Gyroscopic Investing

Caveman finds useful shaped rock/stick.  Caveman keeps it.  Poof property. 
That is how nature works (well at least until Marxist cavemen came along to enlighten him that the rock/stick didn't really belong him).

Benko wrote: Caveman finds useful shaped rock/stick.  Caveman keeps it.  Poof property. 
That is how nature works (well at least until Marxist cavemen came along to enlighten him that the rock/stick didn't really belong him).

Yes Benko, with a caveat. There is a limit to the amount of possessions he can have (those that he can personally maintain control over and protect) what do you think about what I wrote before:


Posted by: doodle
« on: Today at 07:29:03 AM » Insert Quote
You might argue that the concept of property exists within other animal species as well. I think the essential difference though is that with animals, there is no concept of "property rights". If an animal is going to assert claim over something, they must actively defend it. This immeditely limits the scope of what they can lay claim to. In our present system, a wealthy man can purchase a ton of land and just let it lie fallow resting on the protection that the rest of us provide to him through our socially supported military and police force. A single man therefore can amass a great deal more property than the natural order would permit him only because he can rely on social institutions to protect it for him. The irony is that if this man is a libertarian, he will berate the existence of those institutions that allowed him to amass such great wealth to begin with.

Pointedstick wrote:

moda0306 wrote: Lastly, if your best argument for property rights is that "nothing would get created," then That's just a social engineering argument no different than "if we didn't have a government nothing would get created." 

Private property is a social construct.  A phenomenal one, IMO, but it's not one built on individual sovereignty.

We're a social species. I'm not sure how labeling something a social construct de-legitimizes it in any way. Social construct though it may be, private property happens to be a fairly universal one that nearly every human species has created and recognized in some capacity. I mean, way more historical societies have recognized some form of property ownership than have recognized the right of free expression, women's right to control their reproduction, or a right to carry weapons.

I would say that something about the concept of property ownership seems very deeply imprinted in the human psyche.

I agree with all of this.  I think one could say similar things about the need and historical status of a government existing as a coercive entity that serves to keep people from acting on their more animalistic desires.  It's a very natural extension of a society.  Natural, of course, in the sense that we feel a need in our nature to have that entity, if only to protect us from other big governments.

doodle wrote:

Benko wrote: Caveman finds useful shaped rock/stick.  Caveman keeps it.  Poof property. 
That is how nature works (well at least until Marxist cavemen came along to enlighten him that the rock/stick didn't really belong him).

Yes Benko, with a caveat. There is a limit to the amount of possessions he can have (those that he can personally maintain control over and protect) what do you think about what I wrote before:


Posted by: doodle
« on: Today at 07:29:03 AM » Insert Quote
You might argue that the concept of property exists within other animal species as well. I think the essential difference though is that with animals, there is no concept of "property rights". If an animal is going to assert claim over something, they must actively defend it. This immeditely limits the scope of what they can lay claim to. In our present system, a wealthy man can purchase a ton of land and just let it lie fallow resting on the protection that the rest of us provide to him through our socially supported military and police force. A single man therefore can amass a great deal more property than the natural order would permit him only because he can rely on social institutions to protect it for him. The irony is that if this man is a libertarian, he will berate the existence of those institutions that allowed him to amass such great wealth to begin with.

Doodle,

This is pretty spot on.  There seems to me to be something fundamentally different between having a small dwelling and some tools inside it vs owning vast swaths of limited natural resources that you can't even see when you look out your window.  The former seems quite natural from the perspective of individual sovereignty.  The latter seems like a social engineering scheme that government helps defend and organize to maximize productive output.  For the most part, the latter works pretty well.  IMO, much better when paired with a social safety net for the unlucky saps that weren't born into (nor conquered) ownership of vast amounts of natural resources that they didn't earn and, by logical conclusion, cannot be used by someone else unless they trade their labor for it.

Libertarian666 wrote:

moda0306 wrote:

Libertarian666 wrote: My parents and I paid for my education, at least the part that was voluntary (college).

Q. What's the difference between a grade school inmate and a prison inmate?
A. The former doesn't get time off for good behavior.

As for natural resources, there are basically two options that I'm aware of:

1. They are "owned by everyone", which means "owned by some people with guns called 'government'",  or

2. They are owned by people or voluntarily formed groups of people who either
a. first located them and appropriated them from the state of nature, or
b. purchased them from others by voluntary transactions with those others

I prefer 2, and I can't see any benefit to 1.

That was nice that you had someone to help raise you as a sovereign individual and pay for your education.  I had the same luck.

To your other points, I have a few questions:

- Do you see all property in the United States as essentially "owned by the government?"  Or closer to your other society?

Essentially owned by the government.

moda0306 wrote:
If the former, do you own a car?  A home?  A 401(k)?  Do you not see these as being owned by you in some way?  Do you not voluntarily stay in the U.S. and continue to accumulate wealth within a tax structure that you've had years to understand? 

I "own" those things so long as the government allows me to do so. They can take them away at any time, for any or no reason, without my being able to do anything about it. Thus, they are the actual owners of those things.

As for staying in the US, I don't have the option of moving somewhere I would like better. And even if I were able to do so in the future, the US government would still insist on their right to force me to report to them on my assets, income, and so on, unless and until I was able to arrange a different citizenship and drop my US citizenship.

In other words, they own me.

moda0306 wrote:
- What does "first located them and appropriated them from the state of nature" mean?

I'm assuming you mean find it, ignore the Indians around you, and start farming it in a completely unnatural activity called agriculture?  Sounds overly convenient and arbitrary to me.

Almost everything on Earth already has an owner at the present time. The possibility of locating and appropriating new resources applied in the past and may apply in the future in the case of space travel. I was including it for completeness.

Libertarian666,

So obviously the government has the physical means to steal from me, just as my neighbor with his arsenal has the physical means to overwhelm my 20 gauge and poor marksmanship if him and his buddies were to so choose.

But you seem to actually think that the government could not only get away with stealing your property with no due legal process or reason without any recourse on your end, but that its actually somewhat likely to happen.  This seems a bit excessive. Yes, there are some shady things government gets away with sometimes, but for the most part they can't just kill you or take your property on a whim without massive societal repercussions. 

I view my property as "mine" only insofar as I'm likely to be able to keep it, and I consider myself much more likely to be able to keep property held in the US than in some libertarian experiment "free society" somewhere. Maybe your calculations are different.

And when you say that all property is owned at this point, if the US owns all our property (in reality), then you are sort of asserting that the vast majority of property in the world is essentially owned by government.

Should these governments ever decide to abandon their evil reign, how should the property they own be allocated?  Evenly across the citizenry seems fair for government-relinquished property... However I don't want to share what I deem to be my 401k and Roth and home with other people just because its really not mine and owned by government?  How do you solve that dilemma?

moda0306 wrote: Should these governments ever decide to abandon their evil reign, how should the property they own be allocated?  Evenly across the citizenry seems fair for government-relinquished property... However I don't want to share what I deem to be my 401k and Roth and home with other people just because its really not mine and owned by government?  How do you solve that dilemma?

I like to imagine that government is the landlord and when we purchase property, what we're really  purchasing from one another is the right to be tenants of real estate or trustees of objects, with our "rent" being property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, etc. So under this logic, I think it would make sense for the government to give all the tenants the property that they had been renting. Perhaps to equalize things a bit, they could give some of the poorer tenants bits of the vast, enormous reserves of property that they previously kept all for themselves (public lands, coastline ocean resources, missile silos, spacecraft launching platforms, bridges, aircraft carriers, etc).

doodle wrote: You might argue that the concept of property exists within other animal species as well. I think the essential difference though is that with animals, there is no concept of "property rights". If an animal is going to assert claim over something, they must actively defend it.

I think that there is absolutely no difference between the "animal" and the "man" scenarios that you have posted above.  Your property rights are whatever you can actively defend.  No more no less.

Harry Browne has a nice discussion on his audio lecture "Rule your World!" where he describes a two by two matrix.  Pick a topic - say, "The Right to Personal Property".

One axis is your "rights":  Whether you believe you have them or not. 
The other axis is  your "power" : Whether you have access to enough (resources, ingenuity, craftiness, friends in high places, etc.) to defend what you claim as a right or not.  Put an "X" in the box if someone can take that thing away from you (i.e. Personal Property") and blank if not.  It turns out that the "perceived rights" axis is immaterial.  The only dimension that matters is your broadly defined ability to protect it.

My whippet and I operate under the exact same set of property rights rules.  We both know the limits of our personal power, and defend what we can without having the hammer come down too hard on us. 

In general, he takes what he wants from me due to superior intelligence, cunning and speed.  But not too often, because I'm way bigger than he is and may smash him like a bug if I lose many more hamburgers.

Mark Leavy wrote: My whippet and I operate under the exact same set of property rights rules.  We both know the limits of our personal power, and defend what we can without having the hammer come down too hard on us. 

In general, he takes what he wants from me due to superior intelligence, cunning and speed.  But not too often, because I'm way bigger than he is and may smash him like a bug if I lose many more hamburgers.

That is some funny stuff right there.

moda0306 wrote:

Libertarian666 wrote:

moda0306 wrote: That was nice that you had someone to help raise you as a sovereign individual and pay for your education.  I had the same luck.

To your other points, I have a few questions:

- Do you see all property in the United States as essentially "owned by the government?"  Or closer to your other society?

Essentially owned by the government.

moda0306 wrote:
If the former, do you own a car?  A home?  A 401(k)?  Do you not see these as being owned by you in some way?  Do you not voluntarily stay in the U.S. and continue to accumulate wealth within a tax structure that you've had years to understand? 

I "own" those things so long as the government allows me to do so. They can take them away at any time, for any or no reason, without my being able to do anything about it. Thus, they are the actual owners of those things.

As for staying in the US, I don't have the option of moving somewhere I would like better. And even if I were able to do so in the future, the US government would still insist on their right to force me to report to them on my assets, income, and so on, unless and until I was able to arrange a different citizenship and drop my US citizenship.

In other words, they own me.

moda0306 wrote:
- What does "first located them and appropriated them from the state of nature" mean?

I'm assuming you mean find it, ignore the Indians around you, and start farming it in a completely unnatural activity called agriculture?  Sounds overly convenient and arbitrary to me.

Almost everything on Earth already has an owner at the present time. The possibility of locating and appropriating new resources applied in the past and may apply in the future in the case of space travel. I was including it for completeness.

Libertarian666,

So obviously the government has the physical means to steal from me, just as my neighbor with his arsenal has the physical means to overwhelm my 20 gauge and poor marksmanship if him and his buddies were to so choose.

1. Most individuals do not personally initiate physical violence against others.
2. Those who do, unless they are acting as government agents, are shunned by the rest of society as criminals.
3. If you lived in a place where there were significant numbers of criminals, you could move to a place where they are rare.
4. Even if you have an encounter with one such criminal, you are entitled to defend yourself, by lethal force if necessary.
Do I need to explain how this differs from the situation where the aggressor is governmental in nature?

moda0306 wrote:
But you seem to actually think that the government could not only get away with stealing your property with no due legal process or reason without any recourse on your end, but that its actually somewhat likely to happen.  This seems a bit excessive. Yes, there are some shady things government gets away with sometimes, but for the most part they can't just kill you or take your property on a whim without massive societal repercussions. 

At present, they can only do that if they have an excuse, such as "he was a terrorist", or "he had a weed in his possession". I don't know what the excuses will be tomorrow, and neither do you.

moda0306 wrote: I view my property as "mine" only insofar as I'm likely to be able to keep it, and I consider myself much more likely to be able to keep property held in the US than in some libertarian experiment "free society" somewhere. Maybe your calculations are different.

Yes, they are.

moda0306 wrote: And when you say that all property is owned at this point, if the US owns all our property (in reality), then you are sort of asserting that the vast majority of property in the world is essentially owned by government.

Nominally, no; in effect, yes.

moda0306 wrote: Should these governments ever decide to abandon their evil reign, how should the property they own be allocated?  Evenly across the citizenry seems fair for government-relinquished property... However I don't want to share what I deem to be my 401k and Roth and home with other people just because its really not mine and owned by government?  How do you solve that dilemma?

1. They should abandon their claims to the private property currently nominally owned by individuals. So you would actually own what you think you own right now.
2. The rest of their property (public lands, buildings, etc.) should be auctioned off and the proceeds shared equally among their citizens.

I agree that the most important discussion about what you should do as an individual should be based on what you can successfully do to drive a particular out one, rather than a focus on what your rights are.

However, talking about rights involves a broader moral discussion on the limits we should put on ourselves in violating another person's individual sovereignty.  If all rights are, are things that we can defend ourselves, then we lost our discussion before it even started. The idea of rights, to me, is a framework of how to think about respecting others' individual sovereignty.  This is a different discussion from what we should do in any moment to benefit ourselves.

moda0306 wrote: I agree that the most important discussion about what you should do as an individual should be based on what you can successfully do to drive a particular outcome, rather than a focus on what your rights are.

However, talking about rights involves a broader moral discussion on the limits we should put on ourselves in violating another person's individual sovereignty.  If all rights are, are things that we can defend ourselves, then we lost our discussion before it even started. The idea of rights, to me, is a framework of how to think about respecting others' individual sovereignty.  This is a different discussion from what we should do in any moment to benefit ourselves.

I don't believe in violating anyone else's right to do as he pleases so long as he does not violate others' equal right to do the same. This is a consequence of the Golden Rule, which is my primary guide to right action.

Unfortunately, governments must violate the Golden Rule by their very nature.

I'll leave the logical consequences of that as an exercise for the reader. 

Rights are an interesting concept but they are unnatural creations of very recent societies and therefore are not usually very helpful

On gun forums, questions of gun rights often devolve into endless discussions of the scope of the right, whether it pre-existed its codification in the bill of rights, if so whether it was granted by a deity or inheres in humanity, etc. Meanwhile the legislature is trying to ban 10/22s. None of this is actionable!

As a fun intellectual exercise, rights can be an enjoyable mental puzzle. But the fact of the matter is that we get what we fight for and can defend. If someone ever attacks you, bleating about your rights won't mean squat; you have to defend yourself. And you must also defend yourself in a socially appropriate manner; another condition in which your perceived rights are irrelevant. In theory, the AK-wielding tattooed 250 lb bouncer has as much right to self-defense as a grandmother with her deceased husband's antique revolver; who's going to be cut more slack if they ever take a life and claim it's self-defense?

Libertarian666,

If the police were to blow up my house today for no reason, there probably would be a national reaction, and most government agents, and even most police, would be appalled by that use of force. People wouldn't view it as legitimate.  The public, for the most part, likes to see due legal process.

So once again, the government may have the physical means to kill me and destroy my property, as even a few of my neighbors do, but in both cases society would be appalled.  In fact, most people in this countey are naturally more appalled by a police force blowing up my home than a crazy well-armed neighbor trying to do so. 

Can you name a society, past or present, within which you would feel more secure to not die at the hand of either your government or an invading one if you simply don't act up too crazy?  I can't. The only invading government I fear is an alien one. I have bad feelings towards the police but I really just don't act out too much and can enjoy amazing freedoms without the fear of being randomly shot or unexpectedly stolen from.

Regarding the unwinding of our federal government, what currency would we use for the auction, as without a government the US dollar would cease to have value.  Keep in mind, any decision would result in what is effectively a massive subsidy to the holders of whatever that commodity/money may be.

Also, how would we avoid rampant monopolies in sewer and transportation?

Harry Browne is on my side, too. From How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World:

The Rights Trap is the belief that your rights will make you free.

It’s not hard to fall into this trap and become preoccupied with your rights as a way of
getting what you want. You’ve probably heard since childhood that you have certain
rights — to life, liberty, property, the freedom to pursue your happiness.

In addition, it’s easy to feel that someone owes you certain things in a relationship
— such as respect, honesty, or fair play.

Unfortunately, rights exist only in theory. In practice, they don’t accomplish much
— no matter how much people may discuss them.

[...]

Let’s see how the alternatives apply to various matters in which rights are often
invoked.

It’s popularly assumed that you have a right to your life. Unfortunately however,
if someone kills you, your right is of little value. The police may investigate, may even
find the killer, may even take him to court and convict him, may even execute him.
But none of that will change the fact that you’re dead.

Obviously, it’s more effective to see to it that no one has both the intention and
the opportunity to kill you.

Another right that’s often discussed is your right to your property. But once
again, what use is that right if your property is stolen? Stolen property is rarely
recovered by the police and returned intact to its owner.

Whether or not you have a right, you still have to protect your property or risk
losing it. It’s more effective to make it difficult for a thief to steal it — so that it will
be in his self-interest to go elsewhere.

It’s often said that everyone has a right to a job or to a “decent”? standard of
living. But who will gladly give up his own happiness to make that possible? If it’s in
an employers self-interest to hire you, he’ll do so; if not, your right won’t get you a
job.

The fact that governments claim to protect these rights is insignificant. There are still
murders, thefts, and unemployed people — as well as arsons, rapes, and uneducated
people who had a “right to an education.”?

moda0306 wrote: Also, how would we avoid rampant monopolies in sewer and transportation?

I dunno, but today, how do we avoid rampant monopolies in lawmaking, police protection, fire protection, air travel control, letter delivery, building safety... Government doesn't solve the monopoly problem; it just makes itself the monopolist.

Pointedstick wrote: Rights are an interesting concept but they are unnatural creations of very recent societies and therefore are not usually very helpful

On gun forums, questions of gun rights often devolve into endless discussions of the scope of the right, whether it pre-existed its codification in the bill of rights, if so whether it was granted by a deity or inheres in humanity, etc. Meanwhile the legislature is trying to ban 10/22s. None of this is actionable!

As a fun intellectual exercise, rights can be an enjoyable mental puzzle. But the fact of the matter is that we get what we fight for and can defend. If someone ever attacks you, bleating about your rights won't mean squat; you have to defend yourself. And you must also defend yourself in a socially appropriate manner; another condition in which your perceived rights are irrelevant. In theory, the AK-wielding tattooed 250 lb bouncer has as much right to self-defense as a grandmother with her deceased husband's antique revolver; who's going to be cut more slack if they ever take a life and claim it's self-defense?

PS,

I totally agree with everything you and HB say on the matter.  It's one of my favorite parts of his "teachings."

However, when having a moral debate, discussing rights is about the most pertinent thing on the table.  A political debate is often a moral debate, and many policy debates revolve around what the government should do from both a moral perspective and from a utilitarian perspective. Many of our debates drill down into whether government is even a legitimate entity from the standpoint of this crazy idea of individual sovereignty.  These moral debates are fun, but really pointless in some ways as neither of us are going to change the world. I do this for selfish purposes to satisfy my curiosity and ego .

Please don't take it away from me just because rights don't really exist!  I know they're really just us selfish humans putting ourselves on pedestals.  Just let me live in this dream world where god or nature gives us these things that give police a reason to protect me .

But in all seriousness, rights are inherently unnatural from an evolutionary and ecological perspective. I just think there's something inherantly true about individual sovereignty in a world where it's largely unnecessary for us to kill each other to survive, with the unfortunate complication that we're all stuck on the same rock together with limited resources.

Pointedstick wrote:

moda0306 wrote: Also, how would we avoid rampant monopolies in sewer and transportation?

I dunno, but today, how do we avoid rampant monopolies in lawmaking, police protection, fire protection, air travel control, letter delivery, building safety... Government doesn't solve the monopoly problem; it just makes itself the monopolist.

I agree. Government, however, seems to usually balance this unfortunate position by having to answer to the public as "shareholders," rather than some select few, and the government's motive is built around the idea of public purposes rather than profit motive, which works much better in some structures... Or so I would assert.

Do you really think that if the government sold the sewer system of your city to a single private entity that you'd get better service for less money?

I don't think we would, as public outcry, instead of being met with the fear of a local politician that thinks he might lose an election, is met with the belly-laughing of the profiteers of the monopoly as they realize they've got you by the balls.

I don't fully understand how certain things can work without a clear profit motive myself, and while you recently pointed out there were some moral problems with the Panama Canal, its status as an amazingly productive venture, for all its faults, seems pretty clear.

Our military in general, as well as putting a man on the moon in the 1960's, seem utterly impossible to me with the lack of any true gluttonous profit motive of the soldiers, officers, and scientists involved with those ventures.  I'm not saying police, generals, and NASA scientists are great people, but I'm amazed with the systems they've put together on relatively modest pay, and no clear, direct profit motive from the top.  There's something else at work here that I don't know if I'll ever understand.  Greed, I get... I get it all too well. "Public purpose" is fun for me to think about, but I really have no idea how people keep their eye on the ball long enough to get this sh*t done when I don't see a direct line of motivation to do so. I truly think there are people who must think very, very seriously about their role as a public servant, and make unbelievable things happen that the private sector is simply not inclined to do on its own.

Think Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec.  There simply has to be a lot of them out there.  I truly don't think NYC could exist if there weren't.

As I have already pointed out, they would have a reason, for example because you were a terrorist. And we know that terrorists don't deserve constitutional rights such as a trial.

You think all the government has to do is just say "Dan was a terrorist and all will stop there?"

You obviously haven't spent much time thinking about this. I can name quite a few, without even having to stop to think for more than a minute.
Today: Most of western Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand.
50 years ago: The USA, Australia, New Zealand, most of western Europe.

50 years ago was 1963. Men shortly there after were being forced by their government to fight in a brutal war.  Western Europe was less than 20 years out from a horrible war where a couple countries organized the theft from and murder or millions of Jews and other minorities.

Today, Japan has a very regimented education and healthcare system, hardly that free. All the countries you mention have generally more peaceful governments, but most don't respect private property in the same way the US does, and they all tax more, and have much more centralized education and healthcare systems.

I'm not saying that it's grossly unlikely that one of these countries would be a better option ban the US, but it certainly isn't clear, and definitely not by much.

Now from a cultural, healthcare, educational, and other perspectives you could very likely be right that these are better places to live than the US depending on who you are.  But from a point of view of "how much is my government going to coerce/steal from me?" I don't see any reason to put any other country clearly ahead of the US. 

Do you know what taxes or regulations will be next year or 10 years from now? What if they make owning gold illegal, as was the case from 1933 (IIRC) to 1974? Would that count as "being unexpectedly stolen from"?

I have a lot more certainly about the security of my assets in the US than I would in a "free society" island that I moved to somewhere after denouncing my US citizenship. Of course, anything can happen. Lots of governments with big guns could do anything to anyone, I guess.  I'll have to go with my gut on this one that my house is more secure here than Galtopia Island or a quasi-socialist European country.

By getting rid of the federal government? Now you've lost me.

Yeah I sort of sloppily moved to abolishing all government... Sorry for the lack of clarity.  I was going for the full nuclear option .

Libertarian666 wrote:

moda0306 wrote: I agree that the most important discussion about what you should do as an individual should be based on what you can successfully do to drive a particular outcome, rather than a focus on what your rights are.

However, talking about rights involves a broader moral discussion on the limits we should put on ourselves in violating another person's individual sovereignty.  If all rights are, are things that we can defend ourselves, then we lost our discussion before it even started. The idea of rights, to me, is a framework of how to think about respecting others' individual sovereignty.  This is a different discussion from what we should do in any moment to benefit ourselves.

I don't believe in violating anyone else's right to do as he pleases so long as he does not violate others' equal right to do the same. This is a consequence of the Golden Rule, which is my primary guide to right action.

Unfortunately, governments must violate the Golden Rule by their very nature.

I'll leave the logical consequences of that as an exercise for the reader. 

What if I decide that I want to start farming a field that you think is yours but I think is mine?  I've just violated your doing as you choose and vice versa.

"What we choose" often involves traveling places and using natural resources.  This makes it impossible for us to coexist in a 100% golden rule scenario. There is no violation if it never existed to begin with.

Libertarian666,

To your point as to why the island doesn't exist, I'd say you're probably right!  And what's the best tool to defend against a really bad government stealing your stuff?

A much less bad government of your own to help defend the island.  The inherent fragility of a "free society" is my main gripe against it and why I wouldn't really trust that my property is secure there.

I'd also assert that the island doesn't exist due to lack of demand.  There are plenty experiments that the rich could afford to avoid taxes.  Even people of more modest means, if they truly desired freedom so much (Most probably prefer "stuff" and lifestyle they can't get on Galtopia), could live off an island somewhere with temperate and be very free.. Just with not many amenities.

Many productive, freedom-loving people choose to live in some of the most "state-heavy" environments. You don't see people clamoring to move to rural Mississippi to avoid higher taxes and regulations and subways.

moda0306 wrote:
Libertarian666,

So obviously the government has the physical means to steal from me, just as my neighbor with his arsenal has the physical means to overwhelm my 20 gauge and poor marksmanship if him and his buddies were to so choose.

But you seem to actually think that the government could not only get away with stealing your property with no due legal process or reason without any recourse on your end, but that its actually somewhat likely to happen.  This seems a bit excessive. Yes, there are some shady things government gets away with sometimes, but for the most part they can't just kill you or take your property on a whim without massive societal repercussions. 

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/201 ... _armed_hom

moda0306 wrote: Libertarian666,

To your point as to why the island doesn't exist, I'd say you're probably right!  And what's the best tool to defend against a really bad government stealing your stuff?

A much less bad government of your own to help defend the island.  The inherent fragility of a "free society" is my main gripe against it and why I wouldn't really trust that my property is secure there.

Your property isn't secure here either, and neither is your life. See the link in my other message for some examples.

moda0306 wrote: I'd also assert that the island doesn't exist due to lack of demand.  There are plenty experiments that the rich could afford to avoid taxes.  Even people of more modest means, if they truly desired freedom so much (Most probably prefer "stuff" and lifestyle they can't get on Galtopia), could live off an island somewhere with temperate and be very free.. Just with not many amenities.

Really? I don't know of any such place where you aren't still subject to the US government's demands so long as you remain a US citizen.

moda0306 wrote: Many productive, freedom-loving people choose to live in some of the most "state-heavy" environments. You don't see people clamoring to move to rural Mississippi to avoid higher taxes and regulations and subways.

Last I saw, Mississippi was part of the US, so moving there would not get you away from the US government.
And neither would moving to another country, so long as you remain a US citizen.

Obviously this isn't going anywhere.

I hope I'm wrong about what I think is going to happen here, and that you are right. Good luck.

Renounce your citizenry then.  If being in America is so awful, it will be worth it, won't it?  What's the big deal?

And I could post individual stories of police from various countries you mention invading homes and killing people. The question is how likely is it.  I don't trust an Australian or Japanese swat team, either.

Rural Mississippi has much less government overall than Manhattan, yet people pay WAY more to live in Manhattan. My assertion was that people don't shy away from places with big government.  There appears to be a lack if true demand for a "free society."

You seem to be simultaneously way to scared about being attacked by the US government, (or maybe the Tucson swat team?), and way too confident that any number of other statist societies will be super safe in comparison.  You also seem unwilling to move to a different society to secure your freedom and safety, as well as unwilling to sustain your freedom on your own on an island somewhere.

moda0306 wrote: Renounce your citizenry then.  If being in America is so awful, it will be worth it, won't it?  What's the big deal?

You obviously know nothing about citizenship law, or you would know that you can't just "renounce your [US] citizenship". Furthermore, even if you could, all that would do is to make you a stateless person, which is even worse than being a US person. Of course, most people don't know anything about that, but then they don't advise people about it either.

moda0306 wrote: And I could post individual stories of police from various countries you mention invading homes and killing people. The question is how likely is it.  I don't trust an Australian or Japanese swat team, either.

Ok, then, go ahead and post them. And some Swiss ones, while you're at it.

moda0306 wrote: Rural Mississippi has much less government overall than Manhattan, yet people pay WAY more to live in Manhattan. My assertion was that people don't shy away from places with big government.  There appears to be a lack if true demand for a "free society."

They live in Manhattan because you can make a lot more money there. And again, the US federal government controls Mississippi too.

moda0306 wrote: You seem to be simultaneously way to scared about being attacked by the US government, (or maybe the Tucson swat team?), and way too confident that any number of other statist societies will be super safe in comparison.  You also seem unwilling to move to a different society to secure your freedom and safety, as well as unwilling to sustain your freedom on your own on an island somewhere.

Again, you seem to have some very strange ideas about moving to another country and getting another citizenship. I have done a great deal of research on that topic, and it is very difficult, time-consuming and expensive, if you can do it at all.

Libertarian666,

Please enlighten us what complications lie in renouncing your citizenship.  And what control the US government has over you if you choose not to, but move overseas.