You still haven't provided a compelling argument why the poor would be better off in your system. Your "benefits of competition" are, as you've presented them thus far, implausible.

2/2/2011 2:01:59 PM

Quote :

"The premise there is false, by every possible measure."

I agree. Our system isn't perfect. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But you're not convincing me why YOUR system is better.

Quote :

"At least under my system, we'd get the benefits of competition."

But the competition isn't for justice and liberty, it's for keeping the insurer happy. Is it not?

Your system, realistically, makes the system worse, as I've explained. They're not compelled to bring an offender to justice. They're compelled to keep the insurer happy. They're also compelled to have as many people insured as possible, as long as it is possible to make a profit off of them. So if an insurance companies finds out an offender committed an offense against their own insurer, what motivation do they have to arrest their own customer? Why not arrest someone who is uninsured? Who is going to protect the uninsured?

And if an insured person from another insurer is found to have committed an offense, then you enter into a situation where two insurance companies can either fight each other, through a hired court, in which case, there are no rules or ethical guidelines for the court to follow, which means they can accept bribes and be easily persuaded.

And then there is the whole situation of people who are uninsured. At least under the current system, there is some degree of protection, regardless of income. The police will investigate crimes against the murder of someone, at do their best to arrest the offender. Under your system, if you're not insured, then nothing is done, and a offender is left to kill again. Sorry, that is just stupid.

Your system is not better, nor does it make things you think should be legal, legal. Marijuana can still be illegal. If you smoke it in the presence of someone who pays for protection from marijuana smoke, or even cigarette smoke, wouldn't their insurance company be compelled to arrest the guy?

So what does your insurance do in that situation? I paid for protection. The offender pays for protection from another insurance company. The offender is guilty, but his insurance company is there to keep him out of jail. So what? They go to war over something stupid like this? They bribe each other. They go behind closed doors and reach an agreement. Sorry, your idea isn't feasible. It's not realistic.

2/2/2011 8:05:07 PM

This is ridiculous. What's to stop an individual or group with their own well armed defense forces from doing whatever they want? You think some insurance companies would risk all out warfare against better armed opponents (since you've admitted they will be running as cheaply as possible) over the rights of some of their clients?

More likely they would do what medical insurance companies would like to do without government oversight, and just drop the policy when people become too expensive to protect.

Quote :

"However, as unlikely as this may be, what would happen if a state still attacked and/or invaded a neighboring free territory? In this case the aggressor would not encounter an unarmed population. Only in statist territories is the civilian population characteristically unarmed"

This is retarded. An armed populace was an adequate defense in the 18th century. These days, untrained men with hunting rifles, pistols, and shotguns stand no chance against a real military.

With no military, the best we could manage would be a decent insurgency against an invading force.

[Edited on February 2, 2011 at 11:27 PM. Reason : ]

2/2/2011 11:26:46 PM

Quote :

"The charge is "under our system, everyone is protected, but under your system, only those that can afford it are." The premise there is false, by every possible measure. Everyone in our system is not protected, and they're certainly not protected equally. Money is king in our system - you get as much justice as you can afford. A poor, black man that gets caught smoking crack is not treated the same way as a rich, white frat boy that gets caught snorting coke. We shit on other nations at the drop of a hat, their rights aren't protected. We imprison drug users who have committed no aggressive acts - that's not protection, that's aggression on the part of the state. That's unacceptable. At least under my system, we'd get the benefits of competition. By handing the state a monopoly on force, you must also accept the consequences: war. If you're against war, you should be against the state - war is the health of the state, and control of the money is its lifeblood. George Bush was not held liable for his bullshit war in Iraq, we were, yet he was the one that declared war."

You still completely avoided the question I stated clearly that you had failed to answer.

2/3/2011 12:01:59 AM

No oppression here

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/02/free_speech_for.html

2/19/2011 8:41:50 AM

America for sale

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=politics_by_other_means

Quote :

"It's true that the ability to buy a judge is not completely without limits, as we found in a case called Caperton v. Massey, involving the notorious mining company Massey Energy. Massey had recently been hit with a $50 million verdict in a lawsuit heading for West Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals, so the company's chief, Don Blankenship, poured $3 million into the campaign of Brent Benjamin, a private attorney running for the first time, for chief justice in 2004. That amount was more than both campaigns spent combined. Benjamin ousted the sitting justice, and when the case reached the high court, Benjamin refused to recuse himself and cast the deciding vote in Massey's favor, tossing out the $50 million award. When the appeal reached the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court ruled that Benjamin should have recused himself. But what was so remarkable about the decision is that it wasn't 9-0 or 8-1 but 5-4. Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito -- the Court's conservative bloc -- actually thought it was OK for a judge to get $3 million from a defendant, then rule on that defendant's lawsuit."

I...can't fathom this.

2/22/2011 5:46:11 PM

Quote :

"Money is king in our system - you get as much justice as you can afford."

2/22/2011 5:51:08 PM

^hold on a second here...are you saying you'd do anything to stop the sort of thing in that article from happening?

i mean, blankenship bought off judges for years. assuming you support the concept of an independent judiciary, would you have supported WV limiting the influence of money.

seems to me that rational self-interest wouldn't support a judge or the government he works for performing such altruism.

actually, it seems like that quote squares pretty well with your private courts argument.

[Edited on February 24, 2011 at 4:50 PM. Reason : x]

2/24/2011 4:48:56 PM

Okay...so I'm new here (and my entire post should rightfully be torn to shreds just based off of that), and there are about three "credibility" threads on the first page alone so I'm not sure which one is referenced by the OP.

So forgive me if I'm re-hashing shit that's already been covered, and I'm not what you'd call a perfect scholar on the Anarchist/Anarcho-Capitalist school of thought but...

I just read a two and a half page long fucking circle.

So...

Everyone who isn't supporting the Anarchist (or call it what you will...I suck ass with titles) POV:

Your arguments are going nowhere, because Destroyer and everyone else in that corner's logic are assuming that people are going to be inherently "good" in this fictional world. None of your corruption/etc situations would happen in this situation because there would be no monetary greed or selfishness.

Destroyer, etc:

I agree with your vision of society. It would be completely amazing and perfect (and I'm not being sarcastic, here). But it is and will always be a vision, and nothing more because society has regressed beyond thinking so simply. I mean...how would you train 600 million people (or six billion, depending on how grand a scale your ideals span) to school generations of offspring to eliminate notions of greed, power, corruption, and selfishness? The very educational process itself and the means about executing it would in itself go against the ideals that you're spewing (mass mental production of humanity to have a common vision of "good," thereby eliminating a large chunk of individualism or independent thought...isn't that what our current State and all States try to do, to an extent?). Programming is programming, whichever way you slice it. You're just looking at it through an opposite lens. The very thought that people could be trained to think this way goes against your idea.

Also...if there were no greed, corruption, lust for power, etc to ruin your vision of privatized security, why would there be a need for private defense in the first place? Why would anyone kill, rob, etc? Why would we need private courts to try people, and lawyers to defend them? How would the very act of creating the society you envision create a margin of error that would enable "criminals" to exist? Isn't that in itself a failure of the "educational" process of which you spoke?

Also...what type of body would determine which laws we kept and which ones we repealed? Would this be a "board of directors," in a sense that would decide to make LSD legal and rape illegal and then dissolve and leave all means of interpretation up to the private sector? Everyone has different interpretations of the infringement upon one's basic rights, and if we even went just basically off of "life, liberty, property" then aren't we still obeying a form of public code (even if it was one that was created over 300 years ago), and wouldn't that again in itself go against the ideals that you're talking about?

TLDR (Christ...I already have to annotate, this can't turn out well):

Destroyer and company's naysayers' arguments are all invalid, because the human thought processes that cause such acts wouldn't exist in Destroyer's vision of the world. Humanity has progressed (regressed?) to the point to where any large-scale means (and it would have to be large-scale to work) of changing the world's POV to the point where Destroyer's utopia would work would make the entire idea hypocritical because the means it would take to get us there would go against the ideals that (s)he is speaking of. And even if not, we wouldn't need a private police because everybody would love each other because they were trained to.

My POV:

In theory, this shit sounds great. It's the most fair and free society imaginable. But Jesus Christ, everyone would be so sad, from the outside looking in...and nobody would even know it! The aliens would be laughing at us.

The world would be controlled even more by money than it already is. Literally everything would be even more of a business than it already is. Human emotion would be all but nonexistent, because human emotion is what triggers the thought processes that would cause us to be greedy, or hurt each other, etc. Everything in life would be a god damn business decision and nothing more. There would be no thought, because the process of thinking triggers emotions which triggers the behaviors that cause crimes which would have to be mentally de-programmed from humanity. We would be thoughtless, emotionless people and life would be a process rather than life. Fucking horrible.

Sorry if this stuff was already covered. Write it off as a non-intentional troll post.

[Edited on February 24, 2011 at 11:09 PM. Reason : herpes]

2/24/2011 10:47:29 PM

lol

So you're saying that we're wrong because it's assumed people won't be greedy, but then they're wrong because they actually will be greedy?

wat?

2/25/2011 9:15:37 AM

Yes.

None of the stuff you're saying would happen would happen in Destroyer's world. And Destroyer's world can't happen without Destroyer's ideals being sacrificed.

2/25/2011 9:34:45 AM

Whoops. I thought we were talking about a world inhabited by human beings.

2/25/2011 10:15:39 AM

Basically destroyer is imagining utopian communism after the state has withered and atrophied as people internalize cooperative means to common good, the only difference is that he imagines that in this state people will have any kind of need or desire for private property, which is both the object and originator of greed

[Edited on March 1, 2011 at 5:25 PM. Reason : .]

3/1/2011 5:24:01 PM

i'm pretty sure he's not talking about any sort of communism. i'm pretty sure he's talking about a world where the only structures are families or clans and warlords or what have you.

3/3/2011 5:39:35 PM

actually, after reading most of his posts, he may or may not be this guy:

which is cool and all, even if you don't realize alan moore didn't mean for him to be some true hero.

3/3/2011 5:43:48 PM

Just thought I'd stop by to see what people are talking about now, and am pleased to see that d357r0y3r has reached the logical conclusion of libertarianism. You know what they say... what's the difference between a minarchist and an anarchist? Usually about 3 years.

Hopefully he'll have more success than I did in convincing the rest of you to stop encouraging violence and trying to control everyone else (through coercion). There are better ways to accomplish our goals.

3/9/2011 4:32:33 PM

Haha, I don't think I will have any more luck. Just take this objection, for instance:

Quote :

"Your arguments are going nowhere, because Destroyer and everyone else in that corner's logic are assuming that people are going to be inherently "good" in this fictional world. None of your corruption/etc situations would happen in this situation because there would be no monetary greed or selfishness."

The suggestion, here, is that I believe people will just behave on their own, or that people are naturally altruistic. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are naturally self-serving, which isn't necessarily wrong, but it can lead to injustice when one person is given power to wield over another, as they will protect their own interests first and foremost. If we could stick to a constitutional government, that would be great. Unfortunately, as long as people are running the government, they will find ways to circumvent the laws if they believe they can get away with it and it will benefit them. "Limited government" is a myth.

Our only real hope is education and widespread understanding of the unintended consequences of government intervention. Until regular people understand that there are long-term consequences that outweigh any short term benefits of things like stimulus/bailouts/war/subsidies/safety nets, they'll keep supporting the same failed policies.

[Edited on March 9, 2011 at 5:04 PM. Reason : ]

3/9/2011 5:03:56 PM

Quote :

"Unfortunately, as long as people are running the government, they will find ways to circumvent the laws if they believe they can get away with it and it will benefit them."

Yeah, that would only happen if governments exist, right?

3/9/2011 9:09:21 PM

You can't circumvent the laws if there are no laws in the first place, duh

There won't be any crime when nothing is illegal!

3/9/2011 10:38:09 PM

^^No, you'll have that with or without government. People will usually try to avoid the negative consequences of their actions. The problem is that the government is charged with policing itself. If we were to privatize justice (in this case, ending the monopoly on force), competing organizations would police each other.

3/9/2011 11:45:00 PM

[Edited on March 9, 2011 at 11:55 PM. Reason : n/m]

3/9/2011 11:55:03 PM

Quote :

"If we were to privatize justice (in this case, ending the monopoly on force), competing organizations would police each other."

3/10/2011 8:59:56 AM

Quote :

""If we were to privatize justice (in this case, ending the monopoly on force), competing organizations would police exterminate each other.""

3/10/2011 9:42:06 AM

^, ^^
I think the problem here is that you need to think outside the box a little bit. You're so stuck in how things work now that you are unable to imagine a world outside of that.

Who polices the enormous monopolies of force that exist today?

Let's say we were starting a society from scratch on an unpopulated planet. You have the following options: give all of the guns and power to a small group of people and trust that they'll do what's best for everyone, or spread the power around freely and allow everyone to hold each other in check. Which option would you choose? Seems pretty obvious to me, and I find it somewhat shocking that people consider the second option so laughable when applied to our current world. It's only because we've become so accustomed to the opposite for so long. People are afraid of change.

3/10/2011 1:52:57 PM

No one here is arguing that you and d#s aren't in la-la land while the rest of us are talking about planet Earth.

Quote :

"spread the power around freely and allow everyone to hold each other in check."

What you're failing to realize is that this is how it actually began on this planet and the natural inclination of our species is to consolidate power in order to control resources. Your utopia existed before the first city states emerged and city states with rulers is its inevitable conclusion.


[Edited on March 10, 2011 at 2:07 PM. Reason : .]

3/10/2011 2:04:40 PM

Ridiculous analogy.

First of all, we aren't starting a new society are we?

Second, If we were, why not distribute the power to everyone then have everyone elect their leaders, instead of the leader being the one who manages to accumulate the most power via unscrupulous exploitation?

3/10/2011 2:07:42 PM

I think the biggest issue people have with this model of society is what happens to the people who don't have money to pay for all of these types of insurance, private police forces, etc? As far as I know this hasn't been addressed in the thread.

3/10/2011 2:07:50 PM

^^, ^^^
You're both missing the point of what I was saying. People laugh off the idea of competing defense agencies, claiming that they would end up fighting against each other and we'd end up with a monopoly. What I'm trying to point out is that this huge monopoly is exactly what we have now, and that the only way to guard against such monopolies is to allow for competition. Then yes, the responsibility also falls on us individuals to be aware of what these firms are up to, and to keep them in check. But I think it should be obvious that that is a much easier task when the firms are smaller and many than when there is one large monopoly. Hence the example given of colonizing a new planet. It becomes much clearer in that situation that it is in our benefit to keep any one group from amassing too much power.

^
That really isn't as much of a problem as you seemingly think it is. Why do people who don't have money to afford those things have them in our current society? It's the same reason that people like you are worried about them losing those things. Because most people do have some sense of responsibility for their neighbors and others in their communities. Sure, there may be some people who would turn a blind eye if people are being murdered or starving in the streets, but I think there are enough people that care about human rights that it would not be any more of a problem than it is now. Actually I believe it would be much less of a problem, because people would be able to help others more effectively.

3/10/2011 2:42:02 PM

Quote :

"But I think it should be obvious that that is a much easier task when the firms are smaller and many than when there is one large monopoly. Hence the example given of colonizing a new planet. It becomes much clearer in that situation that it is in our benefit to keep any one group from amassing too much power."

Neither you nor d#'s have demonstrated that the quality of life of everyone involved in your system would be better than the current monopoly on force so I don't know how you can claim that it "is in our benefit." What metric are you using?

Also, what would you suggest be done to prevent multiple security agencies from bonding together to form a monopoly of force? Form an even bigger monopoly to counter that? oh shit...

Quote :

"Actually I believe it would be much less of a problem, because people would be able to help others more effectively.Actually I believe it would be much less of a problem, because people would be able to help others more effectively."

And this is how I know you're delusional. You think that the reason we have poor people now is because the government is preventing people from helping others.


[Edited on March 10, 2011 at 2:58 PM. Reason : .]

3/10/2011 2:56:45 PM

Quote :

"Why do people who don't have money to afford those things have them in our current society? It's the same reason that people like you are worried about them losing those things. Because most people do have some sense of responsibility for their neighbors and others in their communities."

There is a difference between being forced to pay for these things through government, and willingly divvying up your finances to different organizations on a continual basis. I guarantee you that the vast majority of people are either too greedy or too lazy to make this happen.

[Edited on March 10, 2011 at 3:01 PM. Reason : .]

3/10/2011 3:00:05 PM

Quote :

"Neither you nor d#'s have demonstrated that the quality of life of everyone involved in your system would be better than the current monopoly on force so I don't know how you can claim that it "is in our benefit." What metric are you using?"

As I said before, I think it's obvious. It seems you agree since you are continually going on about the danger of these defense firms becoming too powerful. The more concentrated power becomes, the harder it is for individuals of society to defend themselves against it.

Quote :

"Also, what would you suggest be done to prevent multiple security agencies from bonding together to form a monopoly of force? Form an even bigger monopoly to counter that?"

Not necessary. All anyone has to do to stop a monopoly is to stop funding it. If people become fearful of a firm becoming too powerful, they will switch to other firms that they trust. When they are supported voluntarily, people have control. Keep in mind there would not be any sort of mass delusion that comes along with government where people believe they have some magical right to do whatever they want and we must go along. They are a private service just like any other.

Quote :

"And this is how I know you're delusional. You think that the reason we have poor people now is because the government is preventing people from helping others."

I'm really not sure how you got from, "people can more effectively help others without government interference" to, "government is the cause of all poor people!", but that's quite an impressive leap you took.

Quote :

"There is a difference between being forced to pay for these things through government, and willingly divvying up your finances to different organizations on a continual basis. I guarantee you that the vast majority of people are either too greedy or too lazy to make this happen."

People already champion these causes through politics, charities, etc. It would be much simpler and much more effective through private means, and things such as defense and health care have traditionally been well-provided through communities, even for those who were not able to pay for them. Only recently have we thought that we should use government to force others to provide things for people instead of taking on that responsibility ourselves.

3/10/2011 3:44:29 PM

Quote :

"It would be much simpler and much more effective through private means"

Why?

Quote :

"things such as defense and health care have traditionally been well-provided through communities, even for those who were not able to pay for them."

Traditionally where? Explain further please...

3/10/2011 3:51:19 PM

i guess you never heard of the local doctor who would treat some people for free when he knew they couldn't pay. Of course, now he can't do that, because insurance companies have made it illegal to do so

3/10/2011 3:53:13 PM

^
And I think that's terrible. But I'm looking for a broader example than one doctor...

3/10/2011 3:58:41 PM

Quote :

"As I said before, I think it's obvious. It seems you agree since you are continually going on about the danger of these defense firms becoming too powerful. The more concentrated power becomes, the harder it is for individuals of society to defend themselves against it."

I'm speaking from the context of your crazy utopia when I talk about the dangers of them becoming too powerful. Fortunately I don't live in a country where I have to worry about paying the right defense contractor.

Quote :

"Not necessary. All anyone has to do to stop a monopoly is to stop funding it. If people become fearful of a firm becoming too powerful, they will switch to other firms that they trust. When they are supported voluntarily, people have control. Keep in mind there would not be any sort of mass delusion that comes along with government where people believe they have some magical right to do whatever they want and we must go along. They are a private service just like any other."

With the tools to take whatever they need from people who don't pay an even larger conglomeration of defense firms to protect them. Why are you missing this step? I own defense firm X. There is no government to punish me, only other defense firms. I forge an Alliance with defense firms Y and Z, and XYZ is the biggest motherfucking defense firm you've ever heard of.

Your solution is..."people will stop paying them." XYZ kills the people that stop paying them and coerces everyone into paying them. Whoops, we have a government.

I'm not saying a magical utopia where we don't kill each other over power wouldn't be grand, but it's the epitome of pie-in-the-sky bullshit. On this planet, with these humans, it ain't happening. Governments didn't form because of some conspiracy of wealthy white people. They formed because they are the logical conclusion of the consolidation of power in a system of finite resources.

Quote :

"i guess you never heard of the local doctor who would treat some people for free when he knew they couldn't pay. Of course, now he can't do that, because insurance companies have made it illegal to do so"

It wasn't my point, and I certainly know that humans are capable of altruism, but the claim was that "health care has been well-provided through communities, even for those who were not able to pay for them."

An anecdote about an altruistic doctor does not prove this by a long shot and historically (before and after the advent of insurance companies) the health condition of the poor in our and every country of the world does a pretty good job of throwing it out the window.

And don't get me wrong, I fucking hate insurance companies and do think that it's in their best interest to fuck us over.

[Edited on March 10, 2011 at 4:09 PM. Reason : insurance]

3/10/2011 4:05:01 PM

Quote :

"I own defense firm X. There is no government to punish me, only other defense firms. I forge an Alliance with defense firms Y and Z, and XYZ is the biggest motherfucking defense firm you've ever heard of. Your solution is..."people will stop paying them." XYZ kills the people that stop paying them and coerces everyone into paying them. Whoops, we have a government. "

So your business plan involves getting to a point where you are one of the leading competitors in your industry, making lots of money by legitimately providing a beneficial service, and then deciding to kill of your customer base and enslave the rest of the population? And what exactly is the incentive there? And do you really think that the employees of this business are just going to go along with it and kill their families and friends? It's all risk and no reward, and there's really no reason to expect that anything of the sort would ever take place. All of these scenarios have been rebutted thousands of times already though, just do a little research into it before completely dismissing it.

3/10/2011 4:17:03 PM

Ahhhh, "do a little research."

Read: "I'm too lazy to come up with a cogent argument myself, and my claims are so obviously self-evident that I shouldn't be bothered to back them up."

Were you channeling McDanger there?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
You're right though. There is absolutely no reward in controlling every resource in an area of the the Earth nor is there any reward in serving the defense contractor that controls every resource in an area.

[Edited on March 10, 2011 at 4:24 PM. Reason : .]

3/10/2011 4:23:26 PM

Quote :

"So your business plan involves getting to a point where you are one of the leading competitors in your industry, making lots of money by legitimately providing a beneficial service, and then deciding to kill of your customer base and enslave the rest of the population? And what exactly is the incentive there?"

Uhh do you not realize how many people in the world have a massive hard-on for power?

3/10/2011 4:33:59 PM

Quote :

"Ahhhh, "do a little research." Read: "I'm too lazy to come up with a cogent argument myself, and my claims are so obviously self-evident that I shouldn't be bothered to back them up.""

More like, it would take us months (or years) to cover all of the concerns that people have about private defense. That is the reason that there are many very large books on the subject that specifically address these exact concerns. I am not an expert and even if I were, I doubt that I would be able to adequately address these concerns on an internet discussion forum. I can only attempt to provide a quick answer, which I have done, and which will always lead to more questions. If you genuinely want answers to these questions, and I hope you do, then you would be better served to spend some time researching the ideas of people who have spent their lives focusing on these issues.

You are right, there is incentive to control resources. But I think that the risk would be too great for a company that is already doing well without any risk. Besides, what's stopping our large governments from trying to take over all resources?

3/10/2011 4:56:39 PM

Mutually assured destruction

3/10/2011 6:00:11 PM

Quote :

"And do you really think that the employees of this business are just going to go along with it and kill their families and friends? It's all risk and no reward, and there's really no reason to expect that anything of the sort would ever take place. All of these scenarios have been rebutted thousands of times already though, just do a little research into it before completely dismissing it."

Haha, are you kidding? This is how things used to work before there were strong democracies. And even with strong democracies, business interests managed to make this happen. The history of Ancient Greece (and most ancient civilizations) is rife with wealthy "businessman" seizing power by force. This is human nature.

Businesses aren't somehow inherently more "sane" and stable than any other human institution.

This is why our government is the way it is. It's hard for anyone one group to gain too much power before bumping up against another group.

If certain types of ideologies had their way, all democratic groups would be stifled, while business groups are allowed to grow and acquire power with impunity.

Even in recent American history, you had the robber-barons acquiring massive monopolies that had the effect of keeping wages suppressed and working conditions very poor.

You had coal companies just a few decades ago that created their own economies with their own currencies to keep their workers trapped into working for the company.

I see no reason to think that a large business is more benign than large government, and by definition, they aren't accountable to anyone or anything. The government at least has accountability, and the government can provide accountability for businesses (who can in turn provide accountability to their government) if people allow it to.

As it is, it seems a lot of so-called libertarians want to gag the peoples' voice in favor of power structures with no accountability. It is very irrational.

3/10/2011 6:11:13 PM

I'm about to pull out the "Do a little research" card myself. I'll even give a few keywords to help your research along:

Marcus Licinius Crassus

3/11/2011 12:20:17 AM