Comments on: Partisan Politics is Foolish (I Hate It)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:35:00 +0000

trc,

You posted a reply to me with a video, to which I responded. Now those posts seem to have disappeared. Do you know why?

By: Sam Grove

Sam Grove — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:37:00 +0000

I don’t suggest that’s the intention of the pirates, but I do think that’s the reason so many misplace so much hope in democracy

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:31:00 +0000

I think I see the problem here. You don’t know what Higgs has done. He’s a prolific writer, but here’s a good taste:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzbEkXGd7Ms

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:26:00 +0000

“making the political agency serve the general good”

“General good” in the CotUS sense means that nobody is sacrificed for it. I wish I too could believe that was the intention of the pirates. But I see too little evidence for it. To the pirates, “general good” is at best a collective notion where internal sacrifices are always justified in the pursuit of some net improvement.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:20:00 +0000

People choose a spectrum corresponding to what variable is important to them. To me it isn’t “amount of government” per se, but amount of individual liberty–freedom from the unprovoked willful coercion of others. If individual liberty is one’s goal, then democracy is a frightening prospect, and constitutional government is one attempt to restrain democracy from threatening liberty. It is certainly is not unimaginable, however, that one might find more liberty (temporarily) under a monarchy than a democracy. The goal for me is to find a social structure which advances liberty, whatever that structure may be.

The video equates “anarchy” with “chaos”. They aren’t synonyms, and needn’t coincide. That’s the Rothbard program.

The video equates a ‘hired defense’ with a ‘state’. By definition, a hired defense is always a choice for those doing the hiring. States have always been characterized by their authority to exact protection money from unwilling participants. And the example of history is that a state does not stay restrained for long.