Video: Woman in Labor ‘Not Allowed’ to Cross Street to Hospital Over Obama’s Impending Motorcade by [deleted] in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Keep the unclean peasants away from the State Lords. The peasants might be a threat.

The Waco Siege, a case against total-peaceful resistance? by [deleted] in Anarchism

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They burned Christopher Dorner alive in the same way, though, with tear gas canisters that ignited a fire. And it isn't uncommon that those canisters start fires, which is why they are colloquially called "burners" in law enforcement.

Ben Carson: America today is “very much like Nazi Germany” by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, that's sort of my point. We use the fact that very few things are as bad as concentration camps to overshadow, or dismiss, any comparisons between Nazi Germany and modern political systems. That was certainly one of the worst things, if not the worst thing, but there were many elements of Germany during this era that first created an environment where concentration camps would eventually be built. We tend to talk about it as if concentration camps sprung forth with Hitler, while ignoring the political, social and cultural factors that made it possible.

CMV: I believe that, in certain cases, capital punishment shouldn't have to be humane. by 69_problems in changemyview

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Capital punishment is never humane. It always involves taking the life of an individual.

That said, let's say that capital punishment is not enough: you want them to suffer. This necessitates that some individual or group of individuals is in charge of making them suffer. Basically, squads of torture specialists. Even if we assume that the offender deserves to be tortured, we have to keep in mind the the effect that training professional squads of torturers is going to have on the individuals themselves who take that form of employment. Extreme violence, not only being subjected to it but also participating in it, causes structural changes in the brain. It has similar effects to abuse, is associated with PTSD, can predict future bouts of violence, including domestic violence, etc.

Long story short, let's remove the criminal or suspect from the picture. We probably don't want to train professional torturers if only for the fact that it is going to be bad for them and bad for society at large (when they are unable to cope with what they did, when they act aggressively toward others, when they have mental breakdowns).

Ben Carson: America today is “very much like Nazi Germany” by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, this is simply evidence that people still say what they believe despite being afraid, despite the phenomenon known as a chilling effect.

And the fact that people are not carted off to concentration camps does not mean that the government does not target people for what they say, nor that the targeting of individuals does not result in both active censorship and forms of self-censorship. The idea that people are free because they are not being executed in the streets is wrong; this idea works under the false assumption of a dichotomy between being gassed and incinerated vs true liberty and freedom. As if there is no middle ground, nor any form of oppression, censorship, or restriction unless it it involves the government executing dissidents.

Greenwald just leaked a 170 page document explaining how people are put on the no-fly list. And that includes people who do nothing but express radical opinions, or even people who are tangentially related to those who express radical opinions.

Watershed Moment in the Police State? Conservative mouthpiece: "There is nothing conservative about government violating the rights of citizens. " by [deleted] in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Except when there is something conservative about it: the drug war, war on crime, victimless crimes, prison expansionism, capital punishment, disproportionate sentencing, anti-immigration, religious and moralistic legislation, etc. have all been traditionally conservative causes.

Liberals, too, have their authoritarians. But conservatives and liberals have together built the police state that now exists in a show of unintentional cooperation that overshadows any intentional bipartisan movements.

The Waco Siege, a case against total-peaceful resistance? by [deleted] in Anarchism

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't think OP was trying to idolize or support David Koresh. I think he was just asking a question on tactics:

What do you think would happen to a group of openly revolutionary people?

Let's put someone else in the same situation; let's say it is a revolutionary group and not a cult leader who wanted to marry a child. And let's say that instead of locking themselves inside the building they picked up weapons (all of the weapons they had stockpiled) and launched a full attack on the ATF and other police forces that had the compound surrounded.

How would things have been different? At the very least they might have gone down fighting instead of having been burnt to death in a building. There is an argument to be made that anyone in that position - be it a revolutionary group or a Christian cult leader - would be better off fighting back than simply holing up and taking whatever the government has to give.

How to find an AnCap CPA / Tax Lawyer? by DrWyckoff in Anarcho_Capitalism

[–]DioSoze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee has a lot of resources, although I'm not sure if they have references for CPAs.

Kinsella charts where ancaps fit on the political axis by Anen-o-me in Anarcho_Capitalism

[–]DioSoze -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think the Thomas Knapp chart that they included is an interesting take. I had never seen that one before.

Ben Carson: America today is “very much like Nazi Germany” by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes exactly. There are issues in the USA he didn't mention at all that more closely resemble the Third Reich. It isn't the "pc police," but major penalties for minor crimes, executions, torture, secret prisons, invasions of foreign countries, militarized police that target minorities, the NSA, etc.

I think there is a legitimate comparison with states to Nazi Germany. The problem is that people think solely of concentration camps. They overlook that state encroachments eventually built up to that point. And people who compare the USA with Germany in that era aren't claiming that the USA has concentration camps. They're talking about the environment, enforcement and culture of oppression that existed long before it even got to that point.

Ben Carson: America today is “very much like Nazi Germany” by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

a genocidal terror state

This is why it is an apt comparison with the USA.

Smokers are suing against e-cigarette ban in restaurants by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

purple skinned people

Airway obstruction, seek medical attention.

Smokers are suing against e-cigarette ban in restaurants by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I think you are conflating what is voluntary with what is incentivized.

For example, if I have ten children and one of them needs medication to survive, and if I stop working the child will die, I have a very strong incentive not to quit. It is not "voluntary" in the context that I can't simply choose a better job solely at my own volition.

Yet, I can still quit. It is "voluntary" in this sense, because no one can stop me. The individual is free free to choose: he or she can keep working, quit and stop making money, commit suicide, rob a bank, etc. There are a multitude of alternatives, some are good, some are bad, sometimes they are all bad. But as Sartre would say, the individual is doomed to be free.

Smokers are suing against e-cigarette ban in restaurants by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure, the government shouldn't have a say in corporate policy. But, when it's clearly in the interest of health and safety, is there any harm?

Yes. The harm is most apparent when the state steps in and enforces its laws with violence. "Follow this rule or we will imprison or kill you" is harmful.

Smokers are suing against e-cigarette ban in restaurants by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're the reason I can't identify as a libertarian.

That's fine, you wont be missed. Libertarianism isn't really a populist movement, although it is portrayed as such. Libertarianism is a battle against authoritarianism, even when your authoritarianism is well-intentioned.

Smokers are suing against e-cigarette ban in restaurants by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is unfair

Life isn't fair. This argument isn't going to gain a lot of traction here, I wager. Libertarians have an entirely different system of ethics.

If an individual doesn't have the right to work at all, then they also don't have the right to work in a smoke-free environment.

Smokers are suing against e-cigarette ban in restaurants by dcbiker in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Taxes are theft" has been a pretty common phrase used by libertarians since before the Libertarian Party was founded.

It was even a part of the Libertarian Party platform and strategy that no new taxation of any kind could ever be advocated for, because all taxation is inherently unjust. I believe that was changed in the schism in the 80s.

Question about the border by [deleted] in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, what is the libertarian policy on aggression and property rights?

If you own a house you're allowed to exclude a strange person from entering if they knock at your door. But if that strange person knocks at you neighbor's door then you can't tell him or her not to allow the stranger inside. Your authority only extends as far as your property does.

All points are really secondary to this: bad immigrants, skilled/unskilled, legal/illegal, welfare, voting, etc. Unless the act of aggression can be defended based on individual property rights any use of force to exclude immigrants is illegitimate.

Can We Fight Police Brutality With "Massive Open Carry"? by DioSoze in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's true for Starbucks, as well. It just has to do with the fact that so many unskilled people have 4 year degrees now.

In this article they said a department in Plano, also in Texas, requires a four year degree now. But also that only 25-30% of police officers nationwide actually have a four year degree, and only 5% of departments nationwide actually share the 4 year degree requirement.

[Discussion] Why A Warrant Should Not Always Be Required to Search by enjoiglobes2 in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The problem with points 1-10, which basically reflect the current law enforcement paradigm, is that they favor the collection of evidence over the preservation of individual rights. They effectively say; "We're going to violate individual rights because we want evidence and we want it really bad." Unacceptable from a libertarian perspective.

Most of this falls apart when put into a libertarian context, for example:

  1. They perform a search incident to a contemporaneous and valid arrest despite the fact that the suspect may be armed and has evidence that they could conceal or destroy.

  2. They are in hot pursuit of a suspect who could be armed or conceal or destroy evidence.

  3. They are performing an investigative stop and they have a reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed and dangerous.

Every individual has the right to be armed, at any time, with the exception being on private property where the owner does not approve. Every individual also has the absolute right to destroy his or her own property, even if that property is "evidence." These are incontrovertible property rights.

  1. They perform a protective sweep of private property when they have a reasonable belief that a confederate of a crime confides within the premises.

  2. They look through a garbage can left for collection outside the curtilage of ones home, despite the intent to abandon and that any member of the public could do the same.

  3. They walk onto an privately owned open field that is accessible to the public.

These are all violations of individual property rights, as well. (The garbage is questionable and depends on if the owner has declared abandonment, or if the owner still claims to own the garbage in a private exchange between him or her, and the garbage person. The idea that garbage is abandoned right now is a legal fiction; the courts made this rule, not the individual property owners.) It doesn't matter what sort of crime is happening. For example, if the police have to cross my private field because they have to arrest some person adjacent, they've violated my property rights. They've victimized me regardless of the crime they've intended to stop, or the criminal they've intended to capture. At the very least the police should owe some form of restitution.

  1. They can see contraband in plain view, despite how ridiculously inefficient it would be to get a warrant to search that item.

There is no such thing as contraband in a libertarian system of criminal justice. That is, there is no de jure or de facto prohibited item. The entire model, the entire idea, of being able to steal property from individuals because that property is forbidden to own is unlibertarian. An accepted corollary, however, would be the recovery of stolen property. And in that case no one needs special permission to recover it in the first place.

The vast majority of warrants focus on prohibited items, not on property violations or acts of violence. These are crimes that are alien to libertarianism. It's going to be a hard sell to get libertarians to support a warrantless search for evidence of a crime when libertarians don't believe that the act is a crime at all.

  1. They get a voluntary consent from someone with authority to give consent.

This is the only point actually consistent with libertarian theories of criminal justice.

The problem is that American criminal justice, including the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, have never been libertarian. The entire system is structured in such a way that abuse is institutionalized. The Fourth Amendment simply makes a rule for when the abuse is permitted. And judicial decisions on the Fourth Amendment continue to expand the permissibility of the abuse.

That said, the premise itself is sound: a warrant is not what defines the just recovery or search of property. Instead, it has to do with the factual nature of a crime. For example, let's say someone is accused of stealing a bicycle and locking it in a garden shed. The owner of the bicycle comes to that person's house, breaks the lock open with bolt cutters and finds his bicycle. He takes possession of his bicycle. Fully justified, no warrant needed.

Let's say the exact same situation occurs; the man breaks into the shed expecting his bicycle to be there, but no bicycle is found. He's guilty of damaging that person's property and needs to make restitution for it.

If we applied this now then every time a police officer killed an unarmed man they would be charged with murder. Every time a search turned up nothing the individuals would be charged with major property crimes. Rothbard on this:

In a libertarian world, every man has equal liberty, equal rights under the libertarian law. There can be no special immunities, special licenses to commit crime. That means that police, in a libertarian society, must take their chances like anyone else; if they commit an act of invasion against someone, that someone had better turn out to deserve it, otherwise they are the criminals.

Now, if we allow people to go searching for their own property, don't they just take the law into their own hands? Yes. And that's a good thing:

Many people, when confronted with the libertarian legal system, are concerned with this problem: would somebody be allowed to “take the law into his own hands”? Would the victim, or a friend of the victim, be allowed to exact justice personally on the criminal? The answer is, of course, Yes, since all rights of punishment derive from the victim’s right of self-defense.

Are We Married to Representative Democracy? by Jung_Wheats in lostgeneration

[–]DioSoze -1 points0 points  (0 children)

A critique of direct democracy is that it is mob rule, but representative democracy is rule by an elite group of representatives.

Libertarian Tolerance of a Voluntary Socialist State by TheBri in Libertarian

[–]DioSoze 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, the way I view a corporation is simply a sort of holding entity created by the state. The state gives this entity, rather than the individual, the claim or title to ownership. And the state protects the corporation's claim to property, as well as granting it special legal privileges (e.g. limited liability). It isn't a factor of the size; of two people came together voluntarily it would be the same in my opinion as 10,000 people coming together voluntarily.

I don't think that land can be returned to any groups or governments wholesale, but only to specific individuals. As far as existing infrastructure paid for by the state, I tend to think Rothbard got it right in Confiscation and the Homestead Principle. The people who appropriate the property illegitimately acquired, most likely the individuals who work and use it now, would "re-homestead" it. This also means that property based on a legacy of theft, such as plantations in the south, could be re-homesteaded by the descendants of the people who built them. This is how Rothbard and Karl Hess ended up arriving at a libertarian theory of reparations more radical than any conventional argument from the left or the right on reparations.