Comment thread for Anarcho-Libertarian Coliseum debate

[The Spartan]

Anyone know the specific name for this type of fallacy?

It seems to be the opposite of the golden mean.

I would have said it's a variation on a No Limits fallacy.

[TC Pilot]

I think valleytard should get a -1 penalty for being late. And Surlethe has only made two posts thus far

Ah, my mistake, though I think it would be fair to give Surlethe a +1 brownie point for not dying of boredom in the process.

So is 3 to -1 a fair compromise?

[CaptainChewbacca]

What the hell happened to V's formatting? His post makes my eyes bleed. Can it be fixed by a brave mod?

[The Vortex Empire]

Can Volley really not see how much of an idiot he is being? There's the Broken Record Fallacy, and so many others.

[PeZook]

Do all of those things work PERFECTLY? No. But they do work. Can he say all of that for his imaginary society? Of course not. Kenneth Lay and Conrad Black would never go to prison in a voluntaryist society. How would they, when no one has authority to seize people against their will and force them into prison? Would somebody pay private bounty hunters to do it? Why couldn't Ken Lay and Conrad Black simply pay more? And who would have gotten the lead out of the gasoline? Who would have defeated Nazi Germany? Who would have answered my call to investigate the suspicious man on my street, and would he have done so if I was unemployed and unable to pay? Who would force industries to clean up their act, when an industry typically pollutes far away from the place where their customers actually live, so they don't give a shit how clean it is?

Well, he doesn't understand what utopian means, apparently.

For thousands of years, centrally governed societies existed and thrived. We've built our entire infrastructure working in this framework, and in many countries governed people live long and secure lives.

Now, voluntaryist comes along and says we should tear it all down. And he has the audacity to claim that it's us, the "believers in government" who believe in a utopian model of human society and should justify the continued existence of government? Preposterous.

Just take a look at the twisting he has to do in order to stand by his position:

Voluntaryism recognizes that imperfect and evil people exist, so voluntaryism does not recognize as legitimate any mechanism or system that claims the right to initiate force on others, because evil people will certainly seek to wield it.

Okay, so at first he clamors how laws of supply and demand are overarching and always present in any framework, and then he turns around, and says that all it takes is for Voluntaryism to not recognize a mechanism for using force, and it won't happen!

He doesn't see that there exists an established mechanism for initiating force on others: it's called "using force ot make people do what I want".

And it works in any system, except governments make an effort to make it too hard to be a viable metod of getting what you want in everyday life. "Not recognizing" it is like "not recognizing" gravity and expecting it to cease working through sheer willpower. You need an efficient mechanism to prevent violence, not ignore it. Jesus, it seems pretty goddamned simple...

You also claim that voluntaryism is a bad idea because you think it will result in the very things that government already does, yet you strangely think that government is preferable to voluntaryism anyway.

Here we see how he basically says that it's somehow strange to prefer an established government over a hundred years of anarchy and warlordism resulting in another government and a devastated country. And then pretends that Surlethe is somehow irrational for advocating the former.

He's twisted his brain into a fucking rope, going by these two examples.

[Darth Servo]

Can Volley really not see how much of an idiot he is being? There's the Broken Record Fallacy, and so many others.

The guy suggests the solution for a private court system is for everyone to buy "I didn't commit the crime" insurance. So, no, he can't see he is a complete moron.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Can you give an example of a market failure?

1929 comes to mind.

But really, he's now bringing up points that were debunked in the original thread. Afghanistan and Iraq are no longer organized governments fighting outside aggressors.

Edit: Another gem-

The rebels mostly used privately owned weapons and guerrila tactics, and they were British colonists who weren't fighting some foreign aggressor but the very government that claimed to be protecting and representing them.

Patently untrue statements about the revolutionary war. Apparently he doesn't know what Ben Franklin did, and he's never heard of the CONTINENTAL ARMY.

Surlethe, I beg you, as you formulate your response, SNIP OLD POSTS! We're gonna blow out the character limit, and it makes the thing a real bitch to read.

[PeZook]

But really, he's now bringing up points that were debunked in the original thread. Afghanistan and Iraq are no longer organized governments fighting outside aggressors.

But they haz many government troops, they are pregnant with government! Seriously, this is why they are such complete shitholes and the former USSR is not! More government bad! Never produced any good results! Somalia is getting better!

Huh. Look at that, 1/10th of a VoluntaryPost in two minutes.

What, exactly, took him a week?

[Darth Servo]

So many of his arguments are of the form, "the government does X and X is bad. Therefore eliminate government. But we'll just ignore the fact that far more X happens under my proposed system."

A democracy is simply a tyranny of the majority. It is a government monopoly where popular opinion forces itself onto the minority. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

And this is somehow worse than two wolves and 10 sheep deciding whats for dinner? Even if we accept your horribly flawed analogy.

[Darth Wong]

The government of West Germany claimed less control over its citizens than East Germany, and was more successful. Same goes for USA vs USSR, South Korea vs North Korea, and Hong Kong vs mainland China, to name a few.

Anyone know the specific name for this type of fallacy? The sheer stupidity not only of "less government is better than more, so therefore no government must be best!" but that these selective examples are not representative of the whole is really striking.

Hasty generalization fallacy: if one can show that any particular type of regulation or government power is harmful, then all government power is harmful.

It's also a repetition of his earlier notion that a government can be characterized by quantity, as if there is a sliding scale of how much government there is. In reality, the difference between communism and capitalism was the ideology, not the "amount" of government. How does one even quantify the "amount" of government? And why do the socialist Northern European countries have a better infant mortality rate than the United States, which is more capitalist and has more of a libertarian market ideology?

[Sidewinder]

Multiple systems of courts within the same jurisdiction often exist in governments today, and they often hand down contradictory rulings. What you are describing is what you already see in the United States courts for example.

Except in the US, their is a clear HIERARCHY in the court systems, where if there are contradictory rulings, the higher court's ruling automatically overrules the lower court's. How does your system deal with contradictory rulings, Voluntaryist? Do the rulings of the court backed by more powerful "security forces" overrule those of the less powerful court? Sounds like coercion to me.

A court system that has to compete for customers has stronger performance incentives compared to a court system that has no competition, and whose customer base is guaranteed regardless of its performance.

Privatizing the court system opens it up to corruption, i.e., the "customers" can bribe the judges to rule in their favor. Or how do you expect a private court system can compete for customers?

Do you agree that supply and demand is a principle that is descriptive of the real world?

In that case, what if the citizens of your voluntaryist utopia demands a government to provide security for them, as the Israelis did (see Saul's ascention), or the Icelanders (see here)?

Extortion, racketeering, theft, murder, false imprisonment, monopolization of services, all these things government does under the guise of preventing them from happening.

Private entities ALSO do these things (see the Mafia). And in your voluntaryist utopia, there is NOTHING to prevent the Mafia from doing so. Don't give me bullshit about armed citizens preventing this, in your world, the people with more and/or bigger guns make the rules, and I doubt your "freedom fighters" can outgun a professional criminal organization, especially when the criminals can pay some of these "freedom fighters" to support them.

Government, on the other hand, is an irrational idealization of people and society precisely because it grants a special set of powers to a small group of humans who rule over everyone else, implying that these rulers know better than you do, that they are the exception to the rule, and that they do not have the same imperfections and limitations as everyone else.

A democracy is simply a tyranny of the majority. It is a government monopoly where popular opinion forces itself onto the minority.

If democratic governments concentrate power on "a small group of humans," how the fuck can you call it a "tyranny of the majority," since a majority is, by definition, NOT the smaller group?

If I try to secede my home and land, and stop paying taxes, and stop using state services, I will be attacked by the state. The Browns of New Hampshire are just one of many examples in which the state imprisoned people who tried to disengage from it.

John Brown was a TERRORIST who ordered the murders of four men and tried to rob a US military armory. As noble as abolitionism is, the fact remains he use VIOLENT FORCE to promote it.

It is belief in government that falsely assumes that the rulers will act ideally, and with superior knowledge and rationalism.

Non-governmental entities ALSO act irrationally. See lynch mobs (remember, the Southern whites were murdering Black Americans DESPITE laws against murder, laws that were NOT enforced in the former Confederacy).

I never claimed that wealth does not correlate with ability to coerce others. But I do contend that government creates a ruling class and gives them the power to enrich themselves undeservedly as well as coerce others no matter how rich they are.

In our world, governmental forces enforce laws to prevent... say... Donald Trump from demanding protection money from you and having you murdered for refusing to pay (coercing people to NOT coerce other people, what a concept). In your voluntaryist utopia, what's stopping the rich from doing so? And don't give me bullshit about using your gun to fight off Trump's goons, he has more money, he can hire more goons and give them more and bigger guns, so you'll be outnumbered and outgunned.

The point is that governments allow these weapons only to themelves, while voluntaryism allows for people and groups to acquire the defenses that they deem appropriate for themselves.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution SPECIFICALLY allows people to own weapons, as long as they're NOT criminals or suffering from mental illnesses, and the Supreme Court of the United States preparing to rule AGAINST local governments' gun bans.

Protection agencies can be similar to insurance agencies where people buy in to a kind of coverage policy. That's hardly out of reach for the common man.

But what's stopping those who can afford MORE protection (more gunmen, more guns, bigger guns) from taking advantage of those with LESS (outnumbered and outgunned)?

In a voluntary society, there is no regulation which prevents men from banding together to intimidate and murder their neighbors for their own good.

Is there something inherent in government that prevents this?

Yes: GOVERNMENTAL security forces, i.e., the police. Or are you unaware of the FBI's struggles against the Mafia?

And effective, honorable defense agencies will be better financed because it will have more clients.

The Su-27, a fourth generation fighter-bomber, costs 35 million USD. The Russian Air Force has 449 of them. How are these defense agencies going to stop the Russians from using the Su-27s to bomb the shit out of... say... San Francisco? I don't see how they can afford to acquire a fourth generation fighter, not to mention the costs of maintenance and upgrades to keep these fighters useful. Will the defense agencies use Stinger missiles? Stingers cost 38,000 USD EACH, and their effective range is 4,800 meters, while the Su-27's service ceiling is 18,500 meters, so if the fighters fly high enough, your defense agencies can do NOTHING to stop the Russians. And what's stopping the Russians from paying the defense agencies to switch sides?

When a government claims ownership or authority over someone in a way that precedes their personal perogative, as you admitted earlier they all do in some form or another, it is in fact an instance of control without "checks and balances."

In democratic nations, the citizens exact a form of "checks and balances" by voting abusive officials out of office, a power that is protected by the nation's own laws, which the governments themselves enforce (see the Supreme Court declaring poll taxes unconstitutional). In your voluntaryist utopia, there are no laws, so the only checks and balances that exist will be your ability to deter me from demanding protection money from you, and if I'm wealthier than you, I can hire more gunmen and give them more and better guns (outnumbering and outgunning you) to make sure you pay.

[Pablo Sanchez]

So many of his arguments are of the form, "the government does X and X is bad. Therefore eliminate government. But we'll just ignore the fact that far more X happens under my proposed system."

A democracy is simply a tyranny of the majority. It is a government monopoly where popular opinion forces itself onto the minority. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

And this is somehow worse than two wolves and 10 sheep deciding whats for dinner? Even if we accept your horribly flawed analogy.

Don't accept the analogy because it's so completely moronic on its face. Just to pick out two problems:
1) He's ignoring the fact that modern democracies are nations of laws in which there are extensive structures set up for the purpose of protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority--bills of rights, for one.
2) He's assuming that society under a democracy is a zero-sum game; somebody has to die to feed the two wolves. This obviously isn't the case, but the assumption is doubly troubling, given that he evidently believes that society under voluntaryism (i.e. with no laws at all) isn't a zero sum game that everybody can benefit from happily.

That said, his use of that old, completely false aphorism is just symptomatic of his total stupidity. He doesn't actually know anything, or have anything to say, beyond bald assertions about the rightness of his position. If only an aphorism existed for every thought he was expressing!

[Darth Servo]

So many of his arguments are of the form, "the government does X and X is bad. Therefore eliminate government. But we'll just ignore the fact that far more X happens under my proposed system."

A democracy is simply a tyranny of the majority. It is a government monopoly where popular opinion forces itself onto the minority. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

And this is somehow worse than two wolves and 10 sheep deciding whats for dinner? Even if we accept your horribly flawed analogy.

Don't accept the analogy because it's so completely moronic on its face.

Hence the italicized "if"

[Darth Wong]

Voluntaryist's central premise is that competition always makes every participant better. This may seem perfectly reasonable, and it certainly does appear that way on its face, but he forgets a crucial question: better at what?

He simply assumes that competition makes every participant better in a way that will improve society. In reality, competiton only makes every participant better at competing with each other, and there is no reason to assume that the particular attributes gained in competition will necessarily benefit society.

For example, professional sports is competition. It unquestionably produces superior competitors. But they are superior at what? Playing a game. The competition does not help society in any way, it only serves itself. Similarly, if two investment banks compete with each other, they will probably improve their respective abilities to compete with each other. But how would this necessarily translate into a benefit for society? Why should a pair of competing banks be any more likely to benefit society than a pair of competing football teams? Should we assume that in order to compete, they must serve the public better? Maybe they'll just serve rich people better. Maybe they'll just merge with their competition so that the people don't have any choice.

The simplistic model of two competing candlestick makers seems to imply that competition will simply produce better candlesticks. But the modern economy is far more complex than that.

[wjs7744]

By this point I am completely convinced that Volly is either a complete moron or a troll, repeating the same arguments over and over again, sometimes without even bothering to rephrase them.

I'm also pretty sure the only reason he hasn't been banned yet is that Mike has taken a special interest in him.

In a government system, nobody even gets to "agree" on which court arbitrates them; they are forced to use it regardless. But in a free market, people will have the ability to choose what arbitration court they feel is best for them. If they cant agree on a court, they can settle it through negotiations by attorneys or insurance companies or something similar.

This has to be my favourite bit, he seems completely incapable of recognising his implicit assumption that criminals will volunteer to go to court, and possibly jail.

Although how one can have crime in the absence of law, and criminals in the absence of crime is beyond me. Volly probably doesn't realise that there is a difference between criminal law and civil law, just like he thinks that consumer reports can be equated to regulatory bodies.

[Patrick Degan]

Examining further his moronic view of the judicial system:

Multiple systems of courts within the same jurisdiction often exist in governments today, and they often hand down contradictory rulings. What you are describing is what you already see in the United States courts for example. Neither a government nor a free market can promise completely consistent rulings.

But a free market has the incentive advantage: competition and consumer choice. A court system that has to compete for customers has stronger performance incentives compared to a court system that has no competition, and whose customer base is guaranteed regardless of its performance. In a government system, nobody even gets to "agree" on which court arbitrates them; they are forced to use it regardless. But in a free market, people will have the ability to choose what arbitration court they feel is best for them. If they cant agree on a court, they can settle it through negotiations by attorneys or insurance companies or something similar. But the market will allow for an agreeable solution to be found, while in a government there is no agreement to be made in the first place, for you are forced to use their system. Without any choice in the matter the consumer is left far more vulnerable.

Notice how shitwit here is completely clueless as to the Full Faith and Credit clause in the U.S. Constitution, which makes the rulings of any one court of competent jurisdiction binding upon all jurisdictions. Unless a decision is appealed, in which case it goes up the ladder of appellate courts until it may finally reach the U.S. Supreme Court, which when it rules on a matter settles it. Whereas there is no way to make any ruling from any of his market-based courts binding even within its own jurisdiction, nevermind any other, since "voluntary cooperation" is supposed to be the organising principle even though he doesn't explain how he can be sure everybody will recognise that principle instead of going for naked self-interest. It is the anarchistic conception of shopping for favourable courts which opens the door to untrammeled chaos.

Notice also shitwit's utter cluelessness to the fact that courts are bound by law to arbitrate and rule without favour to one side or the other. The only standard is that of the law, and if the case of one plaintiff coheres with the law, that is where the ruling comes down in that plantiff's favour. A court system of laws is not one in which any one plaintiff has to worry that he would be outbid by his opponnent to gain an unfair advantage and would be left completely vulnerable.

Lastly, notice how shitwit ignores the legal concept of change-of-venue, which in criminal law can be sought to ensure a better chance at a fair trial by shifting it to a neutral location from which to select from a neutral jury pool. In his court-shopping system, the court in which a criminal defendent would be tried would depend upon which side could buy the better court. And how would a guilty or not-guilty verdict be enforced or even recognised outside of that court's jurisdiction without both an overarching framework of laws and an enforcement mechanism which is universally binding?

[Darth Servo]

Do you agree that supply and demand is a principle that is descriptive of the real world?

Only to a certain extent. Certainly not to the degree that say thermodynamics is.

I made this point before but it should be mentioned again:

I (and millions of others) demand a cure to type-1 diabetes. I've been demanding it for years and others have demanded it for decades. Yet big pharma completely ignores us and continuies polishing their methods that only treat the disease. What happened to the "all mighty supply and demand"? Could it be that big pharma makes a shitload more money with a patient-for-life than they would by curing us? Nah, supply and demand is GOD and never fails.

[Patrick Degan]

Do you agree that supply and demand is a principle that is descriptive of the real world?

Only to a certain extent. Certainly not to the degree that say thermodynamics is.

I made this point before but it should be mentioned again:

I (and millions of others) demand a cure to type-1 diabetes. I've been demanding it for years and others have demanded it for decades. Yet big pharma completely ignores us and continuies polishing their methods that only treat the disease. What happened to the "all mighty supply and demand"? Could it be that big pharma makes a shitload more money with a patient-for-life than they would by curing us? Nah, supply and demand is GOD and never fails.

It could also be that chemistry doesn't recognise the supply-and-demand paradigm.

[Darth Wong]

Oh, the supply and demand paradigm works fine even in chemistry, but Voluntaryist forgets that it only has the power to adjust price. It has no other power; it cannot force scientific developments to occur, it cannot create supply where there is none, etc. All it can do is adjust prices.

This is much like his misconception about competition; competition makes adversaries more competitive, and that's all. It doesn't necessarily make them better for society. Similarly, supply and demand adjusts price, and that's all. It doesn't necessarily solve problems. In a drought-stricken nation, supply and demand dictates that water becomes very expensive. It doesn't magically make more water appear in time to keep people from dying.

[Darth Servo]

I'm not even talking about forcing scientific developments to occur. I'm talking about the fact that big pharma isn't even trying to discover a cure for diabetes, in spite of millions of people demanding it. Why do they do this? Because they make far more money with us buying insulin for the rest of our lives.

[D.Turtle]

Frankly, I think that the whole tangent about Voluntaryism being better (or not) than government should be dropped, because it is obvious that nothing new is going to come there. It is only wasting space.

Indeed, in addressing this matter, Voluntaryist has shown a stupendous lack of knowledge about the simplest matters of how government (especially modern western democracies) work. It is not our (or Surlethe's) job to teach him the basics - he can read about them in any elementary school level books about government (if they exist). All his points and examples are complete strawmen and his only method of continuing the debate about those is repeating himself again and again.

Instead, the focus should now be put on one (or two) points:

You mean construct a voluntary society which does not eventually have a government take over?

I would challenge him to address this point. The entire tangent described about a comparison of the effectiveness of Government vs Voluntaryism is useless if it is not possible to:
1) Go from a government-based society to a Voluntaryist society and
2) Stop it from evolving (or reverting) to a government-based society.

I would even be so kind as to drop the question of how to create a Voluntaryist society. Only ask him to show the mechanism which stops a Voluntaryist society from reverting (or evolving) to a government-based society.

And if he is so stupid as to ask why he should show that, you can quite simply point to the fact that there currently exist somewhere around 200 countries, all of which are ruled by governments.

There is currently not a single society governed by anything even resembling Voluntaryism.

[Darth Servo]

Only ask him to show the mechanism which stops a Voluntaryist society from reverting (or evolving) to a government-based society.

Wouldn't that be the same mechanism he uses for every one of his other claims? "Because I say so and everything is so wonderful under Voluntarism, no one would want to go back. Voluntarism doesn't recognize such things, yadda, yadda, yadda..."

[D.Turtle]

Wouldn't that be the same mechanism he uses for every one of his other claims? "Because I say so and everything is so wonderful under Voluntarism, no one would want to go back. Voluntarism doesn't recognize such things, yadda, yadda, yadda..."

Likely.

However, I think that such an approach would cut through all the crap he has flung up and concentrate on the essential. If he can't show a mechanism (as opposed to simply declaring it would by fiat) through which a voluntaryist society could stay that way, he has lost the debate.

Alternatively, if he can't show how a government-based society could change into a voluntaryist society he has also lost.

At the very least, it might move the debate in a new direction, because it is currently quite boring and repetitive (which is entirely Voluntaryist's fault).

[Darth Wong]

There is indeed something to be said for focusing on one or two key flaws in his argument rather than trying to address all of them. The problem with his argument is that it contains so many flaws that one could go gray trying to address them all. If one could either focus only on the most critical ones or try to condense many of them into classes of flaws, it would be helpful.

It's tempting to try and answer every single piece of bullshit that someone throws your way, but that's falling into the Darkstar trap, where he tries to exhaust you with sheer quantity, repetition, and obfuscation.

[CaptainChewbacca]

So, Surlethe has until Wednsday midnight, or is it Thursday?