Why Communism is Wrong.

[lomiller]

Seems you just proved lomiller's point - you punt on the question of what level of regulation is actually required by leaving it up to the individuals involved. But isn't this what already happens in a properly working democracy? Wouldn't the result be much the same as what we have now, with most people agreeing that regulation is required at almost every level to ensure that serious problems don't occur? And isn't it true that these regulations proved to be necessary because in the past we did have a default position of no regulation?

The truth is, Libertarianism is directly comparable to Anarchy because they expect us to dismantle the safeguards we have in place now and then rebuild them 'incrementally on a case by case basis' (after the damage has been done of course).
Sorry, but I don't think this is the kind of experiment we can afford to do on a nationwide basis, which means it will forever be held dear by those who seek to replace practical reality with a fantasy.

Exactly.

The regulations currently in place WERE added on a case by cases basis under strict scrutiny because a need for them existed. If you want to remove them it likewise needs to be done on a cases by case basis with the same level of scrutiny, not because of some blanket claim that less regulation is better.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Exactly.

The regulations currently in place WERE added on a case by cases basis under strict scrutiny because a need for them existed. If you want to remove them it likewise needs to be done on a cases by case basis with the same level of scrutiny, not because of some blanket claim that less regulation is better.

I think the fact that government is never going to give up power it has obtained voluntarily is enough to make a... force of some kind pushing back viable.

The government doesn't need us to tell it to take more power, it's gonna do that on it's own. So it doesn't need a spokesman for that side, if that makes any sense.

Listen I'm not stupid. I know how much the trolls have taken over libertarianism in the last few years.

But as a simple political idea of "At every choice we make let's ask 'Can we accomplish this with an equal or greater of freedom as we have now?'" is a good thing. Fair?

 

[lomiller]

Ah I can already see the "U just tink all socailiazism is communism!" is the only card you have in your deck.

On the contrary, what you are struggling with is the distinction between social democracy and socialism.

A libertarian and an anarchist are going to disagree on how much power the government should have; ranging from limited to "non-existent."

A socialist and a communist are going to disagree on whether or not the government's power is altruistic or not more than some raw "amount of."

You are describing a spectrum that is utter nonsense. Except possibly for anarchists, all of these agree that government has the power to make any rule it wants and in theory only disagree on what rules are actually required.

I just think the slope from that to telling me how large of a soda I'm allowed to buy is just as slippery, no more, not less, from "don't tell me how large of a soda to buy" to "LOL who will pave the roads?"

What makes you think you ever get to choose to buy whatever sized soda you want? At best all you ever get to do is choose between the sizes that are being offered. What makes you think you should be able to dictate to someone else what sizes they should offer you?

Of course what you are really questioning here is whether governments should restrict what sizes can be offered. Fundamentally it's no different than questioning whether any product can be put up for sale, and anarchists aside, most people agree there are reasons why some products should not be sold for a variety of reasons. Feel free to debate whether this particular one should be or not with someone else because I'm not really interested.

 

[lomiller]

I think the fact that government is never going to give up power it has obtained voluntarily is enough to make a... force of some kind pushing back viable.

If libertarians say that some regulations are required then by definition they think government has the power to create and enforce regulations.

The relevant question isn't "if government can" it's "should it do so in this particular case". Rightly or wrongly, in a democracy this will always come down to whether people want to the government to do it, not whether the government can do it or not.

 

[JoeMorgue]

What makes you think you ever get to choose to buy whatever sized soda you want? At best all you ever get to do is choose between the sizes that are being offered. What makes you think you should be able to dictate to someone else what sizes they should offer you?

The whole "Tell me what size soda I can buy" isn't some crazy hypothetical I made up for this argument. New York has been trying it damnest to get that law on the books for years.

And Bloomberg isn't some crazy party outsider. He's mainstream.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The relevant question isn't "if government can" it's "should it do so in this particular case". Rightly or wrongly, in a democracy this will always come down to whether people want to the government to do it, not whether the government can do it or not.

Well then why have all this goddamn little political fiefdoms we have to spend 90% of a discussion defining the "true" version of then?

If everything is defined as the "Will of the people" what meaningful distinction does libertarian or socialist or pomeranian do in the discussion?

 

[BobTheCoward]

Exactly.

The regulations currently in place WERE added on a case by cases basis under strict scrutiny because a need for them existed. If you want to remove them it likewise needs to be done on a cases by case basis with the same level of scrutiny, not because of some blanket claim that less regulation is better.

But I don't claim it will make things better. I claim they will make things worse, but we still need to do it to have legitimate government.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

The fastest, highest performance sports cars also have the best brakes. This does not make a paradox.

The same is true of social-economic-political systems, I would argue.

I like that analogy, it's simple but it works & provokes thought. Thank you for bringing it to the table.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I like that analogy, it's simple but it works & provokes thought. Thank you for bringing it to the table.

Now image a car discussion where they divided into "engine" people and "brake" people and started to have an argument about whether the McLaren F1 was an "engine" car or a "brake" car as that question made any sense and that distinction was in anyway really meaningful and they are all super-picky about the definition of "engine car" and "brake car."

That's what 90% of political discourse sounds like to me.

At the end of the day the freedom/security spectrum is really the only discussion that exists in politics. Everything is either a variation of that or directly informed by that. And outside of a few freak, mostly detached from reality, fringe cases nobody has sunk the needle on their gauge all the way into freedom or security, we all get that it's a balance.

But the political fandoms, and again I use the term "fandom" deliberately and with intent, still treat freedom and/or security as a dump stat.