I recall that the “Rev.” Jesse Jackson already refers to NYC by another name..

What’s the matter with libertarians? I knew that they
have a very restricted view of human nature, a lack of
balance in assessing the needs of the soul, and a very
deficient, if any, grounding in history (this is why
they prefer Tom Paine to Edmund Burke), but this
tendency to circular firing squads is news to me.

I mean, like it or not, Paul is the closest thing to
a mainstream candidate they can offer, and so, they
start gunning him down.

This might have to do with the pathology of small groups,
how, after a while they tend to become havens for the
marginally disturbed, deranged, and highly asocial, who
love having an excuse not to grow up.

Of course, someone like Paul might get them to
get serious about it, and grow up. And of course, that
is the last thing they want. So, they protect themselves
and their little turf.

There is a lesson there. It is true that power tends to
corrupt, but lacks of power breeds irresponsibilty and
immaturity.

(Thanks Sid, for inviting me back)

Webmaster, please fix the comments box. It is impossible to write any coherent responses on this website in a tiny 2 inch square box.

@J.M.: If you used a Mac (running a recent version of Safari), you could just expand that text box as far as you like, to hold all your big ideas. ;-)

Adriana is back! Wonderwoman returns!  The Browns flee back to their dark caves, quaking in fear! Neocon and Marxist agents provocateurs search helplessly for a new weapon! Libertarians close their Paine, and open their Burke!  Sanity, clarity, and temperate reason rule again!

When I was young I considered myself a libertarian, and believed in laissez-faire economics. Then it occurred to me that I therefore had to support the right of people to sell drugs in school yards, or have sex with alligators in a public space, etc. If I made any exception and caveats, I was no longer a “true believer.” Becoming an “ex-libertarian” might be equated with growing up.

Hello, Rick

You discovered a fact about the free market: It is
an amoral construct. Not immoral, amoral. It needs to
be informed of ethics before it can be trusted.

One example, the free market can tell us how much to
pay for the services of a child prostitute,but not
whether or not this should be bought or sold. Likewisie
with hit men setting their fees in the free market.
We are talking about things which should never be
bought or sold, but the market itself has no way of
knowing that

(Also, the market is not very good at determining if
what you are selling is legitimately yours to sell.
Most people when they snap up a bargain do not wonder
if these are stolen goods or not - they assume not,
and they may be wrong).

For a look in some compelling detail at the kinds of comments Ron Paul has been making concerning the Treaty of Versailles as the origin of many of most difficult problems today, DO have a look at my wonderful new book ... “A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today” [ http://www.ashatteredpeace.com ] just out from Wiley and available at Amazon and most major bookstores !
Spread the word !!

cheers,
David

p.s.  I sent him a copy of the book. He appropriated the thoughts with not an OUNCE of credit !  Ah well...the trials of an author and journalist.

Adriana,

“Not immoral, amoral. It needs to be informed of ethics before it can be trusted.” Indeed!

But can mere ethics, no matter how informed be sufficient? What about “amoral” people? One is reminded of the countless CEOs whose amoral results-driven ethics push them to maximize current results by exporting jobs overseas and other long-term mistakes.

Free marketeers and libertarians always seemed to me to ASSUME that people would be ethical, moral and fair-minded in a free social and political environment. As Madison said, “If men were angels...” Every society, and everyone of us must have some restraint on our actions, even if it is only our conscience.

History demonstrates that egos and amorality will ensure that without preponderant social and cultural pressure, there is constant movement toward oligarchic rule whether explicit or veiled.

“They might sell drugs in school yards...” Only if that is where the buyers with money are to be found.  They might sell gold coins in the schoolyard too, or used books or illegal snacks and candies.
“have sex with alligators in public spaces...” Ok I would watch that, maybe not pay any admission charge but a free viewing of a one time event might be interesting.  I suspect the screwer would be in the running for an immediate Darwin award.
Funny thing that, for items which one has no interest in buying, the price is not relelvant.  For items one does not have for sale, what others might pay for what you don’t have is also not very relelvant.

“We are talking about things which should never be
bought or sold, but the market itself has no way of
knowing that”

Back around, oh 1986, one day in Center City Philadelphia a very nervous guy approached my friend and tried to sell him a gold chain.  After several refusals the guy wrapped his arm around my friend and said, “Look, I wanna be your friend.  And friends share, right?
So, you share ten dollars with me, and I’ll share this gold chain with you!”

Liberty is a scary concept.
It never ceases to amaze me to
hear people who don’t trust the
free market prescribe their own
subjective restrictions upon it.

If the free world scares you,
then stay at home.

eon’t be the first time we have to apologizefor the paleos

How odd to come to a thread to ask (and answer) what is the matter with libertarians?

What is the matter with Catholics?  What is the matter with conservatives?  Are they not setting the price for hitman services more so than ‘libertarians’?

Mr. Raimondo,

This ‘event’ led me to re-read your chapter, “A New Beginning” in your Rothbard bio.  I am thinking if yourself or perhaps Mr.Kauffman could be reached to talk about his last days at Reason and his piece for Chronicles that got the ‘neocons’ in a tizzy.  (Bill Kauffman has a nother book out in April on anti-war conservatives, with a blurb from Ron Paul.)

@willb

Ah, Liberty, how much silliness is done in your name

“The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may
do as they please. We ought to see what will please them
to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon
turned into complaints”
Edmund Burke

@C. Bowen?

Why ask what’s the matter with libertarians, you ask?

The formation of circular firing squads always leads
to that kind of question.

And you missed the point about the hitman question.
It was that the free market could perfectly set the
price for its services without ever considering the
ethics of it, in short that ethics can be irrelevant
in a free market.
ethical thing to do.

My, my...how many straw men must die for you people to make a point?

Adriana, Rick,
Anglo-Saxon countries used to have few external controls on people’s behavior.  The reason why these societies did not turn into a total chaos was that some of the stricter forms of Christianity internalized a strong set of moral controls.  This inner moral compass was so strong that the countries were reasonably peaceful even with few external rules.  It thus may be that the very free, libertarian society requires a special personality-type to function.  (I.e., people who do not want to have sex with alligators or buy and sell drugs in schoolyards, even when there are no laws prohibiting those activities.  I wonder if Iraq might not be a case study of what happens when there is neither internal nor external discipline?)

have Dr paul post some of the stuff from takimag about how nazi germany and soviet russia had better movies than hollywood. or that the Simpsons are subversive anti family trash. that’ll smooth things over

@adrianna

“The Lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
-Billy Bard

a.;

I asked why do it on this thread?  Those of us who self-describe themselves as “libertarians” and visit this site as they self-identify the body of through with their own positions, have agreed to wait until 90% of the federal government is dismantled before we turn the guns on each other.

Some sick and twisted people here. 

When I hear “liberty” I think peace and economic opportunity.

When Rick and Adriana hear liberty, they think schoolyard drug sales (note:  this occurs already in our current quasi-fascist regime) and alligator porn.

Psychologists are available in both free markets and “mixed economies”.  I heartily suggest you avail yourselves of their services lest you torture yourselves further with paranoid delusions.

I don’t think the beltway libertarians have fully comprehended yet they that have lost the rest of the country, or maybe they have. I detect a subtle return of support for Paul lately.

Reason demonstrated it’s commitment to dissenting voices by banning my I.P. from commenting on Hit and Run. That’s their right of course, but not very libertarian.

Rick, are you as silly as you
appear to be ? Sex with alligators
? Good luck ! We need to end the
drug war and also we can decide
what sort of schools we want to have
for those of us with kids.

I have never understood the appeal of puritanism among libertarians.  Is it the haunting fear that someone somewhere might be happy in a way of which you disapprove?
Anthropomization of the marketplace is probably an infelicitous way to think also.  Only the actors are alive, the actors may be moral, immoral, or variable depending on their mood.  The market is just a place no more moral or immoral than an ocean or a sand dune or an empty NYSE building. 
According to the fundamentals of libertarianism, no initiation of force against another human, there are no “hit men” in a libertarian market, nor are there any buyers for a “hit mans” service in a libertarian world.

Joe Allen,

If I were to hazard a guess, you were not banned for dissent, but rather for copying and pasting three distinct 1000+ word comments on any thread even tangentially related to Ron Paul.  The same three comments in thread after thread.

And when people asked you to stop because you were wearing out the scroll wheel on their mice you were rude about it and persisted doing it.

The bad manners you demonstrated on Reason’s website were so awful that if I was their webmaster I would have kicked you off even if I had agreed with your points.

Ron Paul may not get the nomination, but it won’t be because of ancient newsletters.  Either the public is rejecting the message, or the message just isn’t getting out there.  We need to give the Reasonoids the Roarke Response ("But I don’t think of you!") and figure out what the real problem is before it’s too late.  ‘Too late’ by the way is defined as a couple weeks from now.

Adriana,

It sounds like you believe the government to have perfect ‘balance in assessing the needs of the soul’, or at least to be able to decide better than us, as individuals?  Is that what you meant?

A good example might be our military members, who on average commit fewer crimes than other citizens.  But when you realize that their attention has just been shifted to other things like porn, sugar, alcohol, and especially not getting killed, you have to wonder if they’re really more of an asset to America than if they’d been left to the free market for employment.

I, personally, may be one like you describe, having trouble growing up, but I think its mainly because the government has made it practically impossible for me to earn money on an adult level anymore.  Protectionist policies keep underperforming employees in high-paying jobs, and inflation eats the gains we all make, leaving us less to ourselves to improve our lives. If they’d get their noses out of our employers’ business, and their hands out of our citizens pockets, and their interventions out of our lives, we’d all be much better off.

I may be asocial, because as a diabetic, I can’t drink alcohol (or even the sugared-drinks served with it) when my friends want to go to the bar.  Like my friends, I like to get ripped sometimes too, and marijuana is a very similar high to alcohol, but using it can subject one to police intervention, so again, government intervention is involved in creating the problem you complain about.  Why should my non-diabetic friends be able to let loose, while my only safe intoxicant (and pain/stress relief) can land me in jail?

In your conclusion, you make an excellent point in saying that both power and a lack of it have corrupting effects.  We are all rendered less well off when power is disparate and unearned.  Most of us live our lives respecting our fellow humans as equals, instead of deserving of such (unearned) differences in power.  A person free of this respect for their fellow man would seem the most likely to want to continue the disparity.

Rick,

Becoming an ‘ex-libertarian’ might also be a good example of ‘selling out’.

Richard

I recall how, when I was in Scientology, anyone who delivered bad news about L. Ron Hubbard instantly had their whole personality attacked,

Did you study at the Scientology PR office, Justin?

@Kari

You hit the nail on the head. There has to be a lot
of inner compulsion built in inside of each person
before we can start thinking of removing outer
compulsions.

Recall those days when you could leave your doors
unlocked because you could trust your neighbors not
to intrude. Nowadays we purchase bigger and better
locks and even subscribe to security services.

The problem with libertarians is that they want to
remove the outer compulsion without wondering if the
inner compulsion is there, or what it takes to build
it.

Which comes to the debate about aggresion and the use
of force. It is a fine thing to refrain from the use
of force if you are reasonably certain that others who
you are forced to deal with will equally refrain. If
they do not refrain, they need to have an inner
compulsion built-in, and the only way to build it in
involves a consierable amount of outer compulsion (and
if you study history, you will find out how much
outer compulsion the Church brought to bear, alongw
with preaching to develop that inner compulsion).

@Richard

The difference between me and you is that you assume that
everyone is like you, and will “play nice” just by
removing restraints.  I recognize that not everyone is
like me, and that it may take some time to teach that
person to respect other people’s rights. As Burke would
say, to praise liberty in all instances may lead to
replay the famous scene of Don Quixotte freeing the men
condemned to galleys.

Do this experiment. Remove the locks on your doors and
windows, because you do not wish to impede the free
transit of persons, and when they trespass, convince
them, with the best libertarian arguments you can muster
to leave the premises. Do not call the police, because
to do so involves the use of State force. Just use the
best arguments you have to see what it gets you.

Freedom needs locks. Freedom needs police. Freedom
needs coercion.  If you do not believe me, try the
experiment above.

gene- you were a scientologist haha

@Adrianna

Ok, now I get it. You were molested as a
child because you left your door unlocked.
Now I understand your neurosis about liberty.
Apologies all ‘round.

Adriana,

It’s not that people don’t “get” your take on libertarianism. It’s that you don’t get “libertarianism”.

That a free market can accurately determine the value of a hitman’s service is immaterial. A hitman provides an illegal service, in libertarianism, and in anarchism as well. Both still subscribe to the non-aggression axiom, which a hitman’s services do not conform to.

The concept of a codex of laws being amoral is a benefit, not a deficit. Morality can not be narrowly defined and codified without infringing on the rights of those that define morality in even subtly different ways.

Thus the problem with Sharia law. It is a moral law. No prostitution, no homosexuality, no alcohol, thus no liquor stores.

The people under its rule are incapable of virtuos action because the life or death law itself defines virtue.

Are you going to do the experiment or not?

Chris Matthew

You agree with me, that the free market is not the
place to find out if hiring a hit man is right or
wrong. To know that it is wrong you have recourse to
a different set of values that of non-aggresion. Others
find it in Christian morality. Others in appeals to
humanistic ethics.

Whatever it is, it is not in the market per se.

In a society whose ethics applaud vendetta and honor
killing, there can be a flourishing free market of
hit men, they would sell their services openly,
advertise, compete with each other, and all the other
behaviors attendant to a free market.

And in a society in which slavery is legal, slaves can
be bought and sold in the free market, with competition
driving down prices, and all that. Now we say that
slavery is morally wrong, but for many years in this
country slaves were accepted as legal tender, and you
could taken insurance in case they died or were lost,
you could borrow against them, as you would any other
property. The free market had little or nothing to say
as to what was being bought or sold.

A.;

Are you really confused by the difference between aggression (trespassing, breaking and entering) and proper defense?

The radical individualism of libertarianism says that the duty to defend my property is mine.  I can contract with a defense source, or I can do it with perhaps a firearm.

The Statist solution, which we are to consider sane and reasoned, extends to the FBI, the SWAT, DEA, IRS etc etc etc, all the way to pre-emptive war in Iraq...now that is insane.

Whose interpretation of the non-aggression principal are you referring to? 

Let me guess, some poster on the web someplace.

How old are you?

If you look at the link for the blurb of text for the “Welfaria"/"Dirtburg" comment cited in the post, the language used is crude and inflammatory-- even racially insensitive in the literal meaning of the term. But the underlying thought isn’t necessarily racist. The author appears to be joking about the irony of a rabid socialist like Al Sharpton launching his protest from the Statute of Liberty as well as the folly of renaming an economic and sociological basket case like New York City (due to big government economic and social policies) after Martin Luther King (the author titles his section “King City?").  Saying the black community in NYC is horribly dependent and dysfunctional sociologically due to big government policies is not the same as saying blacks are inferior due to their race. Moreover, it implies that in the absence of wrongheaded, big government policies the social pathology and economic dependency would disappear which is a non-racialist viewpoint. Again, as Raimondo points out here and in his earlier article, Kirchick and his beltway lib enablers were simply out to smear Paul with whatever they could find.

@Adrianna,
Let me try to help…
Libertarianism does not define morality,
that is another discipline alltogether.
Libertarianism defines a framework for
human action, that’s all.

Adriana,

As a good libertarian, I will be happy to take up your experiment.

I have some very strong libertarian arguments to use against intruders.

My first argument is 12 gauge.

My second argument is 44magnum.

If my first and second argument fail, it’s up to my wife to posit her argument.  .45ACP.

See, libertarians believe in the use of force to oppose force.  My (and my wife’s) arguments are purely libertarian arguments.

We don’t argue that there should be no limits.

You seem to have confused libertarians with libertines.

(And, in regard to selling drugs in the schoolyard, we have that now in our government run schools.  In a libertarian society, the owners of the school would have some actual say in the matter, even to the extent of hiring armed guards to protect their property from trespassers.)

Keith L. Hamburger

Adriana,
Thanks for your comment.  Actually, I am a historian and my specialty is history of religion.  More specifically, I investigate precisely the methods that Christianity used to create the deeply internalized moral compass, and what were the key moral ideas ("directions") of that compass. 

There were several methods that appear to have been effective in internalizing morals, such as meditation and what used to be called “the conversion process.” Describing these in a forum comment is impossible, but one point needs to be noted:  using “external” punishment does not work—and this includes responding to aggression with violence. 

According to old theologians, the reason why punishment does not work is that using force creates hatred and thus starts a cycle of revenge.  This argument deserves to be taken seriously, because much of the old religious understanding of human nature came from medieval confessors, and they had awesome opportunities to investigate the depth-psychology of cycles of revenge.

It is at the question on how to respond to violence where Christianity’s massively counterintuitive key teaching of humility, meekness, turning the other cheeck and loving your enemies comes in.  Astonishingly, this teaching seems to have worked: by the late 17th century the pervasive warfare of late medieval Europe had disappeared. 

You might want to read Thomas A Kempis, “The Imitation of Christ.” That work sums the self-overcoming, humility-emphasizing Christianity, and it was the second most popular book in Europe in the 16th-century (after the Bible).

Ah Rick, I am amused by your suggestion that people being amoral must be watched over lest they do something bad.

If we take your supposition at face value, e.g. that people will not behave without some sort of social pressure (government I presume), then does it not follow that people in power will do the same, but to a GREATER degree?

A government official will by definition have more power and hence be LESS accountable for his/her actions.

Let us then assume that Mr. Keith L. Hamburger and his wife take turns sleeping.  Otherwise, when they both a asleep at the same time, they are defenseless.

The rest of us need The Night Watchman.  I would prefer a wardsman, a castellan, a burgrave, a landgrave, a margrave, a duke, or a King rather than The State to be The Night Watchman.  But that’s another argument.

@Kari

forgive me my cynicism, but admirable as the way
of teaching intenral restraint was, when that
failed, the Church was quite willing to release
the offending person to the “secular arm”.

Face it, those methods, admirable as they were,
were not the only ones used by the Holy Inquisition.
(Obligatory Monty Python cite...)

@Sid, we seem to agree on the need for force as
the last resort. 

It is wrong to use force as first resort, of
course, but one must know that it is there to be
used when the circumstances warrant it.

As for John Q’s not understanding why someone
amoral ought to be watched, I hope this means he
never had a cat.

Oh, no, not that “drugs sold in schools” strawman again!

This is a total misunderstanding of libertarianism.  Libertarianism is NOT (emphatically NOT) a kind of libertinism.  What one is allowed to do is constrained by property rights of others.

In the case of schools the school administration or owners (schools are private in libertarian system) have full rights to prohibit any kind of activity on their property. Carrying guns, selling drugs, chewing bubblegum, you name it.

Same goes for the streets (which will be owned by neighborhood associations and such), shopping malls, etc.

You may have and enforce whatever morality you wish - as long as you stay on your property (or property shared with like-minded people). Thus a really libertarian society will be very diverse, with patchwork of peacefully coexisting enclaves with different local “laws” and standards - ranging from monastery-like religious enclaves to libertine bohemian quarters, and anything in between.

@Adriana @ Rick,
Quite eloquent arguments you make against your
complete representation of libertarianism. You
make the false assumption that more government
authority effectively prevents the problems you
posit. An incorrect assumption.

Adriana and Rick,
Quite eloquent arguments you make against your
complete misrepresentation of libertarianism. You
make the false assumption that more government
authority effectively prevents the problems you
posit. An incorrect assumption.

@ Adriana,

I’m afraid my point sailed right over your head. The non-aggression axiom is the basic tenet of libertarianism. All of the philosophy is grounded in it. From this axiom, property rights, a justice system, and slef ownership are derived.

If your point is that individuals have different moral systems, then you understand the need for an amoral codex of laws. Othwerwise individual ownership is impossible, and the tyranny of the majority is the rule of law.

The function of a hitman is to initiate force, which breaks the first axiom of libertarianism. The fault is not in the philosophy, but your understanding of it.

Sex with an alligator--what a croc!

Everyone,

Does it occur to you that this is not exactly the first time that people have explained to Adraian and Rick Johnson that there would be no “public” schools in a libertarian society and that private schools could simply shoot intruders who tried to sell drugs to the kids?

Let’s be honest here: Adriana and Rick are simply again projecting their own personal desires onto libertairans: Freud understood folks like them.

Oh, and, Adriana, you asked about the libertarian “tendency to circular firing squads.”

The answer is quite simple: there is not one “libertarian movement.” There’s one group, the cosmotarians (the Beltway Boys and girls, in Justin’s terms), folks who share your and Rick’s nasty little fantasies about sex with alligators, little children, etc.

And then there are us Paulistas who are simply willing to shoot anyone who carries out those fantasies agianst our kids.  I’m sure you see the difference here, now don’t you?

Dave M. in Sacramento

VEry well, let’s talk about aggresion.

You may not initate aggresion.

What happens if someone initiates aggresion?

You have to respond. You seem to think that because you
have righ to your side, you have the bigger gun. That
doesn not work that way. Someone initiates aggresion,
you respond, and you lose. So where you are?

So, you try to talk to them about it. They put the gun
to your face and tell you to shut up. YOu mention
bringing the matter to a judge to adjudicate, and he
says “Make me”.

Have you ever wondered why police was invented? Why all
that government apparatus to keep those with the bigger
guns to make the rules?

Face it, you may complian about force, but you **cannot**
have a peaceful society unless there is force behind
it to keep force initiators to win and make the rules.

Sorry about the lousy, confusing grammar in the last post

It should read

Why all the governemtn apparatus is not to keep those
with the bigger guns from making the rules?

Face it, you may complian about force, but you **cannot**
have a peaceful society unless there is force behind
it to keep force initiators from wiinning and making the rules.

@R. Nelson

SEx with an alligator..

I do not know, but I used to watch Steve Irwin (RIP)
subdue crocs and alligators and I found it extremely
entertaining.

Adriana,
In the first place, I focus on the Protestants, particularly English Protestants.  Secondly, when using the inquisition as an example of Christian practise, you generalize from an extremely atypical execption:  the Spanish inquisition executed an average of 4-5 people a year in a population of some 5-6 million.  This cannot have been enough of a threat to keep hatred at bay.

In general, you show a troubling lack of historical knowledge.  When you ask us to discuss aggression, you ask us to talk about one of the best known subjects of Christianity.  Hatred used to be one of the deadly sins, and old treatises of this sin contain an abundance of details about violent behavior. 

Particularly relevant to today’s US are old discussions of cycles of revenge: how they operate and how they can be broken.  There were many things one could do to make sure hateful people’s hostility would not be directed toward oneself—those people were usually very busy, because their personalities entangled them in innumerable quarrels, so it was not difficult to drop off from their radar.  It was also possible to behave in ways that made even hateful people like you—humility came in at this point.

The basic prolem seems to be that you rely on Hobbes as a source of both your view of human nature and the methods necessary to deal with that nature.  Watch out when using Hobbes as a source, because he explicitly said he took his view of human nature from the Christian sin of pride.  Hobbes, however, totally failed to discuss the methods Christianity used to overcome pride and its associated violence.  Your source thus gives you a very deficient view of how modern West overcame the violence that appears to be inherent in human nature.

Adriana,
I don’t get it.  You don’t trust people with freedom yet you trust them once they are elected/appointed to office?  Is there some special powers they get once elected that makes them instantly trustworthy?  I would trust a regular person on the street way before I would trust a politician.  Also, since you don’t trust people, wouldn’t you think it dangerous to give them, via government, a monopoly on force over you?

Adriana doesn’t grasp the most
elementary distinction between
the INIATION of force and force
only used in self-defense. All
of her examples show this absurd
confusion. I’ve rarely read such
nonsense. Ignore her.

Mr. Raimondo,

I think the carefully planned attack on Ron Paul signifies the war party cabal does view him as a threat. They know he might very well be the real independent candidate they fear so it is important they keep his primaries score low. On the other hand, if McCain gets the first place, Paul’s justification to run for presidency as an independent becomes very strong.

In my opinion, the only thing that matters regarding the “racism” accusations and all that crap is to defuse them gently. The cabal has few ideas so it’s predictable. Once they embraced this kind of PC common smear they will hold to it all the way. They want the biggest fuss but they can get it only if the attacked party answers back too often and gives a bigger than necessary attention to the topic. There is a need to answer back, but at a low level so this smearing gets old when the time will come for Paul to announce his independent candidacy.

Adriana,

Oh, come on, you’re just fooling again.

We libertarians want to use force—lots and lots and lots of force, overwhelmingly deadly force – against anyone who chooses to threaten us or our friends or our loved ones.  A few years ago here in Sacramento, one of my libertarian friends shot to death a little black thug who threatened his wife – the cops said they wanted to give Bob a medal.

Got it?

Oh, I keep forgetting, you already know this (it’s been explained to you again and again and again), you’re just trolling around to hook up with people like Rick Johnson who share your crocodile perversion.

Oh, and about the violence thing, I mean it – if you ever step foot on my property or come near my kids… well, just don’t.  No perverts allowed.

PhysicistDave

Sid,

You’ve got to get out more, son!

You wrote:
> Libertarians close their Paine, and open their Burke!

Paine?  Who was he?  Oh, you mean the wussy, verbose little guy – never bothered to read him.

But the author of “The Vindication of Natural Society” – my kind of guy!  Too bad he disavowed it when he got out and sold out to the power elite, but still a wonderful essay, don’t you think?

You also wrote:
> The rest of us need The Night Watchman.  I would prefer a wardsman, a castellan, a burgrave, a landgrave, a margrave, a duke, or a King rather than The State to be The Night Watchman.  But that’s another argument.

I assume your idea of a King is the heroic one from medieval Eire where you signed up with any King of your choice, right?  Trust us Irish (my grandma was a Cushing) to solve the puzzle of politics a thousand years before anyone else – it’s a gift we have.

You’re really one of us libertarian anarchists, Sid, but nobody’s bothered to tell you.

Here’s to the Emerald Isle.  Ireland shall save civilization again.  Death to the State, long live the Kings!

You didn’t really invite that ugly old hag Adriana back, now did you?

PhysicistDave

Poor PhysicistDave, so petrified by a non-ideologue like Adriana he threatens her with his manly gun collection and insults her looks and age. Thanks to gun fellators like yourself and your slavish worship of an unquestionably pure free market system, I could never be a “Libertarian”. I would vote for Ron Paul though, if people like you didn’t ruin his chances. I for one welcome back Adriana, even with her sort-of-tired Inquisition canard. Want to get married? I jest, I jest. I enjoy Sid Cuniff as well, sorry to taint you with my praise. Pax, Philthyrex (A-Son-of-a(n)-Irish-American-Physicist)

“Trust us Irish (my grandma was a Cushing) to solve the puzzle of politics a thousand years before anyone else – it’s a gift we have.”

Hm.  I too had an Irish grandmother - the European equivalent of grass-skirted Fijians (but at least they never stuffed babies into gas chambers) - but now I can pass for White.  Anyway, over a thousand years ago the Irish monks-scholars who saved civilisation were rationed eight pints of beer a day, which is great fuel for contemplation of everything tragic and impossible, including politics.  In that sense, maybe the ancient Irish DID solve the puzzle by realising there’s no political solution for any of this world’s sorrows.

Philthy wrote:
>Want to get married?

I’ve been married for twenty-eight years, Philthy, two kids.  I do hope Adriana finds some sutiable mate, though I pity the poor guy: no doubt a real relationship would improve her surly disposition.

You also wrote that I was:
>so petrified by a non-ideologue like Adriana he threatens her with his manly gun collection and insults her looks and age.

Oh, no, she has made clear her ideology – beat the heck out of innocent people that she believes are too timid to fight back.  Typical American-style fascism.

And, no Philthy, I was not threatening her – not as long as she stays off my property and away from my kids.  But since she kept lying, saying that we libertarians would not use force defensively even though she knows better, it seemed the best way of refuting her was to make clear just how eager some of us are to use violence.

Truth is, I’m a very mellow and peaceful fellow as libertarians go.

But I don’t like liars, and Adriana was knowingly, intentionally, and repeatedly lying, even though she has had this fact pointed out publicly.  While it’s a fair guess that she is indeed old and ugly, a liar is an “old, ugly hag” in my book no matter what her chronological age or physical appearance.

I couldn’t care less about her actual age or appearance – I do care about her lying.

I’ve followed her for quite a while on these boards – she quite obviously has no intention of engaging in an honest and open exchange of opinions.  Sad, but true.  I learned decades ago how to deal with thuggish personalities like her – call’em out for what they are.

Oh, and you’d never vote for Ron Paul anyway – you might have to explain to someone why you didn’t follow the approved line of behavior.

PhysicistDave

John Ball wrote:
>there’s no political solution for any of this world’s sorrows.

And, realizing that, John, is the solution to the problem of politics.

See the state for what it is, a bunch of parastic alpha males and their hangers-on who manage to manipulate and entrap the rest of the tribe so as to better exploit them – see that, and you will not completely end exploitation or evil, but you can at least stop being blindly a part of it.

You’re right: politics is not the cure; it is the disease.

PhysicistDave

Who told you about my alligator?