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Are there any true libertarians in here? I would like to debate you.

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
    I am curious about Sparko's preferences. Which would he choose,
    1) a world in which everyone is a good Christian or behaves like one but no state (purely a human creature) exists anywhere and
    2) the world in which there is one state and it is essentially the same kind as the best state in today's actual world but many people are not Christian?


    Is another question OK? Would you, Sparko, agree that the more Christian the people of the world are, it tends to be closer to the Christian ideal?


    Yet one more question? The more that the people of the world follow the NAP, the better the world becomes? [Note that the question didn't say anything about any state.]
    Truthseeker, I think maybe you are going about this the wrong way. Various thinkers (including non-libertarian) in history have easily agreed that if everyone were saints, then government would be unnecessary, but that we must have government because some people will commit crimes. And people tend to equate government and state, so they conclude that a state is necessary.

    Just because you get people to agree that in an ideal world of sinless people government would be superfluous and presumably non-existent, that alone doesn't mean they will agree that a state is unnecessary in the real world.
    Worse, by starting from this angle, you give people the wrong impression that libertarians are utopians.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      question for truthseeker:

      assuming we could convince everyone in the USA to become Libertarian, disband the State, and live entirely by Libertarian principals. No state, no taxes, no army, no government. What would happen to the USA in say 10 years?
      Note that earlier in the thread the distinction was made (from a libertarian perspective) between state and government. Libertarians want government. And the state is actually anti-government. No state doesn't mean no government. It also doesn't mean no army. Reading the classical liberals, including the U.S. founding fathers, they were opposed to a state army, but that didn't mean they wanted no armed forces.


      That being said, I don't think it's a good approach to try to convince someone of libertarianism by starting out trying to convince them to abolish the state. I personally would have been turned off by that approach. I was able to see that logical step only after becoming (incrementally over time) convinced of libertarianism on everything else.

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      • #33
        Just because I want the world to abolish the state (or all the states of the world) for whatever reasons I give, I am not being utopian. And one point you seem to have forgotten or have yet to get is that the state does not make things better than the putative alternative world in which no state exists anywhere, contrary to statist dreams. In particular, we should not ever expect the state to bring about Utopia eventually. Are not many people guilty of statolatry ("state" + "idolatry")? Why should I not try to bring them down to Earth?
        The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

        [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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        • #34
          Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
          Just because I want the world to abolish the state (or all the states of the world) for whatever reasons I give, I am not being utopian.
          I didn't say you are being utopian. I said that your method can give people the wrong impression that you are utopian.

          And one point you seem to have forgotten or have yet to get is that the state does not make things better than the putative alternative world in which no state exists anywhere, contrary to statist dreams.
          I'm not disagreeing with you on that. I'm questioning your method of persuasion.
          To someone who disagrees, the opposite seems obviously true. E.g. thinking it obvious that without a state we would be in a war of all against all, overrun by thieves and raiders, and then conquered by a foreign state. Thus having a state is obviously preferable to that. Despite the errors in such thinking, to someone coming from such a perspective, the burden of proof is on the person denying such seemingly obvious propositions. They will not easily be convinced of the idea that they bear the burden of proof.

          In particular, we should not ever expect the state to bring about Utopia eventually. Are not many people guilty of statolatry ("state" + "idolatry")? Why should I not try to bring them down to Earth?
          I think that will be an easier task by doing that gradually for individual topics. E.g. how price controls and minimum wage laws cause conditions even worse. After someone is equipped with a number of such examples, it will be easier for them to abstract away to the general reasons why state intervention makes things even worse. And then be able to use such general principles to reason about the state as a whole.

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          • #35
            I don't think it is utopian to challenge statists' implicit assumption that we can expect the State to make our world better than otherwise. And if a statist argues for something specific like setting the wage floor at $20 per hour, I challenge that assumption. I don't see that your objection really knocks that tactic all the way down.
            The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

            [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

            Comment

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