more than nitpicking.

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I believe your response to my first statement was to say I was "playing semantics".. hence why I continued defending myself. But I'll stop now.

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Statement one: "Iraq was wrong, because the system was forced.
Statement two: Invading countries and trying to force them to have the sort of government we want doesn't work well.
I don't see how the two statements are equal in any way. Do I really need to elaborate?



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you need to elaborate because i think this will be very telling.

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The first statement is a moral judgement. The second statement is a pragmatic judgement. The first statement is a judgement about all instances of using force. The second statement is much more specific and speaks only of invading countries.

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Are you saying going to iraq to instill democracy was right then? If not then why?

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No. And I don't believe moral statements about "right" and "wrong" can have any objective or absolute truth to them. I do make moral judgments, but I do not claim them to be objective fact, nor based on a system of underlying logical premises (such as "it's always wrong to use force" or whatever). I think invading Iraq was wrong, because there were no good reasons for it and we killed lots of people, destroyed lots of [censored] and I could go on, but that should be enough.


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we can already compare saddam's iraq to a democratic iraq. i dont think theres a clear winner and that pretty bad for democracy proponents.

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That's not a fair comparison. We'd have to compare the current Iraq to an Iraq in which we invaded, occupied the country, dismantled the military and then propped up a new dictator.

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I thought invading the country, overthrowing the government, dismantling the army and occupying the country created the chaos.

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They didnt dismantle the governmnet. They transformed the government from saddams style governance to democracy.

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I said dismantled the military. Also the fact that the Shi'ites are a majority is significant, because the country is transitioning from power being held by the Sunis to power being mostly held by the Shi'ites. But the loss of military/police security is probably the biggest reason for the chaos.

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I'm curious how you would bring about these property rights, since they can't be enforceable by your philosophy?


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I never said they can't be enforced. The problem today is that they are breached.

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How can they be enforced if not by law?

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The US should dismantle the government, return public assets to the citizens in the form of equal equity shares. Taking away the government will stop the social rule and free individuals to run their social and economic lives in their own dynamically unique ways.

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I have a feeling some of those 'unique ways' are going to include murder and terrorism.