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Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

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Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#81

Post by geoka9 »

astrodust wrote: post #36
snitko wrote: post #33

What makes me sad is that a lot of people, even here, discharge Ron Paul as some sort of crazy guy without even listening to what he says. In comments to this post "thesagan" wrote that some of his ideas are "batshit crazy" as if his ideology is composed of many different unrelated parts. Not true, Ron Paul ideas are ideas of libertarianism and if you study them diligent enough, you'll eventually be used to thinking…

The problem is Ron Paul is a crazy guy. He's trying to rigorously apply principles from the 1700s to today's world. He's not willing to compromise in the face of evidence that contradicts his firmly held opinions. I've studied Libertarianism to the point of finding out that, not unlike other extremist philosophies, it's too far-fetched to ever work. People are too "human" for Libertarianism to ever work. It's too eas…

OK, I'll grant you that, barring the last paragraph which is flame-baity and I'm not about to take the bait.

Suppose Ron Paul is not willing to compromise on his libertarian principles. Wouldn't he still make a good president considering that there are "checks and balances" and he wouldn't have dictatorial power? I mean there are so many politicians of various denominations out there and none of them that are of any significant power are libertarians - all of them are essentially "compromisers".

Having a diehard libertarian of influence in such an environment can't be bad for the country. Somebody to look after the liberties. To raise hell every time some commercial interests try to impinge on yet another one, you know.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#82

Post by c141charlie »

mindslight wrote: post #46
snitko wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I challenge you to give me one very specific example of how something is not going to work in a libertarian world and I'm going right here right now to prove you how it actually would work. (because, with all due respect, I think writing comments that basically say "it's not gonna work because it's puppies and rainbows" is not helping us find out the truth).

Personal stewardship of nuclear weapons. Please don't "prove to me how it actually would work". Just think about it a while for yourself, and learn to accept that there's limits to the philosophy. Libertarianism is ultimately a heuristic, and you do it no favors by handwavingly claiming that you can prove desirable large scale behaviors based on a small set of axioms. Signed - a libertarian.

This is a simple one, just watch Dr. Strangelove.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#83

Post by snitko »

astrodust wrote: post #73
snitko wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming it's only the government which is interested in providing me the information about services I use and the environment that I live in. An implicit monopoly of information. But I want to ask you this question: can you come up with at least one monopoly that existed naturally for a substantial period of time without any government support for it and without anyone being able to challenge it?

The government performs the function of a referee, and without it the players are free to make up their own rules. You can only "vote" for a company with your dollars if you have choices, not if they assume a de-facto monopoly. At least in theory you can vote for your government and effect change that way. This is why they serve a critical function. Corporations are profit driven. Governments are election driven. The…

So you still haven't come up with a monopoly example. Can you prove that monopolies would exist in a completely free market?

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#84

Post by ericHosick »

baddox wrote: post #67
ericHosick wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-aggression is not no-aggression. To summarize, using my understanding, is that it is unlawful to "aggress" someone until they "aggress" you. Many cultures are based on this concept. NAP allows for "retaliatory violence" (had aggression but as pointed out below is not the correct usage of the word aggression). One of the difficulties, as you point out, comes when people don't realize that they are aggressing other…

I think you're a bit confused about definitions. You seem to be using "aggression" to refer to violence, when it in fact refers to the initiation of violence. The NAP prohibits the initiation of violence, but not retaliatory violence.

True that.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#85

Post by scarmig »

baddox wrote: post #64
scarmig wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what's the alternative to having majorities vote? Since I gather you're a libertarian, let's make a market-based argument. There will always be some demand for violence (meaning the application or threat of force to cause other autonomous agents to act a certain way), and there will always be suppliers of violence. The question then becomes of market structure: do we want decentralized and competing suppliers o…

> Having a monopoly supplier, however, gives that supplier an incentive to maximize the net economic value of its customers: this allows it to extract more of that value Could you explain this claim? I wouldn't agree with it if you we're talking about fulfilling the demand of other sectors (like music or food), so I'm curious why it would apply to violence.

Sure.

Represent an economic transaction with {M, X, V}, where M is currency, X is some good or service, and V is violence.

For a music cd, there's three parties involved, though the third is sometimes not explicitly accounted for.

1:{-M, +X, 0}

2:{+(1-p)M, -X, 0}

3:{+pM, 0, V}

(aside: money, you see, plays a nice role of making it a 3-tuple instead of an infinite-tuple)

The first two elements of a tuple have the constraint that they must sum to nullity across all the other parties involved. You can't make labor or goods appear out of thin air.

Violence, however, doesn't have that constraint. You can always throw in more violence, and it's always a positive amount.

(Why doesn't 3 just set p = 1? It certainly could, but that isn't the optimal proportion to maximize sum(M). The incentive structure breaks down: Laffer bites with a vengeance. So there's some other optimal p 0So let's look at a market of violence, with multiple suppliers:

1:{-(q+r)M', 0, 0}

2:{+qM', 0, V'}

3:{+rM', 0, V''}

where q + r = p' and M' is the total value that 1 provides at p' where p' maximizes M'.

This satisfies the required constraints, but it's not a stable equilibrium. q+r is that same optimal value p from before, but with a twist: it's not set by only one agent trying to maximize sum(M) but by two trying to maximize their own. There's no reason for 2 not to go for (q+e) instead of q, and the same is true of 3. Taking only q and r as varying qualities, and you rapidly end up at q + r = 1, which means no one gets anything.

In practice, what happens is that 2 and 3 have their own separate transaction since they can foresee that upcoming equilibrium:

2:{0, 0, V'}

3:{0, 0, V''}

That itself is unstable: assuming that V' > V'', the new equilibrium is

2:{0, 0, V'}

Leading to

1:{-p'M', 0, 0}

2:{+p'M', 0, V'}

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#86

Post by fredBuddemeyer »

snitko wrote: post #33

What makes me sad is that a lot of people, even here, discharge Ron Paul as some sort of crazy guy without even listening to what he says. In comments to this post "thesagan" wrote that some of his ideas are "batshit crazy" as if his ideology is composed of many different unrelated parts. Not true, Ron Paul ideas are ideas of libertarianism and if you study them diligent enough, you'll eventually be used to thinking…

if a politician can be described in such terms at the end of a career (in no less a house of "compromise" than the us congress) his accomplishments are not over.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#87

Post by baddox »

snitko wrote: post #53
ericHosick wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people seem to have good intentions but good intentions don't always lead to good results. The intentions of laws with compulsory fees (taxation) and compulsory who marries who are based on good intentions (in the minds of those who create them). In both cases, these good intentions are based on theft of basic rights. But, in the long term, how can you make society better off when your core beliefs are based on…

Good thing someone brought the non-aggression principle up. Personally, I don't believe in it. I mean, I think eventually the society becomes smart enough to understand aggression in any circumstances is both costly and immoral. However, I also recognize that it's a long way to go there. I think before we get there, we'd have to rely on some sort of protection and the monopoly which government has to provide it canno…

It sounds like you do believe in the NAP. You just might disagree about how society can or should transition into one that follows it.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#88

Post by mkr-hn »

snitko wrote: post #83
astrodust wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government performs the function of a referee, and without it the players are free to make up their own rules. You can only "vote" for a company with your dollars if you have choices, not if they assume a de-facto monopoly. At least in theory you can vote for your government and effect change that way. This is why they serve a critical function. Corporations are profit driven. Governments are election driven. The…

So you still haven't come up with a monopoly example. Can you prove that monopolies would exist in a completely free market?

It's hard to create examples of something in a system that has never existed.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#89

Post by smacktoward »

saraid216 wrote: post #75
mindslight wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal stewardship of nuclear weapons. Please don't "prove to me how it actually would work". Just think about it a while for yourself, and learn to accept that there's limits to the philosophy. Libertarianism is ultimately a heuristic, and you do it no favors by handwavingly claiming that you can prove desirable large scale behaviors based on a small set of axioms. Signed - a libertarian.

This has been what bugs me about gun rights people. The argument about personal safety is fine, but the people who want everyone to be armed in case the government decided to show its true colors or something? Um. You don't want a firearm . You want a tank .

I dunno, there's some folks in Afghanistan and Iraq who did pretty good for themselves against our high-tech arsenal with just some old automatic rifles and homemade explosives. Vietnam, too.
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