Comment thread for Anarcho-Libertarian Coliseum debate

[Patrick Degan]

So, Volleyball, where's that response? Y'know, the one you've been crafting for a whole week now and for which you've been granted an extra day to post?

[Darth Servo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKg5ggoqJ0g

[Illuminatus Primus]

After midnight now. Where's Volleyball?

[Vohu Manah]

After midnight now. Where's Volleyball?

To be generous, it is still 4/20 somewhere in the world.

[Voluntaryist]

Im finishing it right now. Im in pacific time.

[The Yosemite Bear]

oh shit he's over here on the left coast with me, and the others...

[Darth Servo]

OK, my computer says its now midnight in the Pacific time zone. BURN THE WITCH

[The Yosemite Bear]

3 am I just woke up again.

[Singular Intellect]

Why the fuck can this Volly character type out pages worth of replies in the other threads, yet it takes him weeks just to make one reply to one person in a nicely controlled seperate forum?

For fuck's sake it not like he's wasting time thinking or anything.

[The Yosemite Bear]

well his reply despite taking weeks was also three hours and 41 minutes behind the deadline too.

[PeZook]

Jesus...this pile of drivel took an entire week to write out?

It's a kind of post I could cook up in an hour or two counting in the tagging and formatting. He basically repeated all of his arguments,again. I write such posts for the SD.net World STGOD by the dozen...

[PeZook]

Actually, in a free market, people get rich in the first place not by utilizing force but by utilizing consent. And effective, honorable defense agencies will be better financed because it will have more clients.

Bwahahaha....

I suppose Wal-Mart has a fuckload of clients because it's honorable and effective?

Face it, Volly. It's entirely possible to be a liar, cheat and a downright scumbag and still be top dog. In case of Wal-Mart, this is somewhat damaging. In case of people who will be buying tanks and airplanes, this is downright dangerous. While you can sue Wal-Mart for employee abuse, if you try to sue a heavily armed security company with no state-backed courts or police present anywhere, you will get shot and buried in an unmarked grave. And who is going to punish the security company which killed you?

This is why, you goddamned idiot, the most effective security company is not necessarily the most peaceful or honorable or even affordable one.

EDIT: And is anybody else pissed off about how he claims governments are "utopian", despite the indisputable, absolutely clear FACT they actually work? It seems he doesn't even understand what "utopian" MEANS.

[Zablorg]

I challenge you to construct a realistic voluntary society which does not eventually result in a monopoly on force.

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

I see the million dollar question that we've all been asking, I wait eagerly for Volly to finally reply, and...

He sidesteps. Again.

[Zixinus]

I believe some editing is allowed in this case, as the current format is difficult to read.

[Edi]

I just read that drivel. All of his stuipid fucking assertions work on the basic assumption that there is someone or something (i.e. the government he so greatly deplores) somehow magically enforcing all the fair play. The moron does not even realize he is making that ssumption ebcause he has lived in a regulated society for his whole life and has never had to experience being trampled on. The teen angst pic from the motivational posters thread is perfect for him. What a fucking useless twat.

[K. A. Pital]

What a fucking useless twat.

I second Edi's notion. Painful to read, no amusement value, no argument but again repeating "witty" quotes as if being "witty" constitutes evidence of anything.

I support Volly's termination now more than ever; he clearly demonstrated an inability to debate, and even to keep the fucking forum format - you can kill paragraphs in Notepad, but he can't do even that.

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

Volly didn't answer a simple question relating to the functionality of anarchism; because if he will, he'd have to admit it doesn't function and reverts to some form of government invariably.

[Vohu Manah]

One example: The American colonies effectively defended themselves from the outside aggression of the British Empire because households had guns to defend themselves with.

As above, examples aren't evidence. And this isn't even a true example; they effectively defended themselves because their government borrowed money to fund a military and brought in military leaders from other countries (which had governments) to train it.

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.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who caught Voluntaryist lack of historical knowledge here, and I'm not the brightest bulb in the box. Historically the rebels were having their asses handed to them until the French, Spainish and Dutch interceded for their own benefit (the French more directly in the Battle of the Chesapeake and the Battle of Yorktown). Without such intervention it would be extremely hard to argue the American Revolution would have succeeded at all.

The burden of proof is only on me to support free markets, yes. But the burden of proof is on you to support government, which you aren't doing.

Treat this as a court of law and you're the prosecutor. The burden of proof is solely on you (and Surlethe may slam you on this). Your opponent, the defense attorney, can only respond to arguments you make and arguably are failing to make. If you can't make your case your opponent need do nothing to support the status quo.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

You are the one proposing the additional entity: government.

The burden of proof is only on me to support free markets, yes. But the burden of proof is on you to support government, which you aren't doing. You merely assume government meets the burden.

Wow, what? Why does Surlethe have to prove anything about government when the rules stated (and agreed on) in the very first post were that Volly was supposed to provide the reasons for overthrowing the goverment systems? It just looks like he is trying very hard to dodge all these oh-so-hard questions by shifting the burden of proof.

[Darth Servo]

Treat this as a court of law and you're the prosecutor.

Given his rambling on courts, he obviously doesn't even understand the justice system.

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.

News flash, Einstein, courts aren't supposed to operate on a basis of getting cases in and out quickly. They're supposed to discover the FACTS and decide the fate of a person(s) life. The system based on getting trials through the fastest (more trials = greater profits) is NOT going to be effective at dispensing out justice.

I wonder if this guy think the court system from Lexx was actually a good one?

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.

Again, the shithead doesn't even understand the point of courts. The court that is "best for them" is going to be the one that decides in their favor, regardless of the facts. The fact that people don't get to choose their judge in real courts is a GOOD thing.

If they cant agree on a court, they can settle it through negotiations by attorneys or insurance companies or something similar.

In light of the fact mentioned above, NO ONE will be able to agree on a private court to settle their disputes.

And valleytard here has obviously never dealt with actual insurance companies. They don't pay out a dime unless they absolutely have to. And very FEW people can afford their own attorney, particularly on a permanent basis. Once again, Valleytard's entire position is "They can't afford something? Fuck em"

But the market will allow for an agreeable solution to be found,

No, it won't. You can't just make these declaration and expect everyone to accept them. The solution provided by the free market would be "what can you afford" which for most of the population is "jack shit"

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.

Wrong again asswipe. The consumer is far more vulnerable in the system where he has to pay for everything out of his own pocket, many of which most people can't even pretend to afford. I can't believe this shithead actually swallows this tripe.

Surlethe shouldn't even one day to tear this apart. And I second the motion for someone to go in and fix the formatting.

[Patrick Degan]

Before addressing anything else, this sort of begs for a response:

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.

For the last time, you goddamned nitwit: the Revolutionary War was fought by properly organised armies in the field led by an officer corps and trained by professional European military men, all operating under the authority of the Continental Congress —a duly constituted government. The only phase of the fighting in which guerilla tactics played any significant role was in the Carolinas and even then it was merely an adjunct to the campaign led by Nathaniel Green and his army. And as has been pointed out numerous times to you, without European recognition and intervention (mainly by France), the Americans would have lost, probably by 1780 at the latest.

[General Soontir Fel]

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.

This isn't true even for the average American, much less the average person in the world.

Libertarians love to fetishize the American Revolution. I used to think they made good sense. The first hint I got that something was wrong with that political theory was when I read, in all seriousness, this phrase (about welfare): "The poor have no more right to my money than King George did." That just creeped me out.

I would like to know what Voluntarist has to say about the recent fundie polygamist cult. You know, when the big bad government stopped sexual abuse of hundreds of girls? How would his anarchist society deal with something like that?

[Darth Wong]

He played this same "burden of proof" trick last time as well. The fact that Kenneth Lay and Conrad Black went to prison proves that government works. The fact that lead was removed from gasoline over the objections of the petroleum and auto industries proves that government works. The fact that the Allied Governments rather than a consortium of private corporations successfully defeated Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany proves that government works. The fact that I called the police a while ago to report a suspicious person parked on my street and they responded courteously and efficiently proves that government works. The fact that I could have done so even if I was unemployed and drawing welfare proves that government works. The fact that industrial plants attempt to comply with environmental regulations proves that government works.

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?

[TC Pilot]

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.

By his reasoning, eating a moderate amount of food is better than gorging oneself, but starvation is best. Also, Gallic France was more succesful than the Roman Empire, Native Americans were more succesful than the United States, the Ainu of Hokkaido were more succesful than Meiji Japan, and the aborigines and Zulu were more succesful than the British Empire.

Score remains Surlethe: 3, Voluntaryist: 0

[K. A. Pital]

Anyone know the specific name for this type of fallacy?

Idiotic generalization? Leap in logic (the conclusion that there is no optimal governing power, but instead no governing is best)? Ignoring all other factors? There's so many he made.

I agree, Surlethe is totally winning it, but Volley is just repeating the same stuff all over again... not funny.

[Darth Servo]

Anyone know the specific name for this type of fallacy?

It seems to be the opposite of the golden mean.

Score remains Surlethe: 3, Voluntaryist: 0

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

S: 2
V: -1