Favorite editorial cartoons: December 2009

[jpariury]

They are by no means the perfect examples as there were violent movements behind the peaceful ones (even if the "leader" didn't agree with them).

Right. In fact, they don't really seem to be examples of all. They enforce the idea that non-violent negotiation coupled with violent protest is the way to effect regime change, though, rather than your original statement that people just need to quit playing (paraphrasing, obviously). I can't come up with any examples of successful revolution via non-violence solely, which is what you propose is the appropriate solution.

Free State Project is probably the best example, and they've accomplished a lot up in New Hampshire.

Other than getting people elected into the system you seem to be protesting against, what have they accomplished? Again, not asking to be a jerk, I just have no knowledge of any such accomplishments, and google is showing me no love to educate me.

I don't have a problem with people wanting to live in a government like we have today. I just think that if people wanted to form their own society outside of the government they have the right to be left alone.

While still benefiting from the services it provides? That seems downright wrong. "Leave me alone. Unless I want to drive somewhere, then please, let me use your roads. Oh, and if my house is burning, please send people to put it out. Oh, and if I get in an accident, please don't require payment up front. Oh yeah, and keep the electricity flowing, please." It seems if you want to live outside of the system, you need to, you know, move outside of the system. I dunno, travel the world in a pirate ship or something.

 

[Octaine]

The U.S. government has to get in line. The N.J. government is first in line in taking my rights...and my money.

It your fault for moving to a state that has a toll both in every driveway.

 

[Gee-Perwin]

My inner Captain Picard is face palming for getting involved in a debate/argument on the internet. I broke my own golden rule. It feels like such a huge waste of time to debate with people who have their own set of ways and likely will never agree with you on a certain topic. I equate it to arguing with my wife. Even if I "win" I still lose. Usually when she starts yelling I just say, "Yup, you're right. I'm stupid, you're smart. I'll go take out the trash," or something. It just gives me a big headache.


I'm just going to address this before I go back to my hole:

While still benefiting from the services it provides?

Private enterprises & the free market can address fire fighting, electricity, and roads. I'm sure you'll have another million questions, but I'm probably not the best to answer them. I'm still educating myself on these topics, and the issue of roads is probably the most important and hardest to understand when a free thinker starts turning towards the ideas of voluntaryism.

Watch that Larken Rose vid. That dude is amazing.

 

[Duke Frost]

The U.S. government has to get in line. The N.J. government is first in line in taking my rights...and my money.

It your fault for moving to a state that has a toll both in every driveway.

I was born here.

 

[jpariury]

My inner Captain Picard is face palming for getting involved in a debate/argument on the internet.

I didn't know we were debating or arguing. You had this really big idea to talk about, and I'm just trying to understand the point and the basis for it. Sorry if explaining it makes your brain ache.

When someone suggests that I'm doing it wrong (whatever "it" is), I tend to ask a lot of questions, especially if I'm fairly content with how I'm doing it in the first place. I could be mistaken, and so I ask lots of questions. It does seem like if you want other people to think freely, you'd want to encourage people to do that, rather than blindly go "Oh, they did good stuff in NH? Sign me up!" Sure, some people got themselves arrested, but they haven't really changed anything (again, as far as I can tell... am I wrong?). Without that, "Free Thinking" sounds more like a self-aggrandizing brand name than anything else (see the "Bright" movement within atheist circles).

Private enterprises & the free market can address fire fighting, electricity, and roads.

Hunh. I don't see it. Or rather, I don't see how the current system of local-government-managed social services like firefighting isn't part of the free market. Other forms of providing those services are available (certainly nothing prevents anyone from setting up a private firefighting enterprise - hell, if we can privatize militaries, we can certinaly privatize firefighting), it simply didn't hold up in the free market to the competing product (publicly-funded firefighting).

When a community decides to operate under a certain set of parameters, those who disagree are capable of excising themselves from that community. Trying to excise yourself from it and yet still reside within and utilize it just seems weird to me. Maybe it's not, but if I don't ask, what kind of free thinker would I be?



So, I listened to the video. Sounds like he should feel that the Free State Project is failure, since all they do is try to get supporters elected, which, to paraphrase his statements, is buying in to the system. Also, as mentioned before, his claim of Gandhi crippling the British Empire's control of India is, at best, hyperbolic or overly optimistic. He also states "if they all decide to ignore our laws, your laws cease to exist". Well, yes. Of course, if they are all capable of deciding to ignore your laws, they're equally capable of voting those laws down or removing them. It seems like a bit of shell game that he's playing. Ultimately, his argument boils down to "If we all wanted it to be different, it would be different", which seems to ignore the evidence: people don't want it to be different, otherwise it would be. By and large, it operates from an unproven, and somewhat unspoken, claim - "the populace does not want it to be the way it is". The part that does get spoken is his next assumption (again, paraphrased) "therefore the people must be getting bamboozled into playing along".

As far as speeches and videos go, it lays out like a weird cultist mantra, or, on the more benign side, an advert for his book. You want to sell me on this Free Thinking stuff, you gotta be willing to put up with the questions.

 

[Gee-Perwin]

FSP doesn't endorse any of the activists. They don't want to be seen as the central leadership behind the movement. They aren't a succession movement either, as some like to think. Their main goal is to recruit like-minded, active people to NH with the goal of achieving liberty in their lifetimes. How you define active is up to you. Some feel that means working within the system, i.e. getting elected, and others feel that means working outside the system. They actually wrapped up their 420 protests that were being held in Keene & Manchester, which involved blazing up in town square every day at 4:20. When a couple people got arrested the first couple days they ended up protesting at the police station, including smoking up inside the station itself (no one was arrested for that). The fact that the cops left them alone for months is a success IMO. People were celebrating the right to put anything they want in their own bodies. Not all FS'ers agreed with this method of protests. Some would rather try to change the laws within the system.

One activist decided to do a topless protest, which also wasn't popular with everyone. She walked around topless, was arrested, but the charges were eventually dropped. IMO this isn't a big issue, but to her it was. So she did that. They dropped the charges because they know most indecency laws just won't hold up in court. It really doesn't make sense why a man can walk around without a shirt on but a woman can't.

Those are just two small examples. There is a ton going on all the time up there. I listen to a lot of great podcasts that discuss the happenings of the FSP & the liberty movement. I also read a ton of sites & books on these topics. If you really wants links I'll be more than happy to share, but it's kinda pointless to just spout off example after example after example. IMO the best way to learn about something is to spend your own time on it, or find someone who can get their ideas across better over the internet. I personally would rather speak face-to-face with someone. I hate trying to talk about topics like this over the net, which is why I say I broke my "golden rule" (even if it wasn't debating or arguing). I learned long ago that I'm great at discussing topics in person, but not so great over the internet. I'm comfortable admitting that, too.

I bet we could have a lot of great discussions over a couple drinks, JP.

 

[jpariury]

Not all FS'ers agreed with this method of protests.

This seems to be the largest weakness to the whole thing. Rose kinda plays coy with the turn of phrase "if enough of us do X", but the very nature of the FSP-types runs contrary to organized, universal opinion and action. He later says "If everyone stops paying taxes", but as I said, the assumption there is that no one wants to pay their taxes, in part or in full, which I don't suspect is the case. Mind you, I like to complain about taxes from time to time, but then, I also like to whine about working out at the gym. Doesn't stop me from doing it and enjoying the benefits of it, though.

I tend to like talking things out on the internet, since it gives me a bit of leisure time to consider what is being said, as well as try to educate myself a bit on whatever is being discussed rather than reacting off the cuff. When I start typing as fast as I talk, I tend to get into trouble, one way (idiot) or another (opinionated jerk), plus, I don't quite have one of those encyclopedic minds that cite date and time of incidences that support my thoughts (for instance, the Gandhi thing just seemed wrong, but I couldn't recall quite why... I had to look it up a bit to get the specifics). But I am totally down for sittin' and hashing out life, liberty, the Professor and Mary Anne in person over cold beverages some time.

 

[Gee-Perwin]

Not all FS'ers agreed with this method of protests.

This seems to be the largest weakness to the whole thing. Rose kinda plays coy with the turn of phrase "if enough of us do X", but the very nature of the FSP-types runs contrary to organized, universal opinion and action. He later says "If everyone stops paying taxes", but as I said, the assumption there is that no one wants to pay their taxes, in part or in full, which I don't suspect is the case. Mind you, I like to complain about taxes from time to time, but then, I also like to whine about working out at the gym. Doesn't stop me from doing it and enjoying the benefits of it, though.

It isn't really that no one wants to pay for services they use. In a world where we had a 100% free market, where even the roads were privately owned, I would expect to have to pay a certain fee to access roads & services. There isn't an opposition to paying for services that one would use. I just believe that this should be an agreement between the owner(s) of the roads (or other service) and the person wishing to using the road (or other service). If you do not wish to use a service than you have no responsibility to pay for it. When 20% of my paycheck is taken from me to fund programs I don't agree with, or aren't utilizing, there is a problem. The government simply can't spend my money more efficiently than me, even if they are using it for a "good" cause. If a thief steals $1000 from my home and uses it all to feed a group of 20 people, he's still a thief. Not only could I have fed those same 20 people for a fraction of that cost, but he stole my damn money!

People often assume that if the government isn't out there being charitable with our paychecks that people would starve & die. I call BS on that. I think I know of maybe 1 or 2 people that I speak to often that don't donate money to private organizations. We had a United Way thing at my work back in the fall and we had something like 75% of participation (I'm not a fan of the UW, but that's a whole other story lol). That's 75% of my co-workers who volunteered to have money taken out of their check to go towards the UW. Sure, they offered incentives like cars and stuff, but it works, right?

If you want to utilize a service you make an agreement between the service provider. When more people have more money to give away they will help their fellow man. This should be a voluntary action, though. Forced donation is theft, especially when it is from a woefully inefficient group like the government.

 

[jpariury]

I'm switching modes here a bit, and instead of asking questions and putting you on the spot as the representative of all things FT (though, admittedly, you do lend yourself to the role ), responding with some of my own perceptions. It's not me closing off my mind to learning something new, it just seems to be becoming a bit of regress and reptition, and hey, seems only right that I let you pick apart my perceptions and philosophies if you want to.

The government simply can't spend my money more efficiently than me

I'm not so certain about that. It's a fairly popular adage, but in my experience, when people get the opportunity, they tend to spend excess funding on frivolous things. To be honest, for the most part, what seems unspoken is "My moral right to acquire funds beyond what pays for basic needs is greater than someone else's moral right to health, food, and education". Mind you, I'm not a fan of reverse argument either ("You have no moral right to anything beyond what you need to survive"), so taxation seems, at least from my armchair, to be a decent balance point between the two.

Not only could I have fed those same 20 people for a fraction of that cost, but he stole my damn money!

The question is, would you have? Apparently not, since it's there for the stealing. So, really, its "I can feed people more efficiently than you can, therefore, I get to spend it on a new X-box 420g" (or hoard it, in this case). Again, FT theory sounds great in the drawing board, but when applied against human nature, doesn't seem like it would really pan out.

Forced donation is theft, especially when it is from a woefully inefficient group like the government.

I think the perception that government is woefully inefficient is a popular complaint and perception, but really, it's observing the hits and ignoring the misses (or in this case, reverse that). More often, it seems like five fat guys sitting around a grill talking about how they would have stacked the charcoal better, while chewing through a fine t-bone.

Businesses are not exactly the model of efficiency either. One need not look any further than their own lunch menu to find examples of excess spending, risky fiscal practices, and inefficient methodologies in business. The idea that those businesses will, by their nature, fail, doesn't always pan out. (My off-the-cuff thought on the bailouts is pretty much "Let 'em fail", but I acknowledge that there may be greater impacts than just another business closing its doors. Jon Stewart's suggestion that the bailout monies would have been better given to the lenders to pay off loans seems to have some merit, but again, it may be the difference between armchair economics and, you know, actually knowing economics.) Similarly, I probably don't agree with everything they spend the monies garnered from my purchase, or everyone they've hired (I'm talking about you, Jill at Coca-Cola!)*, but at some point, ya just gotta accept that you lose control over your money. My employer doesn't ask me if I'm spending my wages on hookers and blow, it seems only reasonable that I not ask the hookers and dealers where they spend the money I pay them.

And that's, I guess, part of my larger perception. Government, and to a greater extent, citizenship, is simply another business. They have land and lots of resources that they let me use, buy, sell, and trade, and they let me help shape policy within that space, which is more than I get from Coca-Cola, tbh. I can choose to buy it here, or elsewhere, according to my lifestyle and political preferences, based on my hierarchy of desires and needs. My attendance is the purchase I make. Taxation isn't forced donation, it's voluntary payment.

A lot of people kind of chafe against the concept of government owning everything. It's not really the argument that they want to hear. Concepts of ownership, though, tend to be based on some weird mystical perception of how the ownership works. I would have to say that, at best, the only thing anyone can say with any degree of certainty is that they own their own thoughts*, or rather, their sense of self. Property ownership only extends to your own ability to directly defend your right to it. The moment you rely on anyone else (individual or group) to assist you in defending your right to that property, you've given up claim of true ownership. By seeking assistance, you've essentially stated that you are incapable of owning it, and now you're suggesting someone else has that power, and requesting that once they take ownership, they give it back to you. Nothing beyond a social agreement causes that to be.

I'm pretty okay with claiming that I don't own the clothes I bought, but that some agency does (cops, courts, what have you), and that we have an agreement that I get use of them, and if someone takes them away from me, they'll repossess that property and go back to letting me use it. In that regard, I agree with Rose's theme - by voting, by participating, you are agreeing that they have power over you in some fashion. In some fashion, by buying a burger someplace, I'm agreeing that they are better at it than me, or, in the least, that I don't want to be the one cooking it. What they do with the funds, and whether or not those funds could be "more efficiently" spent making my own burger is really beside the point. I don't really chafe at the idea.

There's stuff in this country I want done, but I don't want to be the one to do it. I have more entertaining things to do with my time. The cost of my having the freedom to do those things with my time, and still get some of the stuff I want done, is a payment into the business that runs the space I'm using. If I didn't like what they were selling, I'd find a group that did. (I must admit, Sweden is looking pretty good, but alas, I'm a faithfully married man )

*I don't really know if there is a "Jill" at Coca-Cola, but if there is, and she's reading this post, she's probably freaked out right now, wondering what she did to tick me off so bad.

 

[Gee-Perwin]

You say the government is like any other business, and I have to disagree. If I want to start up a business I need to save up money, buy property, and work hard to provide a product at a competitive price. If my business fails then I will have to close my doors. Maybe someone will come up and buy whatever productive parts of my business that may still be in place, or maybe it just all goes towards paying back any outstanding bills. When government fails they don't go out of business. They simply print up more fiat dollars and throw them at their failure. Like I said before, how many "Departments of *fill in the blank*" have shut down due to failure & inefficiency? What incentive do they have to succeed? The government has zero incentive to be efficient, and everyone that works for these departments knows that they are secure in their jobs. They are also making way more than most of us.

There are definitely a lot of fundamentals we disagree on, and I won't break down your post by the sentence and say why I disagree. I hate doing that, but I know you love it. I especially don't want to get into a discussion over the internet regarding ownership or I will probably end up with an aneurysm (If it wasn't for my horse...). I will simply & respectfully agree to disagree.

 

[jpariury]

I quote by the line to keep my responses as focused as possible, and to try and keep clear which responses are to what, particularly when one paragraph doesn't seem to relate to the next. Sorry if it bugs ya. I find it less pedantic that a series of "Mr. X, you say <blah>, to which I respond with yadayadayada" statements. It gets the job done, and prevents misunderstandings or side tangents of "that's not what I said, I said X not Y". Your mileage may vary, I suppose.

The premise that a business and a government differ seems to be on what it takes to get it started. I assure you, a great deal of money and effort went into building any given government. At this stage, today's government is much like an inherited business (or transfer of stewardship, if you prefer): the current stewards are not the ones that put in the effort to build it up to what it is, but they've earned the reins by which they direct it. It's not like it came into being out of a bit of sugar and spice.

If your business fails, you can apply for lines of credit and rebuild or restructure your business as fits your needs. So long as people are willing to lend you money, there's no reason you can't go on for many years beyond profitability. Governments are in the business of governing. If they fail to govern in a manner that the governed find ultimately profitable (in some fashion, but generally you could probably outline it as being able to live their lives in relative peace and security), you have a revolution, a hostile takeover, a coup, what have you. It can and has happened numerous times within human history, and probably will continue to do so. Again, though, if you take a stance of only passive resistance, you don't get very far.

That said, government work does not ensure security of employment. I've worked for the government for a few years as a techie, my father worked for them as a soldier and pilot. Neither of us work them now, in no small part because the government wanted to be "more efficient". And, not too surprisingly, both of us earn more in the private sector than the public one. So, you'll have to forgive me, but again, I ain't seein' accuracy in your claim.

Nice Lewis Black ref, but there's a lot of logic to my statement, I assure you. Like I said, people have been brought up with this weird mystical belief about what ownership is. You can duck out if you want, but I'd really dig a conversation on the nature of ownership rights. Again, if we're going to talk about having people open their minds to new paradigms, let's go whole hog. We could spawn a separate thread if ya wanted.

 

[Gee-Perwin]

Again, if we're going to talk about having people open their minds to new paradigms, let's go whole hog. We could spawn a separate thread if ya wanted.

Meh, this seems more like a debate, and that's just not my thing at all.

 

[Mike Ventrella]