I feel like many times I will get into an argument with one of my left leaning statist friends and pretty much corner their arguments into a last resort. Which always comes out as I am a social darwinist... or basically you are saying tha I am a big dick head and this whole convo is now moot becuase I am incapable of showing compassion to my fellow human bretheren.
My normal response is that there is nothing wrong with helping one another voluntarily, and in the end "you and I" are both arguing for the same ultimate goal, better lives for you and me and the most people possible, I just think it starts with personal liberty, you think it starts with lack there of.
I see this happen a lot in other forums too, especially with healthcare on everyones mind, the implication that libertarian idealogy (at least true libertarian, not some goofy noam chomsky version) is just a calling for social darwinism, aka you want to kill people who are dumb and not let them breed... I believe this to be a straw man at best, complete ignorance to free market arguments.
whats your expierence with this? whats your typical response?
Solarist:whats your typical response?
Get new friends that don't try to dishonestly shame you.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
I'm guessing most of these folks are always foaming at the mouth about ignorant creationists as well. Why, exactly, do they believe there is a duty to subsidize dysgenic breeding?
I actually recall somebody telling me once that evolution has 'stopped.' Such people are hopeless.
Solarist: whats your expierence with this? whats your typical response?
"OH NOES!!! THE HUMANITY OR LACK THEROF!" in feigned horror.Everyone I've encountered that foo-foos me aside as a Social Darwinist is promptly proven later on in argument to be hypocrites. The best example was when I encountered a pro-Obama person who claimed it was morally justified in shuffling any and all Republicans into protest camps (using the "Tea Parties" as examples), & have them all shot. Sometimes the time comes when a man just has to walk away, such as these random encounters with political monsters. Next time I'll remember to junction Encounter-None to preserve my sanity.
WARNING: This signature violates Rule 5. Stay classy!
Nitroadict:Sometimes the time comes when a man just has to walk away, such as these random encounters with political monsters. Next time I'll remember to junction Encounter-None to preserve my sanity.
God bless Diablos.
It might be important to point out that, ethics aside, all of socialism's ends are naturally accomplished more effectively under laissez-faire capitalism. Unless you meet an honest socialist who wants to bring others down to their level in the name of "equality," I guess.
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Somewhat related, this paper Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism is a pretty good read.
How do they respond to your normal response? How do they justify hurting some people to help some other people? Turn the tables, make them go on the defensive and provide a rational and logical explanation for forced charity.
Or, you could punch them in the face, take their money and say, "yeah I guess you are right, Social Darwinism Rules!!!".
If Herbert Spencer was a Social Darwinist, then so am I. Of course, if Social Darwinism includes forced migration of people, mass murder, and racial hygiene then Spencer wasn't a Social Darwinist and most people would be hard pressed to find anyone in history that held those views that is even remotely libertarian. Basically, they are just calling you a bad word like fascist or pig. There isn't any more to it.
"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay
Yeah, this is the most common strawman brought up in connection to libertarian arguments, usually based on a misunderstanding of Rand's philosophy (which is automatically equated to libertarianism, alongside Reagan, Thatcher, Pinochet and Friedman.)
To darkness I condemn you...
Economics details that humanity flourishes when natural hierarchies emerge under the division of labor.
In this case it doesn't matter if one is poor or rich, one will take their place in the hierarchy to the benefit of themselves and everyone.
Destroying the hierarchy with regulations and taxation only worsens everyone's conditions, and creates a darwinian contest for survival.
Microsecession as a strategy for revolution | Challenge to minarchist | How would a private road system work?
Among other things, it is a false representation of Darwin.
http://mises.org/story/2909
Mini excerpt:
As Murray Rothbard described one of their favorite lines of attack,
The free-market economy, they charge, is "the rule of the jungle," where "survival of the fittest" is the law. Libertarians who advocate a free market are therefore called "Social Darwinists" who wish to exterminate the weak for the benefit of the strong.
Solarist:whats your expierence with this? whats your typical response?
It's typical of Do Something! types. What I usually do is run them into a reductio absurdum of their own position mby asking what their standards are for when the government should and should not Do Something! For example I ask them if adults should be allowed to freely ahve sex with who they want for whatever reasons they want, including money. Usually they say yes. Fine, so a guy gets syphilus from a whore, gives it to his wife. All of a sudden people should not be so free to have sex with who they want for reasons of their own. Now sex for money must include regular drug tests of the party charging for the service, administered by the government. For some reason the customer is never tested, can't figure that one out.
I any event it all ends up boiling down to people wanting the government to Do Something! about damn near everything, because there's always some case you can pose where this or that regulation could have possibly made a positive difference. Since most people don't want the government in every part of their/our lives but there's also always a justification in the end to Do Something!, this usually causes some soul searching on their part. If they make it this far with me, which most don't, I then draw the distinction of them or I Doing Something! vs the government Doing Something!, and try to show the differences between explicit and implicit cooperation. This last is the key, a lot of people don't seem to get that the market is cooperative, just implicitly instead of explicitly. If they can grasp the difference, which sadly most don't, then it's usually at least conceivable to them that inaction on the part of the government doesn't always mean inaction period, and you can then demonstrate the benefits of voluntary action vs coerced.
All the statists and Keynesians will look up and shout "Save Us!" and I'll wisper "No."
I'm currently reading Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed and there is an interesting connection between collectivism and primitivism. Hoppe blames collectivist violations of property rights and public ownership of government as fundamentally pushing society's time preference upwards. In other words, people value the present relative to the future more than they would have otherwise. This, he argues, is apparent in crime rates, illegitimate child birth, alcoholism and drug abuse, divorce rates, rate of child birth. It is also apparent in neglect for individual responsibility in retirement planning and health insurance, and other risks, in which individuals believe the costs can be socialized.
It is also apparent in the state's treatment of its human capital. Because government owners do not own the government, but are temporary care-takers, they take less interest in the government's future condition than if privately owned. Their tax-payers are starved or executed for petty insubordinations. Their soldiers are sent to die in perpetual, aggressive, ideological, no-compromise wars.
From both an economic and political standpoint, collectivism fosters a much higher degree of death and a correspondingly lower value upon life and individuals. The leftist argument is based around wealth equality - that no one should have their life threatened because of specific financial conditions. Yet in saying this they must implicitly deny or ignore much worse conditions created by their "solution" - purposeful destruction of life and subsistence levels of production. Discriminating against recipients of essential goods and services is not a pretty business, but it implies that demand is outstripping supply. A free market works to alleviate scarcity, increasing production where it is most urgently desired. Collectivism concerns itself less with increasing total production than distributing what is produced equally. Yet how are 9 indivisible units distributed equally to 10 individuals? They aren't, because they can't be. Leftists must thus claim their system destroys scarcity to simply avoid the question.
But whenever the system IS implemented, and these hard choices must be made (which is often due to its reduced output), it is always the state and the powerful that succeed in securing the goods. Thus, there is more "social darwinism," not less, in a collectivist system. Point in case: the famine of the Great Leap Forward. Is anyone really suggesting that (a) government planning was NOT the principle cause of the disaster, and (b) that government planners starved equal to common citizens, particularly those with low intelligence and job skills?
Check my blog, if you're a loser
double post
typical responces I get is how anarchy is unrealistic, how we need schools, how its just too radical, or we need defence, just get used to it lol. And Noam Chomsky isnt goofy.
Justin Spahr-Summers: It might be important to point out that, ethics aside, all of socialism's ends are naturally accomplished more effectively under laissez-faire capitalism. Unless you meet an honest socialist who wants to bring others down to their level in the name of "equality," I guess.
THAT IS EXACTLY, the reason why I moved directly from socialism to laissez-faire capitalism. I found it incredibly ironic that the system had everything I wanted from socialism that socialism could not fulfill. Especially the problem of diverse interests and diversity in general, it's satisfying to know that freedom can fulfill that.
Has anyone examined or wrote on this idea specifically?
"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." Soren Kierkegaard
Libertyandlife: Justin Spahr-Summers: It might be important to point out that, ethics aside, all of socialism's ends are naturally accomplished more effectively under laissez-faire capitalism. Unless you meet an honest socialist who wants to bring others down to their level in the name of "equality," I guess. THAT IS EXACTLY, the reason why I moved directly from socialism to laissez-faire capitalism. I found it incredibly ironic that the system had everything I wanted from socialism that socialism could not fulfill. Especially the problem of diverse interests and diversity in general, it's satisfying to know that freedom can fulfill that. Has anyone examined or wrote on this idea specifically?
Yep.
Egalitarianism A Revolt Against Nature by Murray N. Rothbard
Especially Chapter 1 & 16
So what? That's the reality of things. We don't live in a parallel universe and the survival of the fittest is the harsh reality we (and every single living organism on this planet from viruses upwards) must face if we don't want to be wiped out of the chalkboard. "Leftists" (though this definition now means next to nothing) seem to take comfort in the fact that we have some kind of obligation to help each other and everybody who doesn't agree to this should be forced into helping others. This argument usually takes the form of the well off living in a very expensive flat, owning at least one very expensive car whining about blue collar workers not been enthusiastic at the idea of being forced to live in the same area as immigrants or self-employed workers evading taxes (the worst crime of them all in their opinion, the horror!) and so robbing children and elders of food and medicine. I will restrain myself from saying what I think about them spouting insanities about the environment. Why don't they start by allowing immigrants to move next door to them, perhaps paying part of the rent? Or why don't they give up their fancy cars to give the good example and use that bloated monstrosity that's called public transport?
These people are screwed up in the head, seriously. Instead of being happy about their condition or just shut up and make more money they harbor some kind of guilt complex that forces them into supporting all kinds of insanities. At our expenses of course.
Yes, it's time for the Dr Goebbels show!
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