If Permanent Portfolio existed during the American Revolution what would the 4th branch be

[dualstow]

Unaccountable power brings out the worst in anyone, whether they ran for government or not.

+1

[Pointedstick]

Unaccountable power brings out the worst in anyone, whether they ran for government or not.

+1

It's true, but the degree of unaccountability and the types of power wielded aren't in the same ballpark. The market process tends to be really good about applying pressure (both from customers and competitors) where the leaders of a firm are engaging in shady practices. And the "shady practices" tend to be things like underpaying workers, permitting unsafe work conditions, embezzlement, dumping waste onto public property with the government's blessing, and things like that. Not good stuff, but nothing at all like what the leaders of government can do:

• Torture
• Mass murder
• Mass enslavement
• Mass imprisonment for victimless crimes
• Mass theft of indigenous land
• Forced religious conversion
• Forced enrollment in the military
• Forced human medical experimentation
• Rape used as a terror weapon
• Despoiling entire ecosystems
• Robbing entire populations of its wealth or even food

Find me a business leader who's done any of that, let alone nearly all of it, as many historical and contemporary governments have. All the supposed checks and balances of constitutional courts, voting, political competition, aristocracy, nobility, the church, you name it… none of them prevented these atrocities against humanity from repeatedly happening. Violence is the only language that government understands, so I think the best form of accountability is the risk of violent revolution and overthrow, which is one of the many reasons why I support free and unfettered access to increasingly deadly weaponry. Even the threat tends to make government behave better. And at the very minimum, it evens the playing field since governments typically amass such weapons for themselves.

[Gosso]

Unfortunately, there is a difference in moral quality among men, whether inborn or otherwise, and those with the least qualms about using violence are the ones most likely to seek political power. So paradoxically it would be better to have people chosen at random, which monarchy approximates in terms of moral qualities, than self-selected to wield power.

People vary in moral character, yes, but that is not what I meant.  People do not vary in their moral prerogatives.  No one has special moral powers that others do not.  Kings are not chosen by god.

The idea that there are different classes of humans, some who can rule and others who cannot, is plainly false and consequently does not appeal to enough people for it to be widely accepted.  Humans brains are healthier than they were when kings had power, and they're getting healthier every year.

Because brains are healthier, they work better, and they will not accept rationalizations of violence, when said rationalizations are as unsophisticated as divine right.  Democracy is a more sophisticated ideology, closer to philosophical truth, so it suffices at present.

As I've said for a long time, the reason that democracy is more durable than dictatorship is that fraud is more durable than force. In other words, if you think you are free, you won't try to throw off your chains.

Freedom to do what?  Nothing will change.  We'll always have masters.  It is just a question of how oppressive the masters are.  We need to find freedom in an unfree world (I think HB would agree with me), not make the world free, this is impossible.

I will make my argument with music. 

The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again

"I get down on my knees and pray, we don't get fooled again." - The Who

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." - The Who

Townshend stated in 2006 that: "It is not precisely a song that decries revolution – it suggests that we will indeed fight in the streets – but that revolution, like all action, can have results we cannot predict. Don't expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything. The song was meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the centre of my life was not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause. [...] From 1971 – when I wrote "Won't Get Fooled Again" – to 1985, there was a transition in me from refusal to be co-opted by activists, to a refusal to be judged by people I found jaded and compliant in Thatcher's Britain."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Won%27t_Get_Fooled_Again

Unaccountable power brings out the worst in anyone, whether they ran for government or not.

+1

It's true, but the degree of unaccountability and the types of power wielded aren't in the same ballpark. The market process tends to be really good about applying pressure (both from customers and competitors) where the leaders of a firm are engaging in shady practices. And the "shady practices" tend to be things like underpaying workers, permitting unsafe work conditions, embezzlement, dumping waste onto public property with the government's blessing, and things like that. Not good stuff, but nothing at all like what the leaders of government can do:

• Torture
• Mass murder
• Mass enslavement
• Mass imprisonment for victimless crimes
• Mass theft of indigenous land
• Forced religious conversion
• Forced enrollment in the military
• Forced human medical experimentation
• Rape used as a terror weapon
• Despoiling entire ecosystems
• Robbing entire populations of its wealth or even food

Find me a business leader who's done any of that, let alone nearly all of it, as many historical and contemporary governments have. All the supposed checks and balances of constitutional courts, voting, political competition, aristocracy, nobility, the church, you name it… none of them prevented these atrocities against humanity from repeatedly happening. Violence is the only language that government understands, so I think the best form of accountability is the risk of violent revolution and overthrow, which is one of the many reasons why I support free and unfettered access to increasingly deadly weaponry. Even the threat tends to make government behave better. And at the very minimum, it evens the playing field since governments typically amass such weapons for themselves.

Isn't the government just a big business?  Where all the citizens are shareholders.

[Pointedstick]

Isn't the government just a big business?  Where all the citizens are shareholders.

If I'm a shareholder, where's my dividend? Can I sell my shares? How do I buy more? It seems to me like being a "shareholder" in government is totally different from being a shareholder in any other business.

And I don't know of any other businesses where purchase of their product is mandatory and if you try not to buy it, they hurt you. Or where they try to literally kill their competitors. Or where the price of their services rises and falls totally independent of market conditions. Or where the product continuously changes every year yet you are still forced to buy it anyway. Or where sometimes the product involved you having to shoot foreigners. Or where they set up schools for the purpose of brainwashing children into believing that despite these problems, they are the best "business" in the world.

If you truly believe that the government is just a big business, how do you explain how most if not all other businesses manage to avoid committing mass murder, enslavement, torture, forced medical experimentation, conscription…

[Gosso]

Isn't the government just a big business?  Where all the citizens are shareholders.

If I'm a shareholder, where's my dividend? Can I sell my shares? How do I buy more? It seems to me like being a "shareholder" in government is totally different from being a shareholder in any other business.

And I don't know of any other businesses where purchase of their product is mandatory and if you try not to buy it, they hurt you. Or where they try to literally kill their competitors. Or where the price of their services rises and falls totally independent of market conditions. Or where the product continuously changes every year yet you are still forced to buy it anyway. Or where sometimes the product involved you having to shoot foreigners. Or where they set up schools for the purpose of brainwashing children into believing that despite these problems, they are the best "business" in the world.

If you truly believe that the government is just a big business, how do you explain how most if not all other businesses manage to avoid committing mass murder, enslavement, torture, forced medical experimentation, conscription…

So the government has a monopoly on controlling us.  Removing this monopoly and letting the free market decide will not solve this problem.  Who is going to stop me from starting up a "Hit-Man for Hire" service?  My moral compass is clouded by my greed.  I'd be doing the community a great service by cleaning up the streets.  I'd be a hero.  I like being a hero, I wonder what else I can do to satisfy people's anger and need for justice.

New wine in old bottles.

[Pointedstick]

So the government has a monopoly on controlling us.  Removing this monopoly and letting the free market decide will not solve this problem.  Who is going to stop me from starting up a "Hit-Man for Hire" service?  My moral compass is clouded by my greed.  I'd be doing the community a great service by cleaning up the streets.  I'd be a hero.  I like being a hero, I wonder what else I can do to satisfy people's anger and need for justice.

New wine in old bottles.

Are you saying that YOU would do such a thing, or idly musing that someone would? Because there's a big difference IMHO. I think it's common for people to overestimate the bloodthirst of others while believing themselves to be above it. Of course if someone did set up a "hitman for hire" service, its degree of acceptance by the community would depend on the state of the community's average moral compass and the degree of brainwashing to favor violence the community had undergone. A bloodthirsty and brutish private community that accepted it might morph into something not looking too different from a government, perhaps, but what if they were more peaceful? What if they were more caring and sane? What if they were less brainwashed into supporting violence?

Of course there's plenty of brainwashing in the private sector today, but I hope you'll agree with me that it's mostly to tilt people in favor of consumerism rather than legitimizing murder, which is one of the government's primary goals (to make its routine commission of murder not seem so monstrous).

I am not a utopian who believes in a perfect society, but I do believe that there is always room for improvement, and in my book, brainwashing people to want to buy useless crap in a society with a free market economy is better than brainwashing people to believe that scary brown people on the other side of the world need to be slaughtered and repeatedly hurting them if they don't comply with arbitrary demands issued by the powerful.

[Gosso]

So the government has a monopoly on controlling us.  Removing this monopoly and letting the free market decide will not solve this problem.  Who is going to stop me from starting up a "Hit-Man for Hire" service?  My moral compass is clouded by my greed.  I'd be doing the community a great service by cleaning up the streets.  I'd be a hero.  I like being a hero, I wonder what else I can do to satisfy people's anger and need for justice.

New wine in old bottles.

Are you saying that YOU would do such a thing, or idly musing that someone would? Because there's a big difference IMHO. I think it's common for people to overestimate the bloodthirst of others while believing themselves to be above it. Of course if someone did set up a "hitman for hire" service, its degree of acceptance by the community would depend on the state of the community's average moral compass and the degree of brainwashing to favor violence the community had undergone. A bloodthirsty and brutish private community that accepted it might morph into something not looking too different from a government, perhaps, but what if they were more peaceful? What if they were more caring and sane? What if they were less brainwashed into supporting violence?

Of course there's plenty of brainwashing in the private sector today, but I hope you'll agree with me that it's mostly to tilt people in favor of consumerism rather than legitimizing murder, which is one of the government's primary goals (to make its routine commission of murder not seem so monstrous).

I am not a utopian who believes in a perfect society, but I do believe that there is always room for improvement, and in my book, brainwashing people to want to buy useless crap in a society with a free market economy is better than brainwashing people to believe that scary brown people on the other side of the world need to be slaughtered and repeatedly hurting them if they don't comply with arbitrary demands issued by the powerful.

I won't be starting a hitman service if the government was abolished, but I'm positive someone would, which would then snowball from there into death and violence...just look at all of human history, we are horrible blood thirty creatures.  Maybe I'm wrong, perhaps we'd all behave well and the new business leaders would all be saintly, but I'm not betting on it.

I don't like big government either, but I do see a role to be played in setting and enforcing the rules of the game.  Even the NHL/NBA/NFL/MLB have rules and referees, and if the players do something really dumb then they can be suspended by the commissioner, and even possibly arrested by the police.  The players all know the rules, but they break them anyway because of anger or in the desire to win or gain an advantage.  How would an NFL game work if there were no rules...wouldn't both sides need to agree on the rules before the game started?  Would they want to play the game if the other team's players were all carrying guns?

I think we all know what "fair play" is, but we need to be reminded constantly.

Brainwashing is a real concern from both government, media, and business (I could add religion here too).  I don't know what to do about it.  It seems we all need something to believe in.  Maybe turn off the TV/iPhone and read books?  But then we're brainwashed by the books...frig.

[Pointedstick]

I don't like big government either, but I do see a role to be played in setting and enforcing the rules of the game.

That sounds like a really great idea. You should come up with an idea for a government that would actually do this.

[Kshartle]

Supporting the initiation of force is the problem. The problem cannot be a solution to the problem. Government can never solve the problem of theft and violence because it is theft and violence.

It's like saying you need to eat cheesburgers and ice cream in order to lose weight.

At any rate....this is all an argument from effects so it's a false argument. Initiating force against another person isn't wrong because it leads to bad consequences. It leads to bad consequences because it's wrong....for another reason.

[moda0306]

Supporting the initiation of force is the problem. The problem cannot be a solution to the problem. Government can never solve the problem of theft and violence because it is theft and violence.

It's like saying you need to eat cheesburgers and ice cream in order to lose weight.

At any rate....this is all an argument from effects so it's a false argument. Initiating force against another person isn't wrong because it leads to bad consequences. It leads to bad consequences because it's wrong....for another reason.

Kshartle,

Have you ever thought that maybe you can't just lump all forms of force together, nor degrees thereof?  (really don't mean this snarky)

Maybe the problem isn't the mere existence of some force, but the fact that it can present itself in some very nasty ways for people, or in doses that have a toxic effect on freedom. 

So maybe if we could come up with an equation:

FP=(A*M)^2

Or...

Our "Force Problem" is a function of A (the Amount of forceful acts) times M (the "Magnitude" of those acts).

Obviously, "Magnitude" is going to be different for everyone... Is theft worse than arson?  Is rape worse than kidnapping?  Who knows?  But MOST people agree that murder is worse than theft... significantly so.  In fact, the worst part of a car-jacking or mugging is the fear of physical harm or death (to most people).

So most people would rather be stolen from with NO fear of death once a day for the rest of their lives rather than have a 1/10 chance of losing their child to murder.

And the reason it is an exponential equation, is because the fear of force breeds other Problems.  Distrust, lack of motivation to be productive, poisonous hatred of others where you might become violent as well (well, not YOU... but people in general)

So, if a group of people would start to realize that they didn't really have a problem with every last little instance of force, but just the most erratic ones and the fact that they seem to be happening a lot (as evidenced by pre-civilization "violence" (as measured by assault... not threat by governments, of course)).  This society might turn to a ruler and actually appreciate the force because they'd rather have a FP (Force Problem) of "10" that they know about, rather than a FP of 100 that is irratic, common, and could leave their family dead.

I'm not saying all governments reduce the FP quotient, however, they might... even though they guarantee a certain amount of force, the way in which they dish it out has the POTENTIAL, at least in the eyes of the public, to reduce overall FP.

For instance, there might be two measurements of force in our world...

[Gosso]

I don't like big government either, but I do see a role to be played in setting and enforcing the rules of the game.

That sounds like a really great idea. You should come up with an idea for a government that would actually do this.

It's a fool's errand.  I don't have much faith in secular society.  I have accepted they are going to do whatever they like.  This is quite freeing...at least until we're all physically taken away in chains.  I have no desire to break the law, so why should I be worried.  If I do break the law then I'll face the consequences.  If someone else breaks the law then I expect them to suffer the consequences.  I don't see why this is a problem.  We all agree to the rules of the game by living in the country.

We are not little islands, we are part of the entire community/country.

I'm also not saying the law of the land is perfect, but it's better than no law, IMO.

[Kshartle]

Supporting the initiation of force is the problem. The problem cannot be a solution to the problem. Government can never solve the problem of theft and violence because it is theft and violence.

It's like saying you need to eat cheesburgers and ice cream in order to lose weight.

At any rate....this is all an argument from effects so it's a false argument. Initiating force against another person isn't wrong because it leads to bad consequences. It leads to bad consequences because it's wrong....for another reason.

Kshartle,

Have you ever thought that maybe you can't just lump all forms of force together, nor degrees thereof?  (really don't mean this snarky)

You can't solve the problem by advocating for the problem. It doesn't solve it. You're not advocating for a force level of static 10 to solve the problem of a force level of irratic 100 . You're advocating for a force level of 1,000 so it's so overwhelming everyone complies.

It's like you're saying if everyone had a death ray pointed on them at all times by a small group of people and if they broke the laws determined by this group they would be vaporized and this is somehow justifiable and preferable. To some people this actually probably sounds like Nirvana and they can't imagine what could go wrong with it.

[Lowe]

@ moda

No one knows the future, so one can never know what the result of initiating violence will be.  It might be a net positive, negative, or whatever, but it is an unknown.  Therefore results cannot be a component to the moral judgment of an action.  Otherwise moral judgments can never be made.

The action itself is the only criterion, to its morality.  That is, everything that makes the action what it is, and not some other action.  Its essential characteristics.

[Kshartle]

We are not little islands, we are part of the entire community/country.

Ahhhh the Borg mentality from the Delta quadrant......

I'm ok with you thinking this way....I just don't want you insisting that I assimilate and that resistance is futile. Of course the collectivist Borg mentality must initiate force against all individuals (little islands) because their truth reflects the Borg lie.

[Kshartle]

@ moda

No one knows the future, so one can never know what the result of initiating violence will be.  It might be a net positive, negative, or whatever, but it is an unknown.  Therefore results cannot be a component to the moral judgment of an action.  Otherwise moral judgments can never be made.

The action itself is the only criterion, to its morality.  That is, everything that makes the action what it is, and not some other action.  Its essential characteristics.

I've explained this over and over. I've tried to point out when people say their ends justify their means this is lack of morality since morality is concerned with the actions not the outcomes.

[Gosso]

We are not little islands, we are part of the entire community/country.

Ahhhh the Borg mentality from the Delta quadrant......

I'm ok with you thinking this way....I just don't want you insisting that I assimilate and that resistance is futile. Of course the collectivist Borg mentality must initiate force against all individuals (little islands) because their truth reflects the Borg lie.

Hmmm, you could always fake your own death and become a deaf-mute living in the woods.

[Gosso]

@ moda

No one knows the future, so one can never know what the result of initiating violence will be.  It might be a net positive, negative, or whatever, but it is an unknown.  Therefore results cannot be a component to the moral judgment of an action.  Otherwise moral judgments can never be made.

The action itself is the only criterion, to its morality.  That is, everything that makes the action what it is, and not some other action.  Its essential characteristics.

I've explained this over and over. I've tried to point out when people say their ends justify their means this is lack of morality since morality is concerned with the actions not the outcomes.

So what is the proper way to deal with someone that has done something "wrong"?  I'm also not a big fan of letting someone rot in jail, or killing them.  Maybe we treat them as mentally ill and try to heal them?  Perhaps we can brainwash them into becoming decent human beings?  Or is this still too much force?

[Kshartle]

So what is the proper way to deal with someone that has done something "wrong"?

What do you mean exactly? Can you give 3 or 4 examples that most concern you rather than me guess? I'm assuming you don't mean jaywalking or pot smoking right?

[moda0306]

Supporting the initiation of force is the problem. The problem cannot be a solution to the problem. Government can never solve the problem of theft and violence because it is theft and violence.

It's like saying you need to eat cheesburgers and ice cream in order to lose weight.

At any rate....this is all an argument from effects so it's a false argument. Initiating force against another person isn't wrong because it leads to bad consequences. It leads to bad consequences because it's wrong....for another reason.

Kshartle,

Have you ever thought that maybe you can't just lump all forms of force together, nor degrees thereof?  (really don't mean this snarky)

You can't solve the problem by advocating for the problem. It doesn't solve it. You're not advocating for a force level of static 10 to solve the problem of a force level of irratic 100 . You're advocating for a force level of 1,000 so it's so overwhelming everyone complies.

It's like you're saying if everyone had a death ray pointed on them at all times by a small group of people and if they broke the laws determined by this group they would be vaporized and this is somehow justifiable and preferable. To some people this actually probably sounds like Nirvana and they can't imagine what could go wrong with it.

Holy straw man.

Did I accidentally mention a death ray government with a 1,000 FP score?

That sounds horrible. I certainly they let you leave that hell-hole if you don't like it.

[Pointedstick]

So what is the proper way to deal with someone that has done something "wrong"?  I'm also not a big fan of letting someone rot in jail, or killing them.  Maybe we treat them as mentally ill and try to heal them?  Perhaps we can brainwash them into becoming decent human beings?  Or is this still too much force?

We socially ostracize them. This is easy in a village where everyone knows everyone else, and in fact seems to be the natural response if you look at village societies worldwide. In a large and complicated society, it will require the aid of firms that compile information on people's reputations. A side effect of this is the end of anonymity, but we're already hurtling at top speed in that direction anyway, so my thinking is that we might as well get some good out of it if it's coming anyway.

[Kshartle]

Kshartle,

Have you ever thought that maybe you can't just lump all forms of force together, nor degrees thereof?  (really don't mean this snarky)

You can't solve the problem by advocating for the problem. It doesn't solve it. You're not advocating for a force level of static 10 to solve the problem of a force level of irratic 100 . You're advocating for a force level of 1,000 so it's so overwhelming everyone complies.

It's like you're saying if everyone had a death ray pointed on them at all times by a small group of people and if they broke the laws determined by this group they would be vaporized and this is somehow justifiable and preferable. To some people this actually probably sounds like Nirvana and they can't imagine what could go wrong with it.

Holy straw man.

Did I accidentally mention a death ray government with a 1,000 FP score?

That sounds horrible. I certainly they let you leave that hell-hole if you don't like it.

It's not a straw man.

I'm not inventing an argument and atributing it to you. That's what a straw man is. This is an analogy to make your argument clearly visible.

Are you denying that you think the government can use the threat of violence to prevent violence?

In order to do this it would have to be capable of greater violence than the people it seeks to deter from violence right?

The death ray example is just a more obvious example of what you are advocating....it's not a different argument, I'm just taking yours to the extreme to eliminate the confusion. The confusion was you calling a force level of geater than the irratic 100 something less than 100, which is impossible if you want to eliminate the 100.

You constantly accuse me of straw man arguments and it's always a false accusation. Perhaps when you type those words....before hitting submit do a double-check and I don't mean that in a nasty way.

[Pointedstick]

Are you denying that you think the government can use the threat of violence to prevent violence?

In order to do this it would have to be capable of greater violence than the people it seeks to deter from violence right?

This strikes me as correct. How could a government weaker than its citizens prevent its citizens from inflicting violence?

[Pointedstick]

In other words, a government must be capable of at least 101 units of violence in order to successfully threaten people capable of inflicting 100 units of violence into abstaining from violence. Then it can inflict 20 units on them and say it's improved their lives by decreasing the potential for 100 to the certainty of 20.

But what is there to prevent it from ramping up the actual level to 101? And in practice, governments have so much capacity for violence that the number is probably closer to 1,000 than 101. What prevents it from inflicting this on its people, safe in the knowledge that they are unable to effectively resist since they are only capable of 100?

Try to think outside an American perspective for this since many, many, MANY governments have turned the violence level up to 1,000 on their own people. It's not a theoretical argument. Governments killed more than 200 million people in the 20th century, the majority of them being their own citizens.

[Kshartle]

The government death ray for violations of crimes....we can even restrict this to just murder and rape. This is not a different argument from arrest, trial and imprisonment. The argument is that the latter makes us better off because it deters crime. We accept the imposition of the apparatus that gives us the latter for the supposed benefit of crime reduction. The death ray is nothing more than that idea taken to a more efficient level.

My point with the analogy is you are not advocating a force level less than 100 as you imagined but one that is greater than 100.

Does that make sense?

Does it make sense that the threat of violence is violence?

Does it make sense that if a bank robber points a gun at the clerk and she hands over the money this is violence even if he leaves without pulling the trigger? Does it make sense that this is not less violent than if he went in and just pushed her aside and grabbed the cash even though in the latter instance she is actually physically touched?

The only difference, which is leading to the confusion about levels of force, is that in the instance with the gun, the force is so overwhelming that she submits.

Violent crime by your standards is probably very low in North Korea. That's because you're missing the point that the threat hanging over everyone at all times is the threat of overwhelming violence. This is violence...much more so than if they had a libertarian government or no government at all.

Does any of that make sense?

[Kshartle]

Are you denying that you think the government can use the threat of violence to prevent violence?

In order to do this it would have to be capable of greater violence than the people it seeks to deter from violence right?

This strikes me as correct. How could a government weaker than its citizens prevent its citizens from inflicting violence?

Yes and so my analogy is not a straw man argument in your view right?

I'm not trying to take a swipe at moda by asking this question. I want to make sure my argument is a valid one and I'm not screwing up (even if ultimately I'm wrong about the conclusions).