Regarding perfect freedom

[doodle]

Truth be told, I don't really have much of an opinion at the moment regarding much of anything. My purpose on this forum as I see it is more of a counterweight or ballast. Learning and discussion cannot happen in an echo chamber and someone must play the role of devil's advocate or contrarian.

Regarding this issue of property, let me chew on a few more things and digest it before I get back to you. But, I will have to say that I do view humans as very adaptable creatures and therefore appeals to convention which are the result of cultural conditioning and innate biological coding hold little persuasive sway over me. We are living in an era of nuclear power and quantum physics...we have in many way superseded the powers of nature.....perhaps we should be thinking along these lines when it comes to our emotional and mental constitutions and social arrangements as well. Ego, anger, greed,  etc... are all things that while "natural" could also lead to the downfall of our species and therefore should not be considered the base upon which we build a successful future. 

[Pointedstick]

Doodle, I appreciate the role you play as the devil's advocate. But if you always disagree, never addressing or even acknowledging your partner's points or ever conceding anything, then devil's advocacy can very easily turn into irritating trolling. At that point, you are no longer stimulating debate but rather destroying it.


Regarding nature and what's natural, I don't think anyone's saying that society should be blindly adopting anything that was there in the past or in nature. I mean, rape is natural--happens all the time in nature--and we don't want any of that in our societies.

Rather, saying that something is natural is a way of acknowledging the weight of the past and the difficulty of radically altering it. All civilizations have had governments, so in my mind there is something natural about the human desire to create one. That's why I acknowledge that it can't simply be abolished overnight. But like rape, I view it as something that we should try as hard as we can to get rid of anyway, and if we can't get rid of it entirely, we should minimize it as much as possible, because, like rape, it represents violence, violation, taking without consent, one party overriding the wishes of the other party.

"Natural" doesn't mean "desirable!" It means "difficult to remove."

[doodle]

PS,

I acknowledge your arguments and while I might jump around a bit (sorry ADHD) I try to stay reasonably on topic. I concede that personal property is beneficial and advantageous on many levels. I for one would have a problem if my neighbor kept breaking in to my apartment and stealing food out of my fridge, so I get it from a personal level. I understand and concede that Medium Tex's argument regarding property allowing us to increase the productivity of resources is also true and borne out by the last 200 years of material progress. What I think I am trying to come to terms with though is the larger negative social ramifications that result when property and wealth in society becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few...this is not a good state of affairs for the future even though it has been very good over the last century. See my recent post in this forum of "What's happening to the middle class"

Concentrated property ownership is socially destabilizing and potentially creates revolutionary conditions. If the trend continues we will not have a freer society (government or no government) because the worlds assets will all be in the hands of a group of elite overlords. What we will essentially return to is feudalism....not a vibrant and enlightened democracy of free thinkers.

I also find libertarian appeals to "freedom" a bit hypocritical because they necessarily elevate one conception of freedom above another. In other words a person is coerced into playing the game of life according to the way that libertarians see fit, not as that individual prefers to conduct things.

[Pointedstick]

PS,

I acknowledge your arguments and while I might jump around a bit (sorry ADHD) I try to stay reasonably on topic. I concede that personal property is beneficial and advantageous on many levels. I for one would have a problem if my neighbor kept breaking in to my apartment and stealing food out of my fridge, so I get it from a personal level. I understand and concede that Medium Tex's argument regarding property allowing us to increase the productivity of resources is also true and borne out by the last 200 years of material progress.

Thank you! Much appreciated. 

Concentrated property ownership is socially destabilizing and potentially creates revolutionary conditions.

I actually don't disagree with this at all. IMHO the biggest thing preventing this is the incredible efficiency of the modern entertainment industry which seems able to keep people pacified no matter how hopeless their situation may be. Marx was wrong; video games and TV are the opiate of the masses!

I also find libertarian appeals to "freedom" a bit hypocritical because they necessarily elevate one conception of freedom above another. In other words a person is coerced into playing the game of life according to the way that libertarians see fit, not as that individual prefers to conduct things.

Amusingly enough, this "freedom" argument is one I've only seen made by you and moda who are challenging it. All throughout this and other threads, what we talk about is property, not so much freedom, because everyone's conception of freedom is different. I think it's a bit of a strawman.

[l82start]

i love a good contrarian argument, you are correct that learning doesn't happen in an echo chamber, and i understand ADHD but there are certain elements to any argument that will increase there value immensely, avoiding the "throw out ideas and hope some stick" and when they don't throw different ones method tends to get mistaken for trolling. it also doesn't help clarify a position for yourself 

I don't really have much of an opinion at the moment regarding much of anything

the basic formula for sound arguing is
having " who, what, where, when" and making sure they are drawn from reputable or legitimate sources.
applying logic so that the ideas you present don't contradict each other or themselves, and don't contain argumentative fallacy's such as straw-men (and others)
and from the above you can build wisdom, the ability to take the ideas you have and apply them for your own benefit and share them clearly with others..

keep going... being the contrarian is a great exercise and if you use it to do so, it should sharpen your skills and thinking faster than you can imagine....  plus its fun for us and sharpens our skills and thinking at the same time

[MediumTex]

There are lots of ways to poke holes in complex arguments without blindly playing devils advocate.

With respect to libertarian ideas, here are a few items I might throw out if I wanted to stimulate discussion:

1. If government leaves a small footprint in a society, how can that society remain ready for war with other countries with large governments that may pose a military threat?

2. How would a libertarian respond to governmental requirements that are inefficient but nevertheless deemed socially desirable, such as wheelchair ramps and other expensive measures taken to provide access to a tiny group of people within society?

3. What great nation in history had a weak and constricted central government?  Even the great U.S. didn't really see its profile in the world rise until Presidents like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and FDR helped to increase the power of the federal government.

Those are a few pretty good ones.

[Libertarian666]

There are lots of ways to poke holes in complex arguments without blindly playing devils advocate.

With respect to libertarian ideas, here are a few items I might throw out if I wanted to stimulate discussion:

1. If government leaves a small footprint in a society, how can that society remain ready for war with other countries with large governments that may pose a military threat?

2. How would a libertarian respond to governmental requirements that are inefficient but nevertheless deemed socially desirable, such as wheelchair ramps and other expensive measures taken to provide access to a tiny group of people within society?

3. What great nation in history had a weak and constricted central government?  Even the great U.S. didn't really see its profile in the world rise until Presidents like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and FDR helped to increase the power of the federal government.

Those are a few pretty good ones.

1. See the short story "Swiss Movement", or Heinlein's "Friday" for suggestions about how to handle this problem. Also, if Elon Musk can afford orbital launch capability, then any reasonable libertarian society could too. Anyway, I wouldn't mind paying a fee to my protection agency/insurance company to have them deal with it.
2. Shaming/boycotting of companies that don't comply with voluntary requests, charity to pay for the expenses of refitting.
3. Who cares about having a "great nation"? I don't. I consider that much more of a danger than an honor.

[Pointedstick]

1. I would say that modern technology makes life more dangerous than ever for the leaders of foreign governments. Today individual can build a tiny remote-controlled or fully-automated quadcopter equipped with a small bomb or poison injector for less than a few thousand dollars that will be able to rapidly deliver its payload to any individual. A libertarian nation would simply need to have a well-known policy of "you attack us and your top politicians start dying." What a force equalizer!

2. This is trickier because I'm not sure that private charity will always be enough. I hope it is, but I'm not certain of that. I guess the real answer is that if people aren't willing to endure the cost, inconvenience, or inefficiency of those provisions, then they're not actually deemed socially desirable, but that's kind of cop-out.

3. Agree with Libertarian666. I would rather have a less prominent but highly prosperous society where my nonviolent actions face as few restrictions as possible. The candle that buns twice as bright burns half as long...

[MediumTex]

The point I am making is that no set of political/economic/cultural beliefs about optimal ways of organizing society are immune to critique.

Nothing is perfect.  There will always be reasonable arguments against a certain kind of arrangement.  The issue is whether the reasonable criticisms of one system are more or less troubling than the criticisms of another system.

Whatever problems one might point out about a society premised upon the protection of property rights, the protection of personal freedom and the minimization of parasitic social, political and economic entanglements, I would probably say that the alternative have more troubling problems.

There is the saying that "History is written by winners."  The truth might be more like "History is written by parasites."

If the parasites are writing history, then it stands to reason that the parasites are going to be cast in the best possible light, which is really sort of sad, since it's hard enough for children to get anything useful out of school, and what they do get is often just the informed citizen equivalent of a nasty tapeworm that has wrapped itself around certain historical events.  When the teachers are also unable to see through the parasitic propaganda you can get some pretty large misunderstandings of history and what forces really drive progress in human affairs (here's a hint, though: it's not the government).