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Nice flash animation about freedom

Malachi151 said:


Anda parent... who may be a shoe salesman, if to make that decision, instead of a doctor?

Here is a better one. Let's say that there is an outbreak of a contagous disease and you decide that you don't want to have anyone in your family vacccinated against it, but by doing so you pose a risk to other people because you are then a possible carrier and spread of the disease.

So who's "liberties" take prioristy? Do you force the person to become vaccinated? Do you allow then not to become vaccinated but tell them they have to stay in solitary confinemnt? (in which case you are still forcing them to do something) or do you do nothing and then have then exist as a threat to the community?

Military draft is the same issue. 69% of all Americans that fought in WWII were drafted. Many did not want to fight, many thought that the Germans wee the good guys.

Now, in a situation like that if they choose not to fight then they put other people at risk. Do they have that choice?

To put it on more simple terms. A person is trapped under a car, it required 5 people to lift the car to save the person inside. 3 people are ready to help, the other 2 decide they don't want to. Do they have the "right" to allow someone else to die because they don't want to help them? War can be essentially the same situation. Were Americans in WWII improperly forced against their will to fight to save the world from fascist domination?

Libertarianism is a load of crap.

So is communism but that's not the point of my response.


If a person poses a risk to other his rights that person needs to be contained (i.e. a mental patient).

Anyone can get out of a draft with a reasonable excuse, so yes, they have a choice.

Unless those 2 people put that person under that car there are not responsible for getting that person from under that car. Yes it would be the right and human thing to do, but if they want to be a-holes like that it's their right.
 
Wouldn't the land in such a case belong to the natives? In many if not most cases, land was acquired either with the consent of the natives or was purchased from them. I know that fact flies in the face of the current politically-correct view of the situation, but that's still largely the way it happened from the very beginning. The very first attempt to establish a colony in the New World in the late 1500's was at Roanoke, and the very first thing they did was establish peaceful relations with the nearby Croatan tribe.

More fantasy.

No it was not the first attempt by any means.

The first known attempts were by the Vikings, after that the Spanish colonies in the Carribean and Florida.

The facts are quite obvious at this point are they not? About 95% of all native ethnic groups in the Americas are now extinct, a few tribes line in North America on reservations, they represent a very small protion of the origional tribes though, most of which were killed off one way or another.

The truth is that the Natives in most places were friendly at first, but after being taken advantage of they typically turned to violence. The Croatans are now extinct in fact, so little good it did them to be freindly.

If totally "fair" treatment were given to the Natives then the United States would not even exist today.

The majority of land in the US was NOT purchased from Indians, it was taken by force, fraud, or threat of force. Even most of the "sales" of land were sales where the Natives had no choice, it was either sign this contract of sale and get something in return, or we will simply kill you all.

When sales did take place, how does that still even figure into a "libertarian" view? How does the "chief" of the tribe have the right to make a contract that will then result in him getting something in exchange , the rest of the people got nohting and they may have not agreed to the exchange.

Take the purchase of Long Island for example. A few trinkets worth virtually nothing were traded for land because the Natives didn't really understand what it was they were doing and they were initially amazed by something new, which after a few days they realized was pretty much worthless. Again you also have the fact that Natvies had never used alcohol before and were easy to get drunk, which whites typically did and then made deals with them. How exactly is that fair? They "agreed" to sell someting, while incoherent because they have a chemical suceptability to alcohol. Yeah, that's real "libertarian" values for you.

Obviously the Natives got a totally raw deal on virtually everything. If they didn't they would still be here.

The fact of the matter is that all of human civilization and all progress has come at the expense of the majority of people's liberties.

The modern world would not exist without infringement on people's liberties. The only way for a truely libertarian society to exist is one where there is no human interaction at all, and even then you would have to deal with the natural world, which would infrince on your liberties, like lions trying to eat you and such.
 
Grammatron said:

Anyone can get out of a draft with a reasonable excuse, so yes, they have a choice.

LOL, yeah, that's why people either fled to Canada or got shipped off to Vietnam or went to jail... or pulled politcal strings...

Its still totally evading the point though. None of the libertarian diatribe holds up to serious scrutiny. Its a fantasy for people living in a fantasy world.
 
Tony said:



It is to commu-fascists like you, libertarianism and freedom stand in the way of people like you implementing your extreme authoritarian ideology.

LOL, what an idiot. If you can point to anything authoritarian I've ever promoted I'll give you a cookie.
 
Malachi151 said:
Anda parent... who may be a shoe salesman, if to make that decision, instead of a doctor?

I never said instead of a doctor. Can it with the strawmen.
 
Malachi151 said:


LOL, what an idiot. If you can point to anything authoritarian I've ever promoted I'll give you a cookie.


Communism and taxes come to mind.
 
Earthborn said:
I believe that children should be protected against the latests health scrares and should be treated with the best care science has to offer.

Well, this statement proves the Babylon 5 adage: While all answers are replies, not all replies are answers.

You are basically asking to do your own medical experiments on your children.

No, I'm not. I'm simply asserting the right not to have a possibly harmful medical procedure forced on my children by the government.

If you are not an expert in these matters, and haven't researched the issue fully; no, I don't think you should have that right.

And since when is the government an expert?

It requires a government-like institute that covers both sides in order to even start to talk about property.

And when have I ever denied that?

But after a while and a lot of misunderstandings between the two sides, things can get really out of hand.

Which is what happened at Roanoke. But that doesn't say anything about the recognition of the natives by the colonists.

One side may get the upper hand, stop recognizing the other as humans and start to clear pieces of land of them for their own benefit.

That actually is what happened at Roanoke, but in the opposite way you're portraying it. It was the Powhatan, a violent tribe who were enemies of the Croatan, who began attacking the settlers because they saw their alliance as a thread (amazing how some things seem universal). By the time John White returned, there was no colony left; most of them were killed, and the remaining survivors apparently assimilated by the Croatans.

So, did the Powhatans recognize the colonists as people with rights?

Please repeat it if you will.

There's a whole thread on it. Look for the thread on the Tragedy of the Commons.
 
Malachi151 said:
More fantasy.

No it was not the first attempt by any means.

The first known attempts were by the Vikings, after that the Spanish colonies in the Carribean and Florida.

Those weren't in the late 1500's. Read my post again.

The Croatans are now extinct in fact, so little good it did them to be freindly.

They were all killed by the Powhatan, not by white men. Bad example.

The colonists had little problems with sharing the land with the Indian tribes. It was government that caused the trouble.

The only way for a truely libertarian society to exist is one where there is no human interaction at all,

You've already been corrected on this several times. Please do not repeat this lie any further.
 
Malachi151 said:
Its still totally evading the point though. None of the libertarian diatribe holds up to serious scrutiny. Its a fantasy for people living in a fantasy world.

How is a draft a part of a Libertarian society? Libertarians are opposed to the draft. How can you claim that something is a "fantasy" when it's obvious you don't know the first thing about it?
 
Tony said:



Communism and taxes come to mind.

What about communism and what about taxes? I've said repeatdly that I don't agree with communist ideology. The only thing I have said about it is that communist ideology is much different than what has been protryed in American propaganda during the Cold War, ie.e from 1945 to today essentially. Most American have a misconception about what Communist ideology actually is, because their views of Communism are nothign more than Cold War propaganda.

What about taxes? I think that any modern econmically driven society has to use taxes to fund public programs, and I agree that public programs are an essential part of civilization. What else? I think that taxes are too low on the wealthy and too high on the poor and Middle Class. So? Lots of people agree with that, and in fact our tax structure is regressive and the most regressive it has ever been in American history asside from the 1920s, whcih led to the Great Depression.....
 
shanek said:


How is a draft a part of a Libertarian society? Libertarians are opposed to the draft. How can you claim that something is a "fantasy" when it's obvious you don't know the first thing about it?

Exactly, I SAID that libertarians ar opposed to the draft that IS the point. I support the draft in time of democratically supported need. If not for the American draft Hitler would have won WWII, and the South would have won the Civil War.
 
shanek said:

They were all killed by the Powhatan, not by white men. Bad example.

The colonists had little problems with sharing the land with the Indian tribes. It was government that caused the trouble.

http://www.native-languages.org/lumbee.htm

History: The Lumbee don't entirely understand why people persist in calling the Roanoke colony the "Lost Colony," since they left an explicit note telling where they were going (Croatan, the lands of some friendly Cheraw Indians) and since the descendents of the Croatan Cheraw were found some 50 years later speaking English, practicing Christianity, and sporting about 75% of the last names the colonists had brought with them. By all accounts, though, those descendents--who called themselves "Lumbee" Indians, after the river running through their traditional lands--were mixed-race, so mixed-race they were not sent to Oklahoma with the other Native Americans of North Carolina in the 1820's and 30's. North Carolina was not the most pleasant place to live in the 19th century if your skin was dark, though, and increasing violence against Lumbees and free mulattos set the stage for the Lumbee folk hero Henry Berry Lowrie in the 1860's. Called the "Indian Robin Hood" by some, Lowrie, enraged by the assault and murder of his family, spent the next decade wreaking vigilante justice on those who harassed Indians and stealing supplies to give to the disenfranchised. He was never caught, and his legend--brave, proud, dangerous when provoked, and above all else free--remains a powerful tribal metaphor.

Timeline:

http://www.lumbee.org/history2.htm

As for "government", what do you think governement is? Its is made up of people. The Colonists WERE the government.

Obviously the colonists had some major problems with sharing the land with the Natives, that's why the banded together to take action against them.
 
shanek's problem is that he is ultimately pro-establishment but does not realize that the establishment get's its power from the antithisis of his own ideology.

According to his own ideology we would all still be in the stone ages, yet at the same time he supports the power structure that has been created through the means in opposition to his own beliefs.
 
No, I'm not. I'm simply asserting the right not to have a possibly harmful medical procedure forced on my children by the government.
Call it whatever you want. It still means that you pretend to know better than hundreds of government experts who actually have studied the subject, and have the specific job to protect people.

If you object to 'performing medical experiments on your kids' maybe 'practicing a medical profession without a license' is more to your liking.
And since when is the government an expert?
The government isn't an expert, it has experts. Because politicians are in the job of weighing many different sides of issues, they don't always listen well enough to the right experts (concerning healthcare they often listen too much to economists and too little to doctors), but it still beats having to make such decisions by yourself based on newspaper articles.
And when have I ever denied that?
No, you haven't. I am just stating it very clearly again.
So, did the Powhatans recognize the colonists as people with rights?
Apperently not.
There's a whole thread on it. Look for the thread on the Tragedy of the Commons.
You mean this one?

In it you don't make clear at all how you think the fundamental problem should be solved. You even manage to misrepresent it. The only thing that comes close to giving a Libertarian is this:
There are still methods of dividing them up. They aren't "fundamentally common."
This is true: commons can be divided up so each person needs to care for their own portion of it. It is even possible to do this with the air to regulate airpollution: tradeable emission rights. A rational and smart solution, however... Like all property, it is ultimately enforced and defined by some sort of government.

In the Netherlands we have a ridiculous amount of livestock: millions of cows, pigs, chickens, etc... All these animals produce manure, and to manage it the government sets quotas, which are basically tradeable emission rights. The free trade of these rights prevents the Tragedy of the Commons (to some degree) and prevents The Netherlands from becoming one steaming pile of poo. I cannot think of a more Libertarian solution to this problem.

It is also exactly the type of government interference farmers complain most about... Can you think of a solution that requires less government interference?
 
Malachi151 said:

The Lumbee are not the Croatan, though. Just as the survivors from the Powhatan attack were assimilated by the Croatan, after the Croatan were attacked by the Powhatan the survivors were assimilated into the remnants of some Cheraw and Sioux. They live in a different area, over 100 miles from Roanoke, in the mainland of NC. Although the state of NC officially recognizes them as a tribe, the US government refuses to do so, although lobbying continues.

Most of this is speculation. We know that there were white influences with the Lumbee, both genetically and culturally, and it stands to reason that they must have been descendents from the Lost Colony at Roanoke. When John White left the colony to go to England to replenish their supplies, he told them that if they had to abandon the colony they were to carve the name of the location in a tree. He was delayed from returning for six years due to a war between Britain and Spain, and when he finally managed to return he found carcasses of many of the colonists, killed by Indians (presumably the Powhatan), and the work Croatan carved into a tree. The thing is, Croatan is the name of an island as well as an Indian tribe. Britain refused to finance an effort to search for them, andby the time White managed to get the resources to search for them on his own several years had passed. When he went to Croatan island, he found no one. So it's presumed that the remaining colonists were assimilated into the Croatan, and that is where the white influences of the Lumbee come from.

Don't mess with me on this subject...I live here! :D

As for "government", what do you think governement is? Its is made up of people. The Colonists WERE the government.

That's bull$#!7 and everyone here knows it.
 
Malachi151 said:
shanek's problem is that he is ultimately pro-establishment

:rolleyes:

That's the first time I've ever been accused of that...

According to his own ideology we would all still be in the stone ages,

More of your bull$#!7. I've been advocating the "ideology" that lets technological and scientific advances flourish.

yet at the same time he supports the power structure

Do you know anything about my stance on the issues?
 
Earthborn said:
Call it whatever you want. It still means that you pretend to know better than hundreds of government experts

"Government experts"??? How clueless can you get!!!

I'll choose my own experts, thank you very much. I refuse to accept that choice as being forced on me.

If you object to 'performing medical experiments on your kids' maybe 'practicing a medical profession without a license' is more to your liking.

Now this is coming dangerously close to libel! When have I EVER advocated this??? I want to be able to make the choice based on the advice of whichever medical professional I choose! That is IN NO WAY "practicing a medical profession without a license!" And I ask that you publicly retract this accusation of a felony.

The government isn't an expert, it has experts.

And so does the free market. Why should my choice of experts be forced on me, especially when it's the heath of MY children that's at stake?

but it still beats having to make such decisions by yourself based on newspaper articles.

:rolleyes:

I'm basing this decision on what the DOCTORS WHO HAVE EXAMINED AND TREATED MY SON told me!!!


Oops, no. That one was fairly worthless. Try this one.

This is true: commons can be divided up so each person needs to care for their own portion of it. It is even possible to do this with the air to regulate airpollution: tradeable emission rights. A rational and smart solution, however... Like all property, it is ultimately enforced and defined by some sort of government.

And again, I have never denied that. Take that point up with an anarchist, not a Libertarian.
 
"Government experts"??? How clueless can you get!!!
So aren't these people experts, or don't they work for the government?
I'll choose my own experts, thank you very much.
On what criteria do you base your choice on? Are you able to judge the expertise of them yourself? If so, how?
I'm basing this decision on what the DOCTORS WHO HAVE EXAMINED AND TREATED MY SON told me!!!
Alright, I'll retract what I said about you performing medical experiments or practicing without a license.

Do those doctors keep up with latest research?
Oops, no. That one was fairly worthless. Try this one.
That one wasn't much better. No where did I see you give a solution to the Tragedy of the Commons. In between the mud-slinging between different debaters, few actual arguments were made. You made a few proposterous claims, like the idea that free market companies stopped making asbestos when it was discovered that it was dangerous, and I showed you that its harmfull effects were known thousands of years before. Or the claim that free market companies don't pollute their own land (I'm sure they are less likely to if they know that government regulations are going to be enforced).
And again, I have never denied that. Take that point up with an anarchist, not a Libertarian.
I think you don't try hard enough to differentiate yourself from anarchism. You can start by telling us what you think of tradeable emission rights: 'Libertarian Solution' or 'Unfair Government Intervention'.
 

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