An Honest and Accurate libertarian Discussion Thread

Those are simple historical, legal definitional facts. If you want to start a thread on some vagaries of governing forms and then reply every four days, make a new thread. Done feeding you in this one.

 

Stefan Molyneux, I'm subscribed and enjoy his research work. He states he is an anarchist but can't seem to get away from his statist background. Also some of his work leans toward collectivism. I totally agree with his child rearing philosophy, non aggression.

But if you really want to enjoy a great lecture on natural law and the fallacy of government, then I would suggest Mark Passio's Natural Law Seminar / Natural Law the REAL Law of Attraction. It's a nine hour seminar he gave at the Yale Omni hotel in 2013. It is broken down into 3 3-hour videos.

 

They have been indoctrinated into the concept that anarchy is chaos. That thought is so deeply ingrained in the sheeple they can't reconcile the reality in their mind. This thread is a prime example, some wanting an anarchist environment but wanting to call it libertarian because of the stigma.

However, I must state that at this point the only path to anarchy or anything else is by way of chaos. I was sad when Trump elected as he is but going to extend the agony. Hitlerly would have triggered the change by this point.

At this point I am still waiting on a accurate discussion of libertarianism from certain posters that I respect.

 

Thanks a lot.

I believe I arrive at his lecture as already a believer. But it helps to keep hearing it over and over. The noise from the rest of the non freedom types gets worrisome and very loud. It is as if the cooks are all banging the pots. Or the convicts all bang their metal prison dishes. It helps to know others are actually sane.

 

My fight with the Democrats, aka the left, aka progressives, aka other dumb claims, commenced in 1980. So I have had this war for 37 years. Do I think Trump has blocked progress? Well, depends on progress. Do I think Hillary would have provoked all out war on Democrats? No I do not. Why not? Too few would do it. Anarchists by nature would just not use government. They would so locate to try to miss the noise made by Democrats.

 

You misunderstand my comment on Hitlerly. It is not that she would have provoked all out war on the blue team. She would have led this nation to the collapse that is needed to start the correction that leads to chaos followed by anarchy. Then the question is how long before the return to a republic and let's go round and round. I am prepared for chaos and would like to have seen anarchy in my lifetime but...

I was always neutral on the political front until Jimmy Carter. His election taught me there was some serious problem with this country. At the time I thought the problem to be Democrats but I came to discover there was no difference. It's all but two wings of the same bird.

I was also once a libertarian until I discovered that there were no different forms of government. It's all but one big circular proposition. The form is but where upon the circular path a particular population is currently experiencing. You can go all the way back to the Roman and Greek city states to see the circular effect as a result of two party systems.

 

I did not imagine you wanted her to go to war with Republicans.
This dialogue reminds me of a guy once on local radio by the name of Brian Wilson. A lot assumed he was the Beach Boy's Brian but the guy was smart. Clinton then was the president.

alas, what you crave has not come close to taking place.

I try my best to vote for the guys that fight the Democrats. To fight the entire nations is a bad tactic.

 

http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr11.txt

John Locke, the foremost authority on Natural Rights including the Natural Right of Property, established the criteria for taxation by government.

First and foremost that for the very existence of government taxation is voluntary based upon the will of the majority of the people and/or their representatives. Because taxation is voluntary it is not theft.

Next is that taxation must be "Proportionate to the estate." The "estate" is "assets minus liabilities" and only a "positive estate" can be taxed because a "negative estate" has no assets to fund the taxation. The taxation includes all forms of taxation by all levels of government and our "estate" is measured by "annual income minus necessary-mandatory expenditures" of the household. Basically any taxation at any level of government imposed on a household that has less income than the "minimum cost of living" is a nefarious tax because it's imposing taxation on a "negative estate" of the household.

I addressed this in a previous proposal for federal taxation where I used median income as the "cost of living" and then exempted the household from any income taxes up to "median income" to ensure that taxation was only being imposed on a "positive estate" under our income tax laws.

The tax rate on all income must be "proportionate to the (positive) estate" and that requires a single tax rate on all income, regardless of source, for every household on income above the cost of living.

Finally, the tax rate would have to be equal to or greater than the authorized expenditures to prevent the "theft of property" from future generations where they would be forced to fund our current expenditures.

It is "theft" if taxation is imposed on a negative estate (i.e. income below the necessary and mandatory cost of living).
It is "theft" if a person/household is taxed less than their proportionate share (i.e. at the same tax rate) on their "positive estate" (income above the necessary and mandatory cost of living).
It is "theft" if the authorized expenditures are not fully funded by the taxation.

Once again I addressed this in my prior federal income tax proposal where I established: 1) an exemption based upon median income to ensure that only a "positive estate" was being taxed; 2) created a single tax rate for all income regardless of source above the exemption to ensure that the tax was "proportionate to the estate", and:3) :Linked the tax rate to the relationship of "personal income relative to authorized expenditures" so that the tax rate would float up or down annually as necessary to fully fund the authorized expenditures eliminating deficit spending.

While I haven't taken the time to actually calculate the exact tax rate for 2017, based upon my prior calculations for 2013 when the tax rate would have been 29% and 2014 where it would have dropped to 24%, I'd estimate that the current tax rate for federal income taxes above "median income" would need to be about 30%. Based upon a 30% tax rate, and if we make a few general assumptions, we can see the differences between what we currently have and what we should have. For simplicity I'm going to assume a $50,000 median household income, a $70,000 average household income (that's above the median income), and some statistical information on household incomes.

A household with an income of less than $50,000 would pay no federal income taxes.

A household with an average income of $70,000 would pay $6,000 in federal taxes (i.e. 30% of $20,000).

Someone like Mitt Romney (because he released his tax returns) paid $1.9 million in taxes on more than $13 million in income in 2011 for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent but to be "proportionate" for 2017 the same household would pay $3.9 million in federal income taxes on $13 million in income.

The top 400 income households in America all have incomes exceeding $250 million per year and, based upon the most recent tax data I've seen, pay less than 18% in federal taxes or about $45 million on $250 million in income. To pay a proportionate tax would require the payment of $75 million in federal income taxes on $250 million.

The taxes in all four cases from zero taxes (on less than median income) to $6,000 in taxes (on $70,000 in average income) to $3.9 million in taxes (on $13 million in income) and finally to $45 million in taxes (on $250 million in income) are "affordable" and proportionate to the "estate" of the household.

The taxation would be voluntary if imposed by Congress and no theft would occur because the federal government would be fully funded based upon proportionate taxation of the "estate" of the people.

 

That's complete nonsense being promoted by the "Alt-Right" (i.e. the extremist right wing political ideologies including the White Nationalists/White Supremacists) that law enforcement had identified as being the greatest terrorist threat in the United States today.

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/...ger-threat-america-isis-jihadists-422743.html

That isn't to say that there isn't another significant threat to the United States based upon a recent study in 2015.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/02...stitution-christianity-national-religion.html

There is "social conservative" movement to abandon the secular government of the United States established under the Constitution and to impose a Christian Theocracy that is related to the White Nationalist/White (Christian) Supremacy movement that helped elect Donald Trump. I wouldn't classify these Republicans as being "violent" but their goal to overthrow the Constitutional government of the United States as established is clear. Fortunately they only represent about 15% of all Americans but they're certainly a far greater threat to America than Muslims in America (that they condemn) that represent less than 1% of the population.

In both cases the threat to America is coming from the "social conservative" Right and not from the "progressive liberals" of the Left.

That, of course, makes perfect sense based upon American history where the founders, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, et al were the most progressive liberals of their era. It was the "social conservative" White (Anglo Saxon Protestant Male) Nationalists/White (Anglo Saxon Protestant Male) Supremacists that opposed the implementation of the American ideology based upon secular government to protect the unalienable rights of the person. It's been a constant struggle between progressive liberalism to implement to ideology America was founded upon and social conservatism that fights against those changes.

Libertarianism itself is, by definition, progressive liberalism because it's based upon the Right of Liberty that is a highly progressive political ideology. Where a problem exist is when the self-proclaimed "libertarian" is an advocate for "License" as opposed to "Liberty" because the two are not the same. Liberty only allows the person to exercise their natural (unalienable/inalienable) rights while License allows a person to do anything they want so long as they don't adversely effect another specific person's rights (and sometimes it even allows that). "License" allows a person to violate the Laws of Nature but Liberty does not allow the person to violate the Laws of Nature.

Republicans advocate "license" and not "liberty" in their political ideology,

 

I'm curious. Is Locke, in your mind, the foremost authority because he came first? Does being the foremost authority make him right 100% of the time and any later discoveries in the philosophy of natural rights that contradict Locke, wrong? Is Adam Smith, being the foremost authority on economics, right about the labor theory of value?

Your appeal to authority undermines everything you write.

Taxes are right, you say, because Locke says they are right, and because you claim Locke to be the authority on this (your own subjective opinion), then taxes must be right.

This is just you trying to create more justifiable means in order to support your desired end. If taxes are proper and necessary, as you say, then there is no limit to how they might be exacted or used, and you cannot logically argue that there is a limit. I suspect you'll appeal to the authority of Locke, again, but that's like claiming God says in the Bible that taxes should be x% and no more or less. It's a giant and glaring fallacy.

 

Taxes are theft, period.

John Locke was the foremost authority on nothing. He wrote what you are trying to imply is some authority that was based on a complete fallacy. A fallacy that so completely ignored the history of conquest he had to write another book, Social Contract Theory to try and describe some mythical world in which the book, Second Treatise on Government had some validity. It didn't before and it didn't after.

But to stick to the fallacy of the Second Treatise on Government where in Chapter 2 Locke put forth a philosophy of Natural Rights and in Chapter 5 Locke puts forth the rights of property to only philosophize in Chapter 11 that man is really a slave trapped by mob rule.

So let's put all this in perspective. Locke is but another philosopher no different than Kant or Hegel. Locke was just another statist. Even though he spoke out about the power of a monarch, he still supported same as being appointed by god. His whole works was about the modification of the powers of the monarch by the use of a legislature.

His whole thought pattern was of the society being bound by coercion for a persons consent to be taxed. And this thread is about a discussion on libertarianism not your bent theory on theft by government.

But just to amuse you for a moment, those mystical being in black robes have on multiple occasions declared the income tax by Amendment XVI:

1) Does not include any new form of taxation;

2) Is completely voluntary.

 

By "Alt-Right" are you referring to anybody that disagrees with your narrow view of the world? But the statement you are trying to imply goes to some "Alt-Right" thing is totally false. It is an original statement by me based on an epistemology within the metaphysics of today's world of ethics of politics without the intervention of moral relativism.

Now while in your world the election of Hitlerly may have posed a world of roses and honey, the reality of the situation would have thorns and crap. While we are here in reality, I would have cherished the prospect of a Hitlerly win as the inevitable has been delayed long enough. The longer we wait, the worse the consequences, the further into the future generations the effects will be felt.

As to your little liberal rag reference, still in reality here, are the intelligent people as you will eventually discover, rather unpleasantly and painfully I might add.

Another progressive liberal rag reflecting a total disconnect from reality. I would suggest you try reading Article V of the constitution. That Christian thing could be a reality especially after Hitlerly, Shultz, Odumbo, Comey, Lynch and others all go to jail or face the firing squad as traitors.

But what I like about your article:

Two totally debunked political statements with no basis in any science. However by your source it is the unfettered belief of the ignorant masses that should dominate.

Another misguided statement. Your list of founders were so at odds but you group them all together. You have no clue that Jefferson and Paine were at opposite ends of the spectrum from Hamilton, Washington was one big puppet, Madison wanted to be with Jefferson but didn't really have a clue and Franklin was one big crook that made a fortune on his manipulations of the Northwest Treaty. And by the way, Jefferson was in Paris during the writing of the Constitution.

What a far fetched opinion, somewhat along the lines of Alice in Wonderland.

 

I didn't define Alt-Right but instead paid attention when the Alt-Right defined itself..

The "Alt-Right" was merely the rebranding of White Nationalism/White Supremacy/Neo-Nazi ideologies in an attempt to nnefariously pass them off as a "acceptable" political ideology. Regardless of the claimed originality the statement made is virtually identical to the "dismantling of our Government" advocated by Alt-Right supporters like Steve Bannon. It's also illogical to hold a believe that today's liberals, no matter how far their agenda might have strayed, represents a threat to a nation founded upon classical liberalism. The threat to our nation, founded upon liberalism, has always been from the "conservatives" that have consistently refused to accept the liberal nature of our national founding.

Not in my world. I'm not a Democrat and disagree many positions that are inherent in the agenda of the Democrats. In fact it was the conservative editorial boards across the nation that rejected Donald Trump and several, such as the stanchly conservative Arizona Republic, endorse Hillary Clinton not because they agreed with her political agenda but instead because she had the necessary prerequisites to be an effective president. As we've seen so far they were correct because Donald Trump has been a "cluster-(*)(*)(*)(*)" as a president which is why his approval rating has dropped to 33% this week.

This is simply too far off the "Deep End" to even respond to. Might I suggest not reading Breitbart news or Republican propaganda quite so much.

The ideological founders evolved into two primary groups, the Federalists (most represented by Madison and Hamilton that authored the Federalist Papers) and the Anti-Federalists that aligned themselves around those like Jefferson but both sides agreed upon the following First Principles.

http://www.americassurvivalguide.com/americas-first-principles.php

Please note that the First Principle of limited government does not establish a "small" government but instead establishes that the government must be large enough and powerful enough to protect the unalienable rights of the people/person. Advocates for small or minimalistic government. such as Republicans and most libertarians, ignore the fact that a minimalistic government is incapable of protecting the rights of the people/person.

Yes, Jefferson was in Paris as the Ambassador to France when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were created with James Madison providing the primary guidance. Jefferson was highly respected by Madison and we can note that the Bill of Rights was based upon the Anti-Federalist arguments. Freedom of Religion and the prohibition against the establishment of religion, that Madison included in the First Amendment, was based upon Jefferson's arguments as an Anti-Federalist. This connection is noted in the 1878 Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v United States.

Obvious ignorance of the Second Treatise of Civil Government by John Locke. Might I suggest that you spend the next ten years studying it (about the right amount of time required to actually understand what Locke is saying) and then get back to me with an intelligent opinion.

http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.htm

 

Locke is cited as a reference because of his logical construction of the arguments for taxation.

If the payment is voluntary based upon the person's authorization, either directly or indirectly through their representative, then it's not theft.

Math dictates that only a positive number can yield a positive result You can't tax negative assets because there's nothing there to provide the funding to pay the tax. Only "profits" (I.e. assets in excess of liabilities) can be taxed.

If taxation is not proportionate to the estate (assets minus liabilities) then the one paying the higher proportionate amount is having their assets unfairly taken from them.

Deficit spending is imposing a tax burden upon the people/person in the future without their consent.

Taxes to fund spending is limited by the necessity for the spending that must be established by compelling argument and then approved by the representatives of the people.

None of these arguments are based upon an appeal to authority but instead they're all based upon logical deduction where there happens to the a recognized authority that also made these arguments.

John Locke was the first person to fully present the compelling arguments for the natural rights of the people/person in a concise and systematic manner. There has been a evolution of Locke's arguments but only at what I'd term the "effects" level and not at the "cause" level of those arguments. For example Locke proposes that capital punishment is acceptable based upon the will of the people but no one has a "right of revenge" under natural law. Authority can only be delegated if the people/person have that authority to begin with and the people/person can only be granted that authority by nature. Nature does not grant a "right of revenge" based upon the laws of survival of the species.

I'm unaware of any re-definition of the foundation for natural rights based upon the natural laws of survival of the species. What I have seen are proposals for "natural rights" that lack the foundation in natural law and that contradict natural law. Often these proposals are put forward based upon a misinterpretation/misrepresentation, intentional or unintentional, of Locke's arguments based upon natural law.

For example in addressing the Natural Right "Of Property" that Locke covers in Chapter 5 we find that Locke establishes that "Title" is the recognition of the "Right to Possess" but does not establish the "Right to Possess" itself. The "right to possess" is an Unalienable/Inalienable Right established by the person and by definition Unalienable/Inalienable Rights are non-transferrable. When property changes hands the recipient the "right to possess" the property is not transferred. The "right to possess" must be established by the recipient before they gain "title" (the recognition of the right to possess) to the property.

The point being that no one has ever put forward an argument that debunks the foundation for Locke's arguments based upon the natural law of survival of the species.

 

It is not the definition that was at question. The real question was the lack of knowledge in the application of that definition as a result of clouded judgement. A cloud were anyone not agreeing with your narrow view of something would be deemed as on another extreme such as your following statement:

Here I agree with BleedingHeadKen, your constant use of the Appeal to Authority fallacy. A fallacy aggravated by your lack of understanding of the authority you are trying to use. Like here where you fail to understand that you have more in common with those you purport to oppose than with those you pretend to be. Your commonality hinges around the concept of moral relativism and solipsism.

As I said, in your world the election of Hitlerly would be viewed as a world of roses and honey instead of the reality of thorns and crap. It seems from the history of your posts that you are more what you say you are not than you want to believe. Again your appeal to authority while not understanding that to which you have appealed. You try to use that appeal to show some difference when in reality the only difference is the means used to arrive at the same ends.

Here I have to agree, that progressive rag you used as another plea to authority was off the deep end. But to think you used that reference without understanding what it contained is no surprise on any part but perhaps your own. But I would suggest you not read Brietbart as it would leave you totally confused without being told a conclusion.

You may suggest anything you like, it has no meaning to me one way or the other. Repulseacon propaganda, Dumbocrap propaganda, what is the difference?

Again an appeal to authority with no clear thoughts of your own. An appeal that begins with a false statement. And you want others to believe that because you were duped they should follow suit. But then from their opening statement they start inserting statements that could be attributed to the likes of Locke and Blackstone that still leads to the same false conclusion that I believe is best attributed to:

Again having another think for you. A government large enough to "protect" is large enough to "take" rights. It has been so and will always be so. Govern from the Latin verb gubernare: to control, the illusion of authority. Authority is an illusion of a diseased psyche, based entirely in violence and built upon the erroneous dogmatic belief that some people are masters who have the moral right to issue commands, and others are the slaves that have the moral obligation to obey the masters, the concept of the "social contract". This is the creed of the coward, one needing others to do what they are incapable of doing themselves, protect.

Again a plea to authority, one that makes perfectly clear the tyranny in the design of the constitution by the founding crooks. In the infamous words of Patrick Henry, "I smell a rat". This from a man that knew the people involved along with their true intentions.

Funny that you should have chosen some source that chose that case, which I doubt you have ever read, because the opinion of those mystical beings in black robes is the exact opposite of what you are trying to imply.

Ignorance, to ignore that which is available to be known. A very apt definition and to think that after 10 years you are still ignorant of what Locke wrote, even if we were to confine that to the single document, Second Treatise of Civil Government. But to put the second into perspective one needs to address the fist where Locke attacks Robert Filmer’s "Patriarcha" as being vile and evil only to restate that same evil in a different manner by the consent of the governed by the social contract.

 

No, you called him the "foremost authority".

There is an implicit threat of violence against the taxpayer and so it is not voluntary. It is coerced by those threats. That does not mean, however, that one cannot decide for one's self that the payment is acceptable and they are not victimized. it is always the potential victim who chooses whether they were victimized or not.

The only political advantage to fairness is that those who feel they are unfairly treated might revolt. However, there's no objective moral reason for fair taxation and fairness doesn't make it any less or more theft.

Yet, if they consent to it in the future, then no problem. The current taxpayers consent to previous deficits as much as they do taxation, so what's the problem? They haven't revolted or torn up Locke's social contract, so they appear to consent.

Why must it be?

It's all mysticism. "Musts" and "shoulds" and "fair" are normatives. The universe doesn't care what a government does. God, if one exists, doesn't seem to care. So let's get to the real logic. Government exists by force. It takes what it will take and you can *hope* that it will limit itself and act fairly. Even if it does, it is still using violent coercion to get what it gets and none of your mystical arguments and musts/shoulds/fairs changes the nature of the theft.

Rand, Rothbard, Chodorov,Hoppe, Spooner, etc. would beg to differ.

There is no "will of the people". That's rhetoric that falls apart when each person is looked at as an individual.

And, yet, somehow the "right to possess" belongs to the will of the majority, because if 50%+1 vote to take it, then you are "consenting" to give it up.

That wasn't my purpose. My purpose was to point out that your arguments for taxation, which are Locke's arguments for taxation, are a leap of faith from his source of rights to a mystical legitimacy of government power to take the product of people's labor regardless of their consent. The "will of the people" is a farce; there is only the will of the individual.

 

Brilliant. Yet, somehow, if 50%+1 of those enfranchised to participate and who do participate decide that something is "fair" then, by some mystical ritual as set down by Locke and steeped in the ink of the legislator's pen, it becomes legitimate and righteous.

 

Then it's a good thing I don't believe in the philosophy of Locke or democracy which is nothing more than the failure of republican. My beliefs are more in line with Lysander Spooner or Chris Lysander (real name Chris Snyder). I don't care if everyone on earth believes one way and I believe another, I will defend my right to be different.

Also, within the scope of Locke, he was a very confused man that keep creating fallacies in his work. Just within the Second Treatise on Civil Government, he went from a great dissertation on natural rights into a cry for slavery without so much as a thought on the transition.

 

Interesting thread, I've got a couple of questions if you -- or other libertarians -- are still answering them.

What do you see as the difference between libertarianism as a philosophy, and the U.S. Libertarian party?

What is the libertarian stance on the dangers of an unrestrained free market? I.e., does government have a place in breaking up monopolies, in preventing market crashes, in stopping dishonest lending practices from ruining the economy for everyone? I'm sure there are a range libertarian stances on this as with every issue, can you give me the big ones?

On the first or second page, the concept of the public good was brought up by way of explaining how a libertarian society would justify its military, police force, and courts, as well as possible other public-good programs supported by the majority. Possibly with opt-outs for those willing to give up the benefit of this or that public good, in exchange for not paying taxes toward it. My question is: What's the difference between a libertarian society as you see it, and a democracy with popular (and possibly opt-out) public-good programs?

Have you read any of Iain M. Banks' Culture-universe novels?

If these questions have already been addressed in the last 27 pages, feel free to simply link me, thanks.

EDIT: Dammit, what's the BBcode for tagging people? Oh well.

 

A political party has the primary purpose of running candidates for office. It is also run almost entirely democratically, so it's a conglomeration of information across a wide spectrum of libertarian and libertarian-leaning interests.

Natural monopolies do not arise in free markets. In fact, I'd challenge you to find one that has ever arisen and lasted more than a few years and which caused problems for consumers. Government is the largest monopoly, and a source of monopoly power for private interests.

As for dishonest lending practices, it is government that controls the money supply through the Federal Reserve. Economy-wide crashes only happen because of government intervention, and creating these huge bubbles is a result of monetary manipulation by the central bank. A central bank doesn't exist in a free market and lenders are restrained by their willingness to take risks with their depositors money.

The core of the libertarian philosophy is that it is wrong to initiate aggression against peaceful people for any reason. If there's a problem that must be solved, and it doesn't involve violence (e.g. murder, theft, fraud, etc.) then the solution must also be peaceful. Since government and its police powers are founded upon violence, it is not a good solution to most, if any, problems.

 

So the everyone on the border/coasts would subsidize the people who live in the interior, who would the free ride, because they can get the benefit of military protection without paying anything.

 

So the defense insurance company is going to sell people’s private information to other parties against that person’s will?

 

The defendant is rich and pays a bodyguard/private security company to ensure he never sees a day in court.

What happens then?

 

You realize you are talking about two groups with large scale external support from statists who both engage in forced conscription at gun point and use atrocities against civilians to keep them in fear and from supporting the occupiers, yes?

 

Locke also had a seriously Eurocentric view when it came to land being unused/used. That view actively encouraged discrimination and theft of property from herder and Hunter/gatherer societies just because they were using that land for farming or mining.