Are you a libertarian, or a wanna' be? by 1kiki

America loves a winner!

Libertarianism doesn't mean " you're entirely on your own ", and that anarchy shall reign supreme. It doesn't call for NO police force, as you describe above, for example.

Ever hear of Thomas Jefferson ?

A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. – Thomas Jefferson

The two questions you ask are inane, and contradictory.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:46 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

kiki, can you provide dates for those societies, Iceland and the Iroquois?
I'd guess, 11th to 15th Century for Iceland, and 16th - 17th century for the Iroquois. Anything more recent?

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 6:05 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

The Icelandic society is most definitively dated to around 1000AD, when Eric the Red intruded on it.

The Iroquois has been an evolving society for quite some time:

The Iroquois (/'?r?kw??/ or /'?r?kw??/), also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse",[1] are a league of several nations and tribes of indigenous people of North America. After the Iroquoian-speaking peoples of present-day central and upstate New York coalesced as distinct tribes, by the 16th century or earlier, they came together in an association known today as the Iroquois League, or the "League of Peace and Power".[2] The Iroquois are a matrilineal society. They have clan mothers, or main women of the leagues.

The original Iroquois League was often known as the Five Nations, as it was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations. After the Tuscarora nation joined the League in 1722, the Iroquois became known as the Six Nations. The League is embodied in the Grand Council, an assembly of fifty hereditary sachems.[2] Other Iroquian peoples lived along the St. Lawrence River, around the Great Lakes and in the American Southeast, but they were not part of the Haudenosaunee and often competed and warred with these tribes.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Haudenosaunee were based in what is now the northeastern United States, primarily in what is referred to today as upstate New York west of the Hudson River and through the Finger Lakes region.[3] Today, the Iroquois live primarily in New York, Quebec, and Ontario.

The Iroquois League has also been known as the Iroquois Confederacy. Modern scholars distinguish between the League and the Confederacy.[4][5][6] According to this interpretation, the Iroquois League refers to the ceremonial and cultural institution embodied in the Grand Council, while the Iroquois Confederacy is the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization. The League still exists. The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War.[4]

I hope this helps.

As for more modern examples, I'm not sure if you mean technologically modern, or chronologically modern. I couldn't find examples that were part of a modern western economy.

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 6:12 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Well rappy, if you can explain to me how such a government can exist without taxes, and how the kind of economy you want can exist without a currency and without a banking system, I'll read it. But not one of you supposed libertarians can seem to explain how the system you claim you want can function, and at the same time get you the kind of wealth you want to amass.

It all comes down to a religion for you. Libertarianism is the mantra. But as to HOW specifically that society emerges, you wave your hands in the air and say - it'll all work out. Somehow. Have faith.

And as you may know, I'm not a religious person.

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 12:33 PM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Well rappy, if you can explain to me how such a government can exist without taxes, and how the kind of economy you want can exist without a currency and without a banking system, I'll read it. But not one of you supposed libertarians can seem to explain how the system you claim you want can function, and at the same time get you the kind of wealth you want to amass.

No one suggests there not be any taxes in the first place, so your premise is moot.

Quote:

It all comes down to a religion for you. Libertarianism is the mantra. But as to HOW specifically that society emerges, you wave your hands in the air and say - it'll all work out. Somehow. Have faith.

And as you may know, I'm not a religious person.

All govt is faith, to some degree. It's just a matter of how much freedom you want.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 12:47 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"No one suggests there not be any taxes in the first place, so your premise is moot."

NO ONE? Then why did you post this?

"A wise and frugal government ... shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. – Thomas Jefferson"

"All govt is faith, to some degree."

Really? Can you back that up with an example?

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:03 PM

America loves a winner!

You're gonna go w/ the idea that Jefferson literally believed that govt's weren't to tax the citizens at all ?

Good grief.

And the govt as faith is a self evident truth. You're born, you die. THAT much is certain. Whether you pay taxes or not, is up to you.

Hell, even a 'wanna-be' is far better than a dyed in the wool hard core socialist.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:05 PM

It's clear that people mean different things by libertarianism. As far as I can remember, Rap takes it to mean small government, little or no industry regulation, low taxes, user pays for services.

Frem is more of the anarchist libertarian, wants to reduce government power to as little as possible, preferring people to make local decisions.

CTS wanted a society that had no compulsory laws.

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
You're gonna go w/ the idea that Jefferson literally believed that govt's weren't to tax the citizens at all ?

Good grief.

And the govt as faith is a self evident truth. You're born, you die. THAT much is certain. Whether you pay taxes or not, is up to you.

yeah, taking people at their word would be nuts. Bit like taking the Second Amendment to mean NO regulation.

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:11 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Well, OK. You don't REALLY mean what you post, and at present you have no explanation for your statement that "All govt is faith, to some degree."

I have some things to do, and places to be, and people to see. If you think of something you can always post it later.

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:25 PM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
It's clear that people mean different things by libertarianism. As far as I can remember, Rap takes it to mean small government, little or no industry regulation, low taxes, user pays for services.

.

Little industry regulation, not " no ". I believe industries should self regulate, in conjunction w/ the govt.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:26 PM

What does that even mean?

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Sunday, July 14, 2013 11:35 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I'm sure he doesn't know. He can't explain his anti-tax quote of Jefferson, he can't explain what he means by all government being faith to some extent, and he can't explain what he means by little regulation/ self-regulation in conjunction with government.

Without the nuts-and-bolts explanation as to HOW this is all going to end up with the result he claims, I think we're just supposed to take it on faith. And anything to do with faith - looks like religion to me.

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Sunday, July 14, 2013 5:56 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

So, I know the stories of the baboons who became peaceable after the most dominant ones poisoned themselves on tainted meat, and the chimps who displayed severe dominance hierarchies only when fruit was piled in one spot rather than spread around are old hat - or should be.

But here's an interesting study that shows people behave in the EXACT SAME WAY when 'goods' are piled up as easily dominated money. And BTW, I think this spells the death knell for libertarianism. You simply can't have a society of individualistic money-grabbers who will be at the same time socially responsible and empathetic to others.

http://nymag.com/news/features/money-brain-2012-7/

How Money Makes People Less Human

The Money-Empathy Gap

... psychology has only recently begun seriously investigating how having money, that major marker of status in the modern world, affects psychosocial behavior in the species Homo sapiens. By making real people temporarily very affluent, without regard to their actual economic circumstances and within the controlled environment of a psych lab, the Berkeley researchers aim to demonstrate the potency of that one variable. “Putting someone in a role where they’re more privileged and have more power in a game makes them behave like people who actually do have more power, more money, and more status,” says Paul Piff, the psychologist who designed the experiment...

Earlier this year, Piff, who is 30, published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that made him semi-famous. Titled “Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior,” it showed through quizzes, online games, questionnaires, in-lab manipulations, and field studies that living high on the socioeconomic ladder can, colloquially speaking, dehumanize people. It can make them less ethical, more selfish, more insular, and less compassionate than other people. It can make them more likely, as Piff demonstrated in one of his experiments, to take candy from a bowl of sweets designated for children. “While having money doesn’t necessarily make anybody anything,” Piff says, “the rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people. It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.”

(T)hese researchers want to explore a timely question: How does living in an environment defined by individual achievement—measured by money, privilege, and status—alter a person’s mental machinery to the point where he begins to see the people around him only as aids or obstacles to his own ambitions? Piff won’t name a tipping point after which the personality transformation kicks in, only that his studies of ethical behavior indicate a strong correlation between high socioeconomic status and interpersonal disregard. It’s an “additive” effect; the fever line points straight up. “People higher up on the socioeconomic ladder are about three times more likely to cheat than people on the lower rungs,” he says.

Piff’s research also suggests that people who yearn to be richer or more prominent make different choices than those more content with their present level of material comfort. No matter how much money you actually have, you’re likelier to behave unethically if you check the “agree” box next to the following statement: “In order to be a successful person in this society, it is important to make use of every opportunity.”

If getting or having money can make you hard-hearted, do you also have to be hard-hearted to become well-off in the first place? The bulk of the new research points decisively in the direction of the former, says Kraus, who now works at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. “Just the idea of holding money can make people selfish.”

Piff’s most notorious research seemed to demonstrate the extent to which people with money behave as if the world revolves around them. ... A third of people who drove grade-five cars (expensive), Piff found, rolled into the intersection without first coming to a complete stop—a violation. “Upper-class drivers were the most likely to cut off other vehicles even when controlling for time of day, driver’s perceived sex, and amount of traffic.” When Piff designed a similar experiment to test drivers’ regard for pedestrians, in which a researcher would enter a zebra crossing as a car approached it, the results were more staggering. ... fully half the grade-five cars cruised right into the crosswalk. “It’s like they didn’t even see them,” Piff told me.

Two thousand miles away, in her lab at the University of Minnesota, Vohs does experiments indicating that merely thinking about money can decrease empathy. Over and over, Vohs has found that money can make people antisocial.

Last fall, another of Keltner’s students, a 27-year-old named Jennifer Stellar, made headlines. She tested the correlation between social class and compassion, using physiology, not behavior, as her measure. First, Stellar asked 65 Berkeley undergraduates to fill out questionnaires describing their family education and income levels. Then she hooked up each subject to a heart-rate monitor and showed him a pair of short videos: an instructional clip about how to build a backyard deck (this was the control) and an advertisement for St. Jude’s hospital, a facility that specializes in treating children with cancer. The ad shows young kids with chemotherapy-bald heads submitting to medical tests as if they were everyday occurrences, while their devastated parents try to be brave. It is, in nontechnical terms, a tearjerker.

In postscreening interviews, all the subjects said they found the St. Jude’s video moving. But compassion can also be empirically measured, because it manifests in facial expressions and a slowing of the heart rate. Looking at the data from the heart monitors, Stellar found a direct, negative correlation in biological terms between class and compassion. “Lower-class individuals showed greater heart-rate deceleration in response to the suffering of others,” Stellar wrote. The heart rates of the upper-class subjects generally did not change. When I met her, Stellar was careful, like Vohs, to stress that this upper-class numbness was not intentional. “It’s not, ‘I can see you’re suffering. I can tell. But I don’t care,’?” she explains. “They’re just not attuned to it.”

Public-health research has long shown that poverty can have devastating effects on the brain. At 3 years old, poor kids have vocabularies that are three times smaller than their better-off peers. Their memories do not work as well. In poor children, executive function is not as developed as it is in more affluent children, which means they have a harder time sorting and organizing information, planning ahead, and coping in the event of changed circumstances. Research by Robert Knight at Berkeley has shown that kids raised in a poor neighborhood are more likely to have frontal lobes—the area in the brain that enables attention and focus—that appear damaged.

Public-health research has long shown that poverty can have devastating effects on the brain. At 3 years old, poor kids have vocabularies that are three times smaller than their better-off peers. Their memories do not work as well. In poor children, executive function is not as developed as it is in more affluent children, which means they have a harder time sorting and organizing information, planning ahead, and coping in the event of changed circumstances. Research by Robert Knight at Berkeley has shown that kids raised in a poor neighborhood are more likely to have frontal lobes—the area in the brain that enables attention and focus—that appear damaged. A psychologist at Oregon’s Willamette University has discovered that when very young children are given headphones that play two different stories simultaneously, one in each ear, and are told to reiterate the story heard in the right ear, affluent and poor children perform equally well. But EEGs taken of the poor kids show that they have a harder time filtering out the extraneous stimulus.

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Friday, July 26, 2013 7:45 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Looked into here thinking Geezer would have posted some explanation of "libertarianism" seeing as he has been whining that "nobody understands".

Well, Geezer has not posted an explanation here either. Seems as if most of the so-called libertarians here (if not all) merely want to claim the title, but can't explain/ don't know WTF they're promoting.

*sniff! sniff*

Yep, catching a whiff of religion myself!

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Friday, July 26, 2013 2:09 PM