161–170 of 231 posts
They would compromise because it's just impossible to do otherwise.
IMO, they have a lot of great ideas that Reps and Dems don't even consider (which is why they probably label Libs "crazy").
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>However, if I drank radiation laced water because a chemical company was disposing of their waste in my backyard and I didn't know, Libertarians would tell you it's your fault for not having the proper testing equipment or paying a company to run these tests for you. This is simply false. Pollution would be treated as a tort. Now, you can't set up a home near an already existing, noisy club and complain about noise…
"Pollution would be treated as a tort." That's a very bold statement that needs some justification. Take climate change. For the moment, I don't care if you believe in it or not: just take it as a given, because something like that is certainly physically possible. Let's say for years many countries polluted the atmosphere with CO2. Over time, it substantially changes the planet's climate and causes untold trillions…
Maybe you should take issue with those countries' laws rather than anarcho-libertarian law.
>What if the will happens to be there but the country just can't afford to pay for the damages it caused?
Sometimes we can be faced with a situation where a destitute criminal causes more damage than he will ever be able to repay. Insurance is a possibility in protecting victims faced with such a circumstance. I am not sure what else you think we could do though, or how this is supposed to be a valid objection to anything I've said, even granting for the sake of argument that climate change can be directly attributed to certain perpetrators.
Hold on a second though Al Gore. I am not so much a climate change denier as a believer in science. For any model in the natural sciences to have validity, that model needs to be able to predict. As much as it is repeated that the current science is beyond questioning, climate change scientists still lack a single accepted model which is able to predict anything.
If you had one then we might be able to attribute a certain amount of damage to one individual from their seaside home being washed out to myriad CO2 emitters. Certainly this would be a massive clusterfuck if you actually had valid science, way more than a region would have to deal with sorting out the horrible situation with typical pollution governments have caused, but I can't give perfect answers on how people might sort this hypothetical out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your explanation ignores both externalities and transaction costs, not to mention more subtle things like information asymmetries and cognitive overload. You can't just ignore the parts of economics that don't fit into your ideology.
> Your explanation ignores both externalities and transaction costs Well, handling property damages in court is deterring "tragedy of the commons" by making putting the commons-over-user at financial risk. > ... more subtle things like information asymmetries and cognitive overload. You pay someone to give you information. We do this now: our taxes fund the EPA and they give us information. > You can't just ignore th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as the racist background, the Ron Paul newsletters certainly have explicit racism (and sexism, and homophobia) in them (as opposed to implied racism, such as opposing the civil rights legislation of the 60s). Most Ron Paul fans argue that it was actually Lew Rockwell who wrote most of that, under Ron Paul's name, and Ron Paul never read or approved of them. Take that for what it's worth--I personally suspect i…
Even if he didn't write it, his name was on it. I feel pretty safe loathing anyone who would put their name on something a) they hadn't read b) they hadn't written and c) was so goddamn vile.
People f'up sometimes. A lot, even. If I'm willing to give Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton a break for Jew-bashing in the 80s and GWB a break for driving drunk and Romney a break for high school bullying, I can't see a reason not to give Ron Paul one too.
If, of course, he were willing to own up to making a mistake...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>However, if I drank radiation laced water because a chemical company was disposing of their waste in my backyard and I didn't know, Libertarians would tell you it's your fault for not having the proper testing equipment or paying a company to run these tests for you. This is simply false. Pollution would be treated as a tort. Now, you can't set up a home near an already existing, noisy club and complain about noise…
You're right in saying that the libertarian would say that a person is responsible for their own actions, but your argument lacks completeness. A company which pollutes water at large would suffer the consequences of its own actions. People aren't stupid; they'd notice the contamination and act. Your argument implies a lack of faith in a single person or a small group of people to effect change. Do you believe that o…
Is this behavior guaranteed, and would the public necessarily choose to stay informed? Free markets are dependent on rational, informed actors; humans are neither rational nor informed 100% of the time. Some other thing would have to step in (an organization, a government, whatever) at some point.
> Your argument implies a lack of faith in a single person or a small group of people to effect change
If I owned the polluting company, I would likely have much more power than the poor sap I'm poisoning. Money seems to speak louder than actual words. Compared to some tycoon, a normal person is basically insignificant and is much less likely to cause any change.
> Do you believe that only government has the ability to keep our water clean?
I don't know what the right answer is, but to put it bluntly, your approach seems like a deeply flawed one to me.
The Internet was vital in exposing his naive and harmful behavior. His hypocritical pronouncements and racist background would never have come to the public without it. Don't let Washington hit your ass on the way out.
Don't you know? Ron Paul is supposed to be the darling politician of hackers and nerds. You aren't allowed to say anything bad about him here.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd agree that without a monopoly you'd have lots of deals being struck. If you're just talking about violence-suppliers, the likely equilibrium is no violence at all. But you're always fighting over stuff and, moreover, people. In all the cases I can think of, violence-suppliers would look at all the people it can extract value from, look at each other, and then combine forces to extract the most value from people.…
Wait, so if you say the likely equilibrium is no violence at all, what's bad about it? If violence-suppliers form a cartel and people are happy about the way it serves them - what's wrong with that? If some become unhappy, they do 2 things: stop paying their monthly fees and seek a new company to protect them (which will inevitably emerge, because there's a demand). On a side note, libertarians call violence supplier…
Events, power struggles as people rise and fall in strength are all likely. Economics is a dynamic process, modelling as a stable or convergent systems is an extremely naive approach.
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…
If taxation is theft, property is theft. Or in other words: what gives you the right to compel me to defend your property?
Property can never be theft as theft only exists if property exist. You can't steal something if no one can "own" anything.
> what gives you the right to compel me to defend your property?
No one has a right to compel you to do anything.
However, you will act in your best interest. How about I pay you to defend my property?
Or, perhaps it is in both of our interests if we defend each others property. After all, if you let others steal my property, yours will probably be next.
This holds even more true for rights.