Lanval wrote:
1. Fine, there will be courts. Courts require interpretation of the law. Interpretation implies leeway or judgement. Will everyone share your views? Only if you force them to.
2. What about human history makes this likely:
"If they wanted to make a law cause beer makers didn't pay women as much as men for a certain job, everyone would know that is over stepping the line. Hopefully because so many people would be against that beer company(all women and most men)"
Where do you see that kind of enlightened equality in practice in our world? The "hopefully" here is a huge stretch, and I think you should recognize that.
3. I don't think voluntary taxes is going to build roads, nor promote the common defense. That's just silly. The enormous cost of things in our society makes a haphazard "give what you want" methodology highly unlikely to work.
4. Your definition of sovereign ends when another trespasses on your rights. Since it is normative in human experience that one should trespass against another (both Locke and Hobbes agree on that point), we aren't sovereign in the sense that you argue it. We are also beholden to the others implied in the social contract.
5. Conceded
6. To return to 3 for a second (and 6) my point is that your version is impractical. I'm not concerned so much with the ideology so much, since the real issue isn't "what should we do" but "what will we do". My points in the first place were to call into question the extent to which the concepts presented will work when confronted with the variable bag that is humanity. So in that sense, my original question 6 is indeed pointless, since it doesn't really reflect on the practical issue, which you did answer in 3. But I'm still stuck on how you pay for things like FEMA and the Interstate.
Though I agree with Neal that people are generally good, I also feel pretty strongly that people have a hard time with connecting their local actions with things that don't have local results. For example there was a recent article on a bakery that was using the "pay what it's worth" method. It turns out they were doing the same or slightly better. But that's because when the issue is local; they ate the pastry, and paid for it. What happens when we want to build a freeway though? Or a bridge? Or a dam? Things that cost more than the locals can pay are going to be hard to fund. People don't want to contribute generally to something that isn't going to affect them.
This brings me back to the issue of FEMA and other types of government aid. How would a Libertarian system respond to Hurricane Katrina (note: I'm pitching you a slow one here, since nearly anything would've been better than what we got, thanks to Bush and his cronyism...)
Respectfully,
Mike
You are doing a find job at getting to the heart of issues. You are showing a willingness.
The only times I have gotten this deep into the issues has mostly been with a local bud, who likes to drink bud and came around several times a week for years. (He agrees about switching to the better beer co. cause it is better btw)
1) With the limited gov, = very few laws, based upon the things I have been mentioning, would certainly make a courts system I feel that is better than the past. Will it be perfect? I am not promising that. The courts we have today, the ones we had in my life, the ones under a King, all probably much worse than courts in my system. Much less laws, much less interpretation.......You got to understand the underlining principles, then you can see why all those things that make it bad now, are reduced, so the problems also are reduced. Example, what could come up in court. Bill stole my Bike, No I didn't Jim, it was mine. Okay, courts, jury of peers. Witnesses. I saw Jim drive that bike for years. I saw Bill get it from his side while he was sleeping last night. Where is the major interpretation problem? And would it be any worse than today, or past?
2)First I have to say, I'm not saying my method will be PERFECT, ie every problem never even coming up, and solved if it does, and no one ever getting hurt, or hungry. I am not promising a line of BS that that you'd have to be a GOD to do...Not like some of the politicians of today.
But, to the beer co. example. If people see it as such a wrong, but do nothing in there powers to change it. (there powers being not using that company, not gun pointing) Then evidently it didn't mean that much to them. I sort see this a what I think some call a straw man argument. If it matters so much, yet they still buy all the beer from them, well. Guess that means women would just have to make a choice. Funny part of the whole women argument is I feel they got suckered into the work force by those money people who bought the banks and the gov and told FDR what to say. I know I'd like things better if I didn't have to get job, too bad then women had to all go to work. But anyway, back to companies. Life ain't perfect, guess the women would have to exercise her power, she choose to work under those conditions, or not. Anyone who promises a rose garden, I'd be leery off. I see plenty of people helping people and people choosing where to buy things and what not all the time. Is it as rampant and absolute as I think it should be? No, but I don't get to control the whole world, it is what it is. I see some sharing, I see some not. Will no man possess anymore than the rest because he is now like Jesus? No, I don't see it that way. But I don't see as bad as you may.
3) Well, if WE the PEOPLE don't put forth enough money for roads, then I guess we didn't want roads. Pretty simple to me. Who's vision and dream of the world are we creating? I am serious here. If we didn't contribute enough to make things just like they are now, then I guess we didn't want things to be just like they are now. This is a hard thing to understand at first. We have been conditioned to see things a certain way. When one points to things like hey, how they ever going get like this, or like that, I find it alarming, it is like someone planted a precise vision of the future in their minds, and how are we going to get there? Who's vision of the world are we all working towards? The Illuminati's?
4) This one I think is covered by this one of the following three
"The only limitation on your rights is the equal right of others."
All rights are derived from property
Every right implies a responsibility
The only limitation on your rights is the equal right of others.
Meaning that, you can't do an action the prohibits someone else's rights.
You can't blow up stuff on your land that makes your neighbors land useless.
I am not sure that was what you are getting at.
P.S. I started to look into Locke and Hobbes the other day.
6) I might have covered this in my answer to 3. One aspect is one that already happens, people pay for some roads by toll. Some pay local tax tied into having a car.. Remember, things start out from property, so who owns the road would need to be asked. If people start a group, corp or whatever to put in an interstate to the next state, and they started to contribute, well, if they didn't want free riders, then impose a fee. I certainly would have no reason to complain if I never paid a cent towards that hunk of tar that leads to Georgia, and if they said it is $50.00 buck to use it to get to GA, well, that is what it is. Before those people existed who put in the road, there wouldn't have been one. I wasn't born with a road to GA free to use, that wasn't part of my birthright. I should be happy they took the time to put one in. If I am able to use it, awesome.
Amen on the Bush crap/Katrina
You know, before people dealt with things locally. Any problems with Katrina was Fed.
I don't think I need to go there now.
I had plenty to say about Katrina, the feds messed it, They had a greater mission in my mind and that was to further condition the masses to allow the giant mommy gov to rule, and to get the people ready for future Police State martial law type activities....
To answer a bit, well. When we humans starting being born on this planet, we have had to deal with nature. An inherent, undeniable right wasn't nature never being a force to deal with, no, we have had to deal with it. So I say any help that we have to deal with it, should be appreciated, not expected, not demanded, certainly no gun pointing. What should be demanded is no one, including the government, should interfere with the help.
Edited for typos
