Undertoad wrote:

Those of us in school in the 60s/80s will remember when the USSR was absolutely touted and even admired by many as true Communism

...right up to the point where Stalin's roughly 30M historical deaths became common knowledge due to glasnost -- and then those very same people started to say that, no, acktually, it was not true Communism
 

Thing is, even they admitted it wasn't true communism.

One of the loyalty slogans they used to have people say was "I believe that we shall see true communism in our lifetime".

Any political system that relies on human purity of thought in *any* respect will fail.  Our system is somewhat successful because it was built around the idea that humans often act like idiots, rather than assuming humans would be smart most of the time.

In any case, I think we can agree that "true communism" is a unicorn, and that the concept of communism doesn't actually function in anything larger than a tribal society.

It, alongside the other cases I mentioned, does not function under general circumstances, because it expects that humans will always do what is best for themselves or - in the case of collectivism - for the group, which is patently silly.

Our system is somewhat successful because it was built around the idea that humans often act like idiots, rather than assuming humans would be smart most of the time.

'Every nation gets the government it deserves.'

Joseph de Maistre
French philosopher, 1753-1821
 

Luce wrote:

henry_quirk wrote:

there has never been...a "minarchist" government.

That's cuz a gov that does nuthin' but protect individual life, liberty, and property, that favors no man over another, that is strictly under-heel, isn't a popular notion among those who know best.

No, it's because the majority of people don't want anarchy.

 
How is minarchy, anarchy?

'splain it to me, luce.

This oughta be good...  🤔

I'm not ready to tag in, but I love this thread.

Luce wrote:

henry_quirk wrote:

Luce wrote:

No, it's because the majority of people don't want anarchy.

 
How is minarchy, anarchy?

'splain it to me, luce.

This oughta be good... 🤔

I was just going to ask you the same thing.  I can't see any functional difference in minarchy and anarchy.  Both are failures for the same reason communism is a failure.  
 

 
You see no difference cuz you're ignorant. By your own admission elsewhere, you make no distinction between the strains of libertarianism (meaning: you don't know jack).

So: I'll educate you...

A minarchy offers defense of individual life, liberty, and property by way of constabulary, courts, border patrol, and militia. And that's all it does. Where there's no claim of violation against life, liberty, or property, the minarchist government (not really government at all...a proxy is what it is) does nuthin' but sit around and collect it's small paycheck. Minarchism is like an insurance policy you hope you never need, but are glad you have. You can find the foundations for minarchism in the work of John Locke, Thomas Reid, and Frederic Bastiat (I posted his work, The Law, in-forum). The minimal government that serves a narrow role is not a new or startling idea. Our own Declaration and Constitution cry for it. The Articles of Confederation are closest we've gotten to it.

No, minarchy is not impractical; it's simply discouraged, by as I say, those who know best, those who'd leash us for our own good.

An anarchy (take ancap, for example), this is your fanciful notion. It offes nuthin' but license...truly, anarchism is your Darwinistic survival of the fittest, might makes right world. Amoral, perhaps even immoral.

Anarchy is nuthin' like minarchy.

Your turn, slightly less ignorant person.

henry_quirk wrote:

 
You see no difference cuz you're ignorant. By your own admission elsewhere, you make no distinction between the strains of libertarianism (meaning: you don't know jack).

Likewise, I do not make distinction between various sects of protestantism.  They also cannot agree on basic definitions, and they also believe in things that are not falsifiable.

So: I'll educate you...

A minarchy offers defense of individual life, liberty, and property by way of constabulary, courts, border patrol, and militia. And that's all it does.

So what you're telling me is that you expect a government run by humans to maintain a standing army, police force, and court system and not get any scope creep?  By which I mean "galloping scope creep"?

Also, did you mean militia as in standing army, or as in militia as it was used from 1776 to 1820?

Where there's no claim of violation against life, liberty, or property, the minarchist government (not really government at all...a proxy is what it is) does nuthin' but sit around and collect it's small paycheck.

Let me ask you this:  If I dump waste out of the back door of my plant, is that something you can get recourse to by means of this tiny government?

The minimal government that serves a narrow role is not a new or startling idea. Our own Declaration and Constitution cry for it. The Articles of Confederation are closest we've gotten to it.

The articles of confederation failed.  Why would we pursue a failed option?

No, minarchy is not impractical; it's simply discouraged, by as I say, those who know best, those who'd leash us for our own good.

So it's an impossibility.

 

Likewise, I do not make distinction between various sects of protestantism.  They also cannot agree on basic definitions, and they also believe in things that are not falsifiable.

But I bet you make distinctions between Repubs and Dems, two essentially meaningless categories that legislators adhere to, promulgatin' all manner of silly nonfalsfiable nonsense to domesticate ignorami such as yourself.


So what you're telling me is that you expect a government run by humans to maintain a standing army, police force, and court system and not get any scope creep?  By which I mean "galloping scope creep"?

There's always gonna be folks who want to murder, steal, rape, and generally profit from bein' elevated to authority (which is the root of any and all scope creep). for the murderer, the thief, the rapist you have the constabulary and courts. For the legislator (who may pop up among constables, judges or patrolmen) you have the militia.

In context: the millita is the citizenry. When the minarchistic proxy oversteps, when it acts as anything other than redress against violations of life, liberty, or property, the millita has an obligation to excise the offender.


Let me ask you this:  If I dump waste out of the back door of my plant, is that something, which where  you can get recourse to by means of this tiny governmen

Sounds like a potential property even life violation to me. If your sludge damages my property, demonstrably injuries my life, I can, assumin' you refuse responsibility or simply don't believe me, take the matter to court and prove my case.


The articles of confederation failed.

No, they were rejected in favor of sumthin' marketed as an improvement (which most certainly it was and is not).


So it's an impossibility.
 
Nah. Ignorant folks like yourself simply have to disabuse yourselves of the idea that puttin' parasites and wouid-be slavers in charge of your life is a good thing.

Growin' a pair would be a good start.

I do, because they directly affect me.  Those distinctions will change as years go by, as both parties change.

In a minarchy they wouldn't exist 'cept mebbe as social clubs.


But what happens when the Canadians invade us for the potato mines in Idaho?  Or Mexico decides it wants Arizona back?  You think a militia is going to stop a standing army?

The Border Patrol shoots them.


Using what guidelines?  There's no EPA, so you're going to have to start from scratch, right down to what counts as an MCL.

Havin' a minarchy doesn't mean you throw out established science or discard what and who works, ignoramus.


No, they failed.  As quoted in the federalist papers, people were beginning to prefer a return to monarchy over anarchy.

Oh yes, The Federalist Papers...written by the promoters of the Constitution, who couldn't possibly know what the people wanted (damn straight they knew what they wanted, though). 


Your attempts at being insulting aren't helping your case.

What case? Your mind was made up before I started. Absolutely nuthin' I write, or my niceness as I write it, will make a damn bit of difference to you or anyone else in this place.

Really, you expect me to believe you're open to anything I post here?
 

Absurd.  Humans will always form associations to control their environment.

They do that becuz...well, go read Bastiat's The Law in this sub-forum...he explains why they do that, and why they don't have to.


So police as military?  Sounds kind of ominous.

As I say: constabulary, courts, border patrol, millitia...not seein' anything ominous...CIA, black ops, etc., that there is your ominous.


Sure.  But who gets to rule on what the established science says?  Right now we have the EPA.  Under a minarchy, who would determine how much is too much?

I imagine the courts as guided by established science. Certainly it won't be legislators guided by who writes the biggest check.


Do you have any evidence tot he contrary?

Er, where's your evidence...of failure...beyond what folks with a vested interest wrote down?

Me: I can point to the articles as sufficent for a free people. In fact, there's a side by side comparison (articles vs constitution) I can post...I'll find it and do that. 


Who are you trying to convince?
 
No one. I'm just defendn' a position, one you pissed on up-thread. If you get to decry; I get to defend. You didn't think I'd let your lil swipe at me go without comment, did you?

Nice cherry pick.

Let's try again...

-----

A Fatal Tendency of Mankind

Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing.

But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce, and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man — in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.

Property and Plunderi

Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.

But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain — and since labor is pain in itself — it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.

*When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.

But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.

This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.

Victims of Lawful Plunder

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. *Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: *Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

*Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, *men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.

It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution — some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.

The Results of Legal Plunder

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking.

In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.

No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.

The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.

-----

My excerpts don't do the work, or argument, justice...read all of The Law.

*bold, underline, mine