And so, another month starts. August promises to be a HOT month. At least some of us will be getting to tale a vacation, but for those of us at home, here’s an open thread to share your August thoughts. If you read an article or have an idea to share with the group here, and it doesn’t really fit into another conversation on IPR, here is a place for you.
https://youtu.be/klNf9LCe9wo
https://youtu.be/MeWC59FJqGc
https://youtu.be/Bg0tFRea0wA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW2SEpWWqXM
Apparently, it is slim pickings to make a living off the libertarian movement evangelizing as a libertarian.
I have no idea why you are doubling down on this b/c the article you cited quoted the haggling between the importer and exporter regarding paying the tariff, and the exporter was growing tired of the tariff haggling and was going to cease exporting agricultural product to the United States. I would also point out agriculture is just one industry, and it’s the one that that seems particularly sensitive to tariffs. Others are not as sensitive. The tariffs are passed on as a consumer markup.
The notion that any economic good exists for which there’s NOT bidding is delusional.
“All the Chinese have to do is find the next highest bidder.”
The notion that there is bidding on this stuff is out of touch with reality.
George,
The negotiation in the article you cited went more like this:
The negotiation is rather simple.
Chinese company puts in obviously winning bid on a very large order for US company and produces that order knowing it’s going to win the bid
Product A costs $100. There is now a 30% tariff on it.
US company says I am sending you $70 and Uncle Sam $30, or we are no longer buying.
Chinese company says hmm …. I’ve already produced that order, I don’t have another ready buyer for it and you turned around and altered the deal Darth Vader style. You got me, dammit … this time.
The rest of the article is about the Chinese companies re-focusing on new markets (and new suppliers) rather than deal with unreliable American buyers and an unpredictable American government.
So yeah, in the kind of edge case you’re focusing on, maybe the price of a can of Chinese green beans didn’t go up this week. But next week, those Chinese green beans won’t be on American store shelves and American consumers will be paying more for green beans from elsewhere.
US tariffs are taxes on US consumers. That’s just a fact.
George Phillies “The negotiation is rather simple. Product A costs $100. There is now a 30% tariff on it. And Therefore I am sending you $70 and Uncle Sam $30, or we are no longer buying. We have to sell or we are going out of business.”
US was the high bidder at $100. All the Chinese have to do is find the next highest bidder. As long as the next highest bidder is above $70, they don’t have to sell to the US. They can slightly undercut the other producers for, say Europe. Those producers who had been selling to Europe won’t bother getting in a price cutting fight with the Chinese over market share. They don’t have to. They know the US needs to buy from them. The US has eliminated their competition. All they have to do is sell to the US at a price slightly below what it would have cost the US to pay the tariff on Chinese goods.
August 8, 2019:
Headline: China July Trade Surplus Larger than Expected
Subheading: China’s trade surplus soared to USD 45.05 billion in July 2019 from USD 27.49 billion in the same month a year earlier and above market consensus of USD 40 billion.
Article text: Exports rose 3.3 percent from a year earlier to USD 221.5 billion in July… Among China’s largest trade partners, exports rose to the EU (6.5 percent), ASEAN (15.6 percent), South Korea (9.2 percent), Taiwan (19.9 percent),… but fell to the US (-6.5 percent)
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/balance-of-trade
So much for needing to sell to the US or go out of business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcwmn5DQ8TQ&feature=youtu.be
I’m a bit surprised a professor or physics would so conspicuously fail Logic 101. No, a tariff does not “therefore” mean the exporter pays the tariff.
if p then q== if (~q) then (~p).
So, if I show just one instance where the importer passes of the cost of the tariff to the consumer in the form of a price markup, I do not thusly demonstrate the nonexistence of the tariff.
The negotiation is rather simple.
Product A costs $100. There is now a 30% tariff on it.”
And
Therefore I am sending you $70 and Uncle Sam $30, or we are no longer buying.
We have to sell or we are going out of business.
By the way, to let the yuan fall fast enough to compensate, the Yuan woulf need to drop from 7 to 9 or 10.
Readers can deduce that Dr. Phillies apparently has never read Bastiat’s final(and most famous) work, “What is Seen and What is Not Seen, or Political Economy in One Lesson.”
Obviously, customs collects the tariff from the (registered) importing firm. Those costs(in whole or part) may or may not be directly passed on to the consumer. The importer may eat some of the costs. The importer may try to get the exporter to eat some of the costs. If China weakens the yuan to keep US importers from having to eat the tariff costs, then this negatively affects US exporters(i.e, US agriculture) selling to China(beyond the retaliatory tariffs already being imposed by China).
“In essence, American importers are telling the Chinese that the tariffs are coming out of the money they would elsewide be sent by the Americans., and the Chinese can’t afford to agree.”
Fixed, no charge.
Readers who believe that tariffs are taxes that Americans pay would find it of interest the South China Morning Post article
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3024557/china-exporters-praying-weaker-yuan-will-save-them-donald
In essence, American importers are telling the Chinese that the tariffs are coming out of the money they would elsewide be sent by the Americans., and the Chinese have no choice but to agree.
If by “censorship” you mean forum moderation, well, no, Sesta/Fosta has little to do with individual subreddit moderation. Then again, I don’t consider forum moderation to be censorship. I consider it to be a necessity to limit trolls and spammers from ruining the place. So, by a “free speech platform,” I don’t mean unmoderated subreddits. Instead, what I’m referring to vis a vis Reddit is that organization’s crackdown on what topics are allowed to be a moderated subreddit. You wrote:
The reddit admins only quarantine a board if the board moderators fail to remove threats of violence.
Since Sesta/Fosta, that is no longer true.
[Revamping the Quarantine Function]
https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/9jf8nh/revamping_the_quarantine_function/
On a platform as open and diverse as Reddit, there will sometimes be communities that, while not prohibited by the Content Policy, average redditors may nevertheless find highly offensive or upsetting.
.
.
.
The purpose of quarantining a community is to prevent its content from being accidentally viewed by those who do not knowingly wish to do so, or viewed without appropriate context. We’ve also learned that quarantining a community may have a positive effect on the behavior of its subscribers by publicly signaling that there is a problem.
Since Sesta/Fosta, Reddit has
(1) Entirely removed an entire swath of communities for talking about things(sex, drugs, guns and sports streams) the state doesn’t think people people should be trading in
(2) Quarantined communities for topics that Reddit thinks might be objectionable
(3) Begun privately scoring how well Reddit thinks each subreddit is being moderated
And that is what I meant by the free speech party being over at Reddit. I was not referring specifically to
/r/Libertarian, which I have barely glanced at over the years. But it is bit wishful to think any subreddit will remain immune to the direction Reddit is moving in.
dL “Yes, but your reply was to me in an attempt to debunk my opinion of Reddit censorship post Sesta/Fosta.”
No, I said Sesta and Fosta have nothing to do with censorship of political boards.
I understand why Warren wouldn’t want to sink a bunch of money into IPR (although it might be a good investment under the right circumstances).
On the other hand, occasionally the glitchiness makes is a real effort to discuss stuff here, which for me is more of an attraction than reading the various news items.
I suspect any ad revenue expectations at IPR are based more on one-off visits to articles than on discussion by a fairly small group of regulars. So I’m not sure that setting up an alternative discussion space would really amount to “competition with” IPR. It might even be beneficial to IPR in terms of lower server loads for the same ad revenue buck.
What are we looking for here — another blog with news items and blog-style commenting on those items? A stand-alone old-style forum? Just LP type stuff or all third party / independent topics? I might be able to work up my interest enough to create or participate in creating such a thing, but I’d need to know more about the goals, and wouldn’t want to do so in a way that damages IPR as a product/brand.
Yes, but your reply was to me in an attempt to debunk my opinion of Reddit censorship post Sesta/Fosta.
J,
Thanks for the suggestion, although challenging the cult that challenges the non-existent cult of the omnipotent state probably is more appropriately done in a more neutral arena. PF suggested Reason, which runs REALLY slow and glitchy on my Chromebook, and I find the interface inelegant.
Yes, but Robert Capozzi asked about “a place to discuss L political theory and strategy in a reasonably elevated-yet-layman-like, robust manner”, not a place to find a hooker. The only political boards which are quarantined, like r/The_Donald/ or r/ChapoTrapHouse, were because they were making threats of violence and the moderators weren’t removing the comments.
Reddit removed all subreddits for sex, drugs and guns that were deemed “transactional” in the immediate aftermath of Sesta/Fosta
https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/863xcj/new_addition_to_sitewide_rules_regarding_the_use/
For example, Reddit was largely the de facto tech support forum for the DNM before May, 2018. Then poof, those subreddits were all erased.
dL “10 years late to the party, Bob. It was until the passage of Sesta/Fosta, whereupon Reddit used that as a pretext to crackdown on its previously (largely) free speech platform.”
The only things censored on the r/libertarian board are threats of violence, porn, and very blatant racism. It is one of the few very nearly free-speech boards remaining on reddit. Sesta/Fosta have nothing to do with moderation of other political boards. That is done largely by the board moderators, not the reddit admins. The reddit admins only quarantine a board if the board moderators fail to remove threats of violence. The ideological censorship done by board moderators is to shield them from outside criticism. Lacking that ideological censorship, r/libertarian is a free for all between all ideologies. It isn’t unusual to see arguments between fascists and communists on r/libertarian, or even different factions of commies arguing with each other.
But it’s not the place for party strategy. If Robert Capozzi wishes to do that, I’d suggest r/LibertarianPartyUSA/
“There is no economic system intrinsic to nationalism.”
Perhaps not a formal economic “system,” but an economic holding — the idea that “the economy” should be gamed to benefit “the nation” — that leads inevitably to one of a handful authoritarian economic systems.
Fernando Mercado “They explain the basics, mostly economic views.”
Only the socialist and liberal views care about economics. There is no economic system intrinsic to nationalism.
As for tech ideas, I wonder if the data from “comments” section could be split off from the rest of the site, with a few appearing on the main site as it does now.
If one clicked through to a comment, the article it was associated with could be seen at the top.
pf,
So, the “We Agree” coalition amounted to nothing, then. Finding a Venn Diagram intersection of fringe players with VERY different agendas otherwise doestn’t strike me as having much hope to be consequential. Maybe it might be a means to attract your target audience (leftists) who’ve not heard the Good News of the Somali-style of un-governing, but the Single Constraint filter is mighty fine. It’s quite a leap to go from Medicare for All to ending MD licensure.
I have certain problems with that platform, but not with its program.
Fernando
Thomas
While I’ve moved away from the Cult of Ron Paul in the decade plus since, I think the 2008 “we agree” platform that Bob Barr famously screwed up in snubgate is a good place to start. There was a four point platform of agreement:
As many of you will recall this was a shared platform between Ron Paul, the Constitution Party, LP, Greens and independent Ralph Nader. The LP Barr-Root ticket screwed it up by demanding a unilateral endorsement from Paul instead, and by Barr refusing to appear on a stage with “people like” Cynthia McKinney, however you may choose to interpret that. Paul ended up quasi-endorsing Baldwin instead.
But that platform is still there, and still represent the basis for a coalition which cuts across the left and right and stands in strong opposition to the decrepit and corrupt DnR establishment.
I don’t think Andy has Nathan’s sexual pecadilloes. At least not openly. Also, Andy is slightly more subtle about the whole “Aryan” thing, and I don’t think he agrees with Nathan about fracking Siberia or taking Greenland by force in order to raise a lot of money for the government to terraform Mars. Andy would be more on board with gradually working towards a propertarian anarcho-white nationalist tribal Hoppean utopia by strategically supporting the MAGA fascist state mass deporting nonwhite immigrants and those who share their perceived physical or cultural characteristics. But yes, there is a definite large area of overlap in their ideology.
Thank you.
Exactly.
Also, please give me a call when you get a chance.
Not very well. In practice they are used as a wedge to herd a lot of people who are not authoritarian elitists into an artificial, constrained and false choice between authoritarian elitist right and authoritarian elitist left, whereupon a bunch of authoritarian elitists with little or no regard for “left” or “right” outside of rhetoric used to bamboozle voters and donors gather together like a mafia commission to divide up their territories and haggle over their cut of the profits behind closed doors as well as put on an entertaining donkey and elephant puppet theatre in public.
I’ll vote for Darcy on any ticket he cares to run on. But I do find the Constitution Party a strange one for him 😀
“Unfortunately, that’s something a lot of people don’t understand since they’re so mired in the Left vs. Right paradigm, a phenomenon that’s virtually paralyzed our politics to the delight of the financial elites — the same folks who, funding Democrats and Republican lawmakers alike, have methodically destroyed the middle class while amassing a staggering $22.4 trillion national debt and turning the United States into something resembling a third world country over the past four decades.”
If only it were Left v Right. It’s Democrat V Republican. The Left in the US is not really represented by either major party, at most you get 10 Democrats actually fighting for Left-Wing Principles at a time. The Mainstream Democratic Party Politician Espouses the Clinton version of Third Way New Democrat Centrism, which is just being a Republican with a D next to your name. And that opened the doors for financial elites to start funneling money to the Democrats
Well said, Paulie.
Unfortunately, that’s something a lot of people don’t understand since they’re so mired in the Left vs. Right paradigm, a phenomenon that’s virtually paralyzed our politics to the delight of the financial elites — the same folks who, funding Democrats and Republican lawmakers alike, have methodically destroyed the middle class while amassing a staggering $22.4 trillion national debt and turning the United States into something resembling a third world country over the past four decades.
It’s no fun moderating or reading klan drivel. If you miss him, here ya go, Tony
https://iprx.wordpress.com/tag/nathan-norman/
10 years late to the party, Bob. It was until the passage of Sesta/Fosta, whereupon Reddit used that as a pretext to crackdown on its previously (largely) free speech platform.
There are no “hot clubs.” Social media for the most part killed the blogosphere/message board as a popular medium. You could go retro with usenet(which is what the blogopshere originally supplanted).
You could petition to bring him back.
‘ “Left” and “right” don’t describe the sum total of politics. For example there’s elitist versus bottom up, libertarian versus authoritarian, and other dimensions to politics.’
They explain the basics, mostly economic views.
It hasn’t been any fun since Andy was banned from posting nonsense conspiracy theories! 😛
“Left” and “right” don’t describe the sum total of politics. For example there’s elitist versus bottom up, libertarian versus authoritarian, and other dimensions to politics.
“I’ve always been willing to work with people across the political spectrum, Left and Right alike, in battling the increasingly corrupt Wall Street-controlled major parties. It’s about fighting the financial oligarchy’s stranglehold on our body politic.”
It seems very off to have someone who ran a Left-Wing primary against Obama, go to saying Andrew Gillum is too far left, then runs with a party that’s Far-Right.
Call me crazy, but that doesn’t sound right…
I haven’t been spending as much time here as I used to either.
“Darcy’s running with the Reform Party and now I guess the Idaho Constitution Party.” — Fernando Mercado
I’ve always been willing to work with people across the political spectrum, Left and Right alike, in battling the increasingly corrupt Wall Street-controlled major parties. It’s about fighting the financial oligarchy’s stranglehold on our body politic.
The CP of Idaho leadership — they’re good folks — recently invited me to enter their binding March 10th presidential primary, which is open not only to the state’s 3,100 or so registered Constitution Party members, but also the state’s unaffiliated voters, a bloc of roughly 130,000-140,000 voters.
pf,
Right, it seems we agree. He apparently does not care to fix the site for business reasons, which is certainly his right and may well be the optimal business decision for him. I suspect he’s losing eyeballs with this decision however, and mine are eyeing the door…which, of course, is just fine.
The hot club loses its edge, and patrons move on to the next hot club, sorta thing….
Agreed with dL @ 1739. It seems like a hosting issue. The hosting move was for financial reasons and the problems have been ever since then.
No, he’s not willing to spend a bunch of time and money. He’s OK with more or less letting it run itself or letting someone fixd stuff. His exit strategy is to sell it to spammers or advertisers capitalizing off old links and web searches or something like that. I may have that wrong since I’m also behind the curve on tech knowledge but that seemed like the gist of what I remember him saying.
What doesn’t make much sense to me is that this site used to work fine two months ago. Whatever’s being done in the background to severely damage the experience is really none of my business. I’ve enjoyed myself here, learned a few things, and maybe others have learned from me (if only that their belief in the NAP is even stronger, despite my critiques.)
Reddit seems to have potential, although the choices there are mind-numbing. Twitter seems to have a lot of major contributors, but I don’t care for the character-length restrictions. Facebook is such a smattering of subjects.
IPR was my L politics go-to. It saddens me that it seems to be on its last legs…guess that’s why they say when one door closes, another opens.
The performance issues/caching glitches are not related to the database size. WordPress proper has indexes on the mySql tables. MySql can easily handle this wordpress site if properly indexed. Plugins, however, may be another matter in terms fucking w/ performance. I haven’t noticed a performance slowdown in site per se, but what I have noticed is an extreme slow down in the admin dashboard performance after the move.
Caching glitches(i.e, comments not showing up immediately) are another matter. I haven’t experienced that issue; but others have. Of course, I also usually logged in.
I would recommend against going that route, if possible, particularly for political commentary. Third party commenting systems are tracked, and if wasn’t obvious before, then it should be obvious now that tracked comments end up in databases you didn’t expect them to end up in for red flag profiling.
This site is a shadow of its former self. It’s a real shame but that’s the truth. I really hope what’s his face can sell it to someone who cares enough to do what’s necessary to make it real time again.
It may take some time to set up, but building a website is a whole lot easier than it used to be, and there are plenty of WordPress news blog themes and free or inexpensive plug-ins to cover all the essential functionality. I’m no tech genius either, but you no longer have to be a wizard at HTML/CSS/Javascript to get a snappy, secure, and well designed site up and running in a reasonable amount of time. No coding required.
I don’t like to complain, but I’m not gonna lie. The IPR user experience can be pretty doggone painful.
pf,
“care to address” would include spending resources. If the site is worth $10K in his mind, one would think he’d be willing to “fix the roof” before the new owner took possession. But that’s just my sense without enough information to have a strong opinion. I have virtually no tech knowledge, so I can’t offer him any helpful ideas.
That can be fixed.
Alternatively, the old content could just be kept on the same server, but in a different WordPress installation (probably this one as a subdomain, with a new WordPress installation being where the raw domain name points). The point is to keep it available while not slowing down the new stuff, and to set up the new stuff very carefully so as to avoid plug-in conflicts, etc.
Not every page is archived
IPR history would be preserved — at archive.org, without consuming space and resources and slowing down current content. That’s the whole point.
No, I’ll 100% live with technical errors as long as we can preserve IPR history
IPR is a pretty old site, and a pretty large one in terms of archived content and comments. That, combined with hosting moves, probably results in little issues cropping up here and there that are hard to track down and address. And possibly expensive.
My personal recommendation would be this:
1) Announce that as of Date X, all content from before Date Y will only be available via archive.org’s Wayback machine.
2) As of Date X, delete all content from before Date Y from the server and import recent content into a new, clean installation of WordPress. Either keep that installation simple in terms of themes, plug-ins, etc., or hire a professional developer to handle the bells and whistles.
3) At that point, also switch to a non-native commenting system to reduce server loads.
Yes, that probably means losing some search engine mojo and advertising revenue from very old content, but it will make the current content more attractive/usable.
I don’t think that’s true. He’s open to suggestions. Just does not want to spend a bunch of time and money on it.
Tons of places. reason.com, numerous facebook pages and groups, and on and on. Ballot Access News has comment sections also. Just about any blog has one. You can also create a new one too, or buy IPR (I think Warren wants 10k, so it may not be worth all that). Or help with hosting costs so we can move to a better hosting service that will work with us more closely on solving tech glitches. Dunno.
I doubt it. Which one am I?
It appears the owner of this site doesn’t care to address the ongoing technical glitches here.
Does anyone know of a place to discuss L political theory and strategy in a reasonably elevated-yet-layman-like, robust manner?
PF,
Not the “average voter,” per se. More like “large numbers of voters.” It’s actually quite a straightforward approach.
Fundamentalist L-ism and the vanguard approach strikes me as the more convoluted strategy.
Now maybe the better, more accurate dividing line is the old purist/pragmatist dichotomy. Does that work better for you?
Or a snake eating its own tail while at the same time getting wrapped around an axle. We report, you decide.
Capozzi’s idea of a broad based appeal to the average voter.
1. Darcy’s running with the Reform Party and now I guess the Idaho Constitution Party.
2. Five State affiliates left the party, so even if they’re all the ballot in all 50 states, it counts as only 45. (Unless more disaffiliated)
I think they are most of the way to being on the ballot in enough states to have a theoretical chance of winning the electoral college. I’d have to double check that.
you should have used that pseudonym
https://www.fastcompany.com/90394048/uh-oh-silicon-valley-is-building-a-chinese-style-social-credit-system
Darcy for US President? Is there enough left of the CP anymore, though, to really run somebody nationwide?
Can anyone translate this?
TK,
I’m actually hoping beyond hope that Fundamentalists (which — in a microscope — has several strains) will challenge the cult of the cult of the omnipotent state at its root, and they release the false premises upon which the NAP-as-political-commandment thought system(s) and adopt TAAALism. I don’t expect that to happen, but it’s an aspirational hope.
Darcy’s went to the Idaho CP to get a ballot line:
http://www.cpidaho.org/archives/richardson-declares-cp-idaho-presidential-primary-run/?fbclid=IwAR0EIH8UGSakJJxdbeVMO3UUv4qroYW0uiZArW76lO3qycfDo7KbXQ0lm5I
Either that or he’s fallen off the deep end
No. Chafee claiming full agreement would put my grift detector on full alert, given that few, if any, LP members concur with all 34. I’m guessing disagreement on 2-3 planks is the average. In my case, I disagree with the 3 conservative fusionist planks(abortion, parental rights, national defense). The fact that he correctly enumerated the actual count on the number of planks indicates that he actually took some time to read the platform, and the fact that he only found disagreement on 3 is a heretical blow to the lessarchist movement(which remains a movement of one).
RC,
In other words, you’re hoping beyond hope for “fundamentalist head exploding” because that would constitute evidence that the group you posit actually exists.
I suspect you will, as usual, be disappointed in any such expectation.
It’s probably positive for LC to ID the planks he doesn’t buy up front. That feels forthcoming, which the Fundamentalists may not like, but I suspect they will respect. He should make the three heresies explicit, and why.
But — for both single-constraintist and abolitionist Fundamentalist — the bigger issue is what sorts of short- to intermediate-term policies he might advocate. One could agree with the utopian views in the platform, but advocate positions that trigger the Fundamentalist mindset.
He should probably get himself an interpreter, someone who understands the vagaries of the Fundamentist Way.
You would have to ask Chafee. He didn’t give specifics on the three he disagreed with.
Which planks does Chafee not like? You could as well list the ones he does not disagree with, but I prefer to save people work.
iirc, Chafee’s communication skills are a bit better than GJs. He came across as weak in the early phases of the D scrum.
If he throws his hat in the ring, I hope he gets a great speech coach.
L. Chafee, what-evs . . . W.A.R. always sucks . . . GL willie weld tilting at this last cosmic windmill . . . Still like Mike G – rotten teens, tried to help . . . . was Koch-eEe a FunDie? HeH & MeH. Kookish, vOhra, veRMin? – just not. Stop Seder & Mug McAffee, thems B broken heads . . . . Amash it probably is.
mUh muDDy roAds. GooDLuCK-PF, ES
Concur. But it really is the tyranny of low expectations that the LP can’t pluck a former politico who at least didn’t vote for the patriot act.
IPR is getting weird again — I get notifications of comments, then when I come to reply to them, they’re not here. They show up hours later. Not sure what’s up with that, but I suspect it has to do with WordPress caching.
If the Libertarian Party is going to go with another party’s retread yet again, it could do worse than Chafee. I’d rather it didn’t for strategic/branding, not ideological, reasons, but if it’s going to do so I’d rather it chose someone who was most recently Democratic rather than someone (for the fourth time in a row) who was most recently Republican.
[David Koch helped build a libertarian empire. It turned out to be a paper tiger]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/23/david-koch-helped-build-libertarian-empire-it-turned-out-be-paper-tiger/
The dialectical outcome of the Koch political network could almost make me a believer in the Marxist/Hegelian dialectic.
[Trump has discredited core conservative beliefs and boosted the popularity of left-wing causes]
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/us/trump-obama-change-blake/index.html
Nah, minor headache only. But given that Chafee said he agreed w/ 31 out of 34 of the LP platform planks, we do look forward to your rants how the former Republican politico managed to become collateral damage to the founders’ depth charges.
Adios, paulie! Sounds like a wunnerful retirement plan.
https://youtu.be/kPIdRJlzERo
David Koch has passed away
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/billionaire-industrialist-and-libertarian-activist-david-koch-dies.html
“Fundamentalist head explosion news….”
Glad to see that nothing cures you of wishful thinking.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lincoln-chafee-weighs-presidential-bid-as-libertarian/ar-AAGbD9H?ocid=sf&fbclid=IwAR0e11ss7IXeLT1S2MTXJy1Hpefn7Ml4X7rEwdg6Z4gb5wSQBSDRO3YyF6E
Fundamentalist head explosion news….
I already wrote an article on Chafee
As well as Chafee
https://www.thedailybeast.com/lincoln-chafee-id-be-open-to-a-libertarian-white-house-bid
He’s has been eating his foot for awhile now.
Once considered a possible LP prez candidate stumbles:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/business/overstock-ceo-patrick-byrne-resigns/index.html
ok, I’m now on the vermin supreme bandwagon
#VerminSupreme2020
PF,
If you do decide to move the Mexico, thank you for all you’ve done on IPR and elsewhere.
SECRETARY’S REPORT
I am seriously considering moving to Mexico soon. Maybe next month. Leaning more towards it the more I think about it.
[…]
I’m not sure yet what my communication situation will be in Mexico. I expect I will probably get rid of my US cell phone once down there. Not sure about internet access but I expect to spend most of my time drinking heavily and fishing, so I doubt I’ll mess with the computer more than once a week. I’ll probably have snail mail forwarding of some sort. I’ll hitch hike into town at least once a month to check snail mail. Probably. My psycho therapist says moving to Mexico, two boxes of wine and a daily eight ball of medicinal/recreational cocaine, and a lot of fishing all day every day is the only known cure for what ails me.
In other news………Trump proclaimed himself the King of Israel, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Chancellor of the Fourth Reich, Dear Leader of all Koreans, President of Mexico, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. He also said that Jews and gentiles who do not bend the knee to him are not loyal to America. He demanded that the wildlings cede all claim to Greenland and send tribute to feed his imaginary dragons while testing out a new toupee combing style on Epoch Times Q-Anon News.
In yet more otherer news, crucifixions are now legal again and will be carried out by the federal bureau of prisons in Lafayette Square. Also, Russia needs to be back in the G-8 immediately. Wait! Look! There goes the new King of Israel, climbing up on the cross all by himself! Did I say climbing up on the cross? My mistake. He is climbing into the lion’s den. They tried feeding Trump to the lions when he was a small boy and ran away with the Barnum and Bailey circus. The lions looked at his hair and decided to adopt him instead. True story, or at least as true as anything else he says.
Trump says he is the chosen one. He’s going to destroy the Sith and the Jedi and bring balance to the Force. The chosen one will be significant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NURPY3AcC8k
How can you not stay in a country whose president is the most stablest genius of them all?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-LTRwZb35A
As if El Jefe was not enough, take Kay Ivey (please). The Yellowhammer News reports “Ivey to toll detractors: ‘Nobody wants to pay for anything — We just always want the benefits’” By “nobody”, I assume she means herself, the legislature, lobbyists, hangers on, politically connected corporate donors/beneficiaries of government policies….oh wait…You’re not a “body” unless you are a “somebody” I guess. The people already paid for these roads, the toll is just to use government guns to shovel extorted money to crony corporate moneybags in exchange for some of it ending up in the pockets of politicians, family members and friends in various ways.
Speaking of shovel ready projects, the Farm Center planned in Clanton will shovel a lot of money in the general direction of those who are elected to cast votes, those who pay to get them elected, et al.
The Clanton Advertiser
Yesterday at 8:05 PM
Waiting on official copies of results, but unofficially with 100% of precincts in Van Smith has carried around 55% of votes in Chilton County and over 80% in Autauga County, meaning it is safe to declare Smith winner of the Republican primary. There will be no runoff. Smith will face lone Democratic candidate Kenneth Allison Sr. on Nov. 5 in the general election.
p] The turnout numbers are the real story. That and the fact that the Republican nominee will represent the minority of the district in Autauga county and the Democrats are a small minority of the population of this district as well. Expect turnout in single digit percentages in November, which leaves a huge opportunity for us…even if we have to go write-in.
The Clanton Advertiser
21 hrs ·
Official results for the Republican primary of the House District 42 special election in Chilton County:
3,148 votes total
Van Smith – 1,658
Jimmie Hardee – 602
Allen Caton – 518
Shannon Welch – 369
Complete but unofficial results from Autauga County:
Van Smith – 579
Allen Caton – 104
Jimmie Hardee – 84
Shannon Welch – 21
That’s 3,935 total votes – barely double digit turnout in a district which went 80% plus and perhaps 90% plus for Trump and didn’t even have a Democrat running in 2018 for the same seat at all. It does now, but note that maybe only 7-800 people voted in Autauga, and the winning Republican comes from Autauga, with almost half the Chilton Republican vote split among three Chilton Republicans. So what kind of turnout can they expect to muster in November in an odd year special election where Democrats are widely and correctly seen as having no chance and Republicans eliminated all the candidates from the county which has the bulk of the district’s population in their primary?
I think this puts us in a very “peachy” position – even if not enough of our signatures are deemed valid. But I’m still moving to Mexico. Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
Paul Frankel
Secretary, LPA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGP0cuilgWE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-LTRwZb35A
Trump proclaimed himself the King of Israel, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Chancellor of the Fourth Reich, Dear Leader of all Koreans, President of Mexico, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. He also said that Jews and gentiles who do not bend the knee to him are not loyal to America.
He demanded that the wildlings cede all claim to Greenland and send tribute to feed his imaginary dragons while testing out a new toupee combing style on Epoch Times Q-Anon News.
In other news, crucifixions are now legal again and will be carried out by the federal bureau of prisons in Lafayette Square. Also, Russia needs to be back in the G-8 immediately.
They tried feeding him to the lions when he was a small boy and ran away with the Barnum and Bailey circus. The lions looked at his hair and decided to adopt him instead. True story, or at least as true as anything else he says.
Trump says he is the chosen one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NURPY3AcC8k
I’m not saying you are necessarily wrong. But as an environmentalist and animal lover I think pigs and alligators need to eat, too. These could be completely unrelated statements, conceivably.
My rural neighbors may be Trumpsuckers, but they all tell me they used to have lots of guns. However, most of them tell me they lost them while duck hunting out in the swamp over the years. I don’t know why people keep taking all these expensive guns out in the swamp time and time again. Then again I also don’t get why anyone would fall for the rather obvious con artist Trump.
One of my neighbors owns a fully automatic .22 rifle. Or maybe he sold it. I haven’t heard him shoot it in a while. But I very much doubt he acquired it through legal channels. He probably modified it himself. He is very much a red neck Walmart shopping country boy.
It wouldn’t surprise me if another guy down the street owned one, also. He’s what you might call a gun nut. The sort that has a false wall in his house, and on the other side of the wall, all you can see is guns. That’s not a fanciful description, he literally has a false wall like that in his house. He isn’t a red neck. He’s just a gun nut that wanted out of New York.
So I have to wonder if there might be quite a bit more fully automatic weapons out in very rural areas of America than is commonly believed.
Allow me to self promote, will get back to posting articles at some point:
https://www.youtube.com/c/EPluribusUnumYT
https://epluribusunumyoutube.weebly.com/
nuance!
#LPBarrRoot2008
The Volokh Conspiracy seems to think progressive groups might have some success cracking qualified immunity by using originalism as the nut cracker.
https://reason.com/2019/08/20/the-fifth-circuit-divides-on-qualified-immunity-and-originalism/
I generally consider vigilantism a poor strategy. Even if it’s justifiable in any particular case, if directed at state actors it generally ends badly for those who engage in it and it generally doesn’t lead to any systemic change.
I think qualified immunity might be the exception.
That is, if a state actor intentionally or negligently kills an innocent, and if the grounds for acquittal (criminal or civil) are only “qualified immunity,” the best outcome might be for that state actor’s mutilated body to be found in a parking lot a few days later. It might not take much of that for future cases to start ending in guilty pleas and settlements instead of demands for free passes.
Get crackin…my guess is that if you can’t crack qualified immunity with SCOTUS, you won’t have much luck with sweeping gun control holding up. The type of court that would be sympathetic to upholding a kamala harris executive order would probably not be unsympathetic to ending qualified immunity.
AFAIK, there haven’t been any mass shootings with fully automatic weapons since the days of Al Capone. The manufacture of such weapons for consumer purchase were banned in 80s, and while it is still technically legal to buy one on the secondary market(usually through a broker of some sorts), it’s a rich (civilian) man’s weapon. Collectors. And the purchase entails a lengthy FBI background check to boot. Not the type who is going to light up a walmart.
TK and LD,
As for exempting public employees, iirc this is a widespread practice in all/most government activities. Personally, I’m very open to holding government employees accountable for their harmful behavior. But it seems to be a tougher nut to crack.
It’s real hard for me to see the Eric Garner video and not feel that the cop who killed him should be held accountable, for instance.
tk: it makes sense to look at the reality instead of operating from a default assumption that fear is the appropriate response.
me: Sure it makes sense to look at reality. For those who advocate for more regulation of firearms, I’m not sure ALL of them are motivated by “fear.” They may well be motivated by compassion, the concern that rapid-fire weaponry has been used to kill large numbers of innocent people.
I’m generally of the opinion that they are overreacting, but that a conversation on the subject is appropriate.
LD: Homeowners insurance covers all accidents in the home and businesses have accident insurance also. This type of insurance includes accidental discharge of a gun.
Me: Are you sure? Even if correct about homeowners, how about non-homeowners?
LD: This kind of insurance will not cover mass shootings like the kind you keep hearing about in the news.
Me: Are you sure? If it doesn’t, that’s definitely a problem.
Well, the silver lining is that statements like this vis a vis immigration
“There is an understandable resentment of those who are taxpayers who are already profoundly overburdened by the cost of government.”
will make you uninsurable, Bob. And the radical open borders contingent will have no problem getting a policy :()
robert capozzi,
It doesn’t matter who is behind this stupid idea, it the fools who are letting their fears overcome their common sense and are willing to trade everyone’s rights and freedoms for the illusion of safety that are going to force this on the rest of us.
The first part of the law is redundant. Homeowners insurance covers all accidents in the home and businesses have accident insurance also. This type of insurance includes accidental discharge of a gun.
The second part of the law tries to make gun owners responsible for the action of other people they have no control over. Even auto insurance doesn’t go this far. Your auto insurance won’t cover accidents when someone steals your car.
This kind of insurance will not cover mass shootings like the kind you keep hearing about in the news. These shooting have been committed by people who legally bought their guns then intentionally shot people. It also exempts the people most likely to accidentally shoot you which is the sworn employees of law enforcement agencies. So it won’t even solve the problems you are crying about.
At this time, the notion that automatic weapons are some kind of problem is a great example of confused discernment. They’re just not very good weapons for murder, either individual or en masse. They’re a great example of Mencken’s hobgoblins.
Does de-regulating automatic weapons make for a great campaign issue? No, not any more so than private nukes. But if people want to actually discuss either one, it makes sense to look at the reality instead of operating from a default assumption that fear is the appropriate response.
TK,
I submit that confused discernment is another term for the human condition. At this time, any theoretical case for unregulating fully automatic weapons is a great example of confused discernment. Admittedly it seems to me less confused than the Fundamentalists advocating the right to private.nukes, to be fair.
“The requirement will not apply to sworn employees of law enforcement agencies.”
Go figure.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/12/us/san-jose-mayor-liability-insurance-guns/index.html
LD et al
Is the insurance industry behind this?
—–
If the source is correct, there have been 3 shooting deaths involving automatics since 1986. All things considered, is it “idiotic” to suggest that the strict regulation of automatics is working pretty well?
——
1986-2019 is 33 years. How many shooting deaths involving automatics were there from 1963-1986? How about from 1930-1963? What were the opportunity costs of that regulation (money, man-hours, etc. spent on “strict regulation of automatics” was not being spent on other things)?
If I had to guess, I’d guess that shooting deaths involving full automatics in the last few decades were all or nearly all of the ostentatious variety — a signature/statement/advertisement identifying the killers as cartel operatives. Sort of like the “Colombian necktie” or like the mafia supposedly favoring a .22 bullet to the back of the head for internecine executions.
The sentiment in favor of “strict regulation of automatics” is driven by visceral fear, not hard fact. Do you honestly believe that public policy should be driven by confused discernment, a dearth of facts, or some emotional trauma?
tk: So I’d look for issues on which my prospective constituents weren’t fucking idiots to emphasize instead.
me: Characterizing voters as “fucking idiots” strikes me as an unhelpful, unhealthy assumption. It has a Fundamentalist feel as well, that those who disagree with you on an issue are necessarily stupid.
Now, the truth — as far as I can tell — is that everyone is ignorant about something. And pretty much everyone has a blind spot(s), areas where their philosophical stance is informed by confused discernment, a dearth of facts, or some emotional trauma.
My guess is that demigogic, autocratic leaders like Trump hold this view about their followers. It’s the tone that Whitacker Chambers was suggesting about Rand’s ATLAS SHRUGGED.
If the source is correct, there have been 3 shooting deaths involving automatics since 1986. All things considered, is it “idiotic” to suggest that the strict regulation of automatics is working pretty well?
Today’s nuance is yesterday’s cheesy dystopian flick…
Going back to pre-1986, or even pre-1934, standards on full-auto weapons wouldn’t be a marquee issue I would pick outside of very specific circumstances (e.g. a three-way race with two “moderate pro-gun-rights” opponents who disagree with me, in a very pro-gun-rights district, where it looks like it could be the deciding issue).
In an anti-gun-rights district, it would really be neither here nor there, since anything short of calling for more pro-massacre restrictions on gun ownership and carriage would be a “non-starter.” So I’d look for issues on which my prospective constituents weren’t fucking idiots to emphasize instead.
tk,
Yes, thanks, not my best word choice. “Unconventional speculation” might be a better way to put it. Unconventional because very few advocate re-legalizing automatic weapons. Speculative because we really can’t know what the outcome of such a far-fetched idea might result in. I assume you have your fact right: that machine guns are heavier and harder to aim. Whether the restrictions on automatics leads to higher body counts is questionable. The mass murderers might heed your counsel and stick with the more accurate semis, or only use automatics in densely populated areas.
Gosh, I HOPE the LP 2020 candidate doesn’t advocate ending regulation of automatics! Talk about political non-starters!
I’m not sure what’s “nuanced” there. Are there more factual specifics that can be delved into? Sure. But there’s no “nuance” to my position on whether they should be regulated by the state. Given the facts that I’m aware of, I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and say “oh, I forgot, except the Uzi.”
Not impossible, just not easy. I started from extreme skepticism and was convinced over the course of several million words on tens of thousands of pages bound in hundreds of volumes containing a wealth of empirical and historical data, a good quarter century plus ago now.
I’d have to wonder why the numbers had become so extremely high as well as what the best line of defense would be (usually well armed civilians, certainly not cops who have no duty to defend any citizen and at best are minutes away when you need help in seconds or often times useless or worse).
TK,
Nuanced!
Perhaps this could be a cornerstone of Vohra for prez….legalize automatic weapons, they’re safer!
—–
TK: The restriction on automatic weapons probably results in higher mass-shooting body counts
ME: extraordinary claim. Tell me more.
—–
They’re not very accurate. They burn through ammo very fast. They and their required ammo supply are heavy.
In military use, they either require a lot of effort — barbed wire, land mines, etc. — to channel an enemy into their fields of fire, or else they’re just a channeling weapon themselves (“don’t go in that way, it’s covered by machine gun fire”).
A mass shooter who walks into a building with a semi-automatic pistol may only fire 15 rounds in two minutes, but he may very well fire 15 fatal rounds because he is aiming his shots and shooting close up. A mass shooter who walks into a building with a machine gun may fire 1200 rounds in two minutes and not hit anything but filing cabinets and ceiling tiles. Of course, he probably wasn’t carrying 1200 rounds of ammo unless he was the Incredible Hulk, and if he was, now he’s out while the pistol guy still has two 15-round magazines in his pocket.
The only time I came really close to having to kill someone, it was with a machine gun (a Squad Automatic Weapon), and I was wishing like hell I was aiming my M-16 instead. The SAW was “spray and pray.” With the M-16 on single shot fire, I’d have put at least two rounds through the guy’s chest. The third might have missed, as he was in a moving vehicle.
The only machine gun worth a crap IMO is a heavy gun (US .50 caliber or Russian 12.5mm). Which requires a crew to carry, let alone fire, and more crew to carry its heavy-ass ammo, and plenty of time to set up. It’s not like you can carry it under your coat, or run through a building with it.
Chances are, though, if full auto weapons were easily available, that’s what would-be mass shooters would choose. And they wouldn’t be nearly as successful with them.
Still waiting to detect any daylight between you and Donald Trump…
PF,
Yeah, your counter factual is probably impossible to prove. Sound biting it is a huge challenge. I’d say you and TK do both as well as anyone since Konkin. I was once persuaded, but I’ve far too many flaws in the premises to be a buyer of the Fundamentalist Way. I find single constraintism far too restrictive and probably self defeating.
I wonder: if 100 person mass murders were a daily event, would you be open to reconsidering your stance?
TK: The restriction on automatic weapons probably results in higher mass-shooting body counts
ME: extraordinary claim. Tell me more.
You had it right the first time, albeit inadvertently. Your statement here is also correct as a stand alone sentence, other than the grammatical nit of number disagreement (restrictions, is).
It took several years of reading literally several hundred books for me to come to the conclusions I did that there was no conflict at all, but rather a confluence, between the moral and empirical case for radical libertarianism of the culturally left-leaning variety. It’s not a case that I have had the best success in translating into sound bites, to say the least. I’m decent with some simple soundbites like “do you believe people should be allowed to vote for whatever party or candidate they want, not just Democrats or Republicans?” ….Somewhere in between the two there’s a lot of room, to explain things better.
Complicated chain multi-order, multi-input system ripple effects are hard to prove or even explain. Yet the net bottom line is the same as the simple moral constraint, they both add up to the same conclusion.
I disagree. In some cases the state may not kill or harm directly, and may even appear to maintain domestic tranquility. But even in those cases, just having a state biog and powerful to do those things has other less obvious effects which combine to outweigh whatever good the state may seem to be doing. Furthermore, they help prevent the effective implementation of better, more cost effective, and more actually effective solutions to those same problems which are not based on coercion, extortion and the threat of force as the state is.
Not immediately, no. At least not often.
RC,
The restriction on automatic weapons probably results in higher mass-shooting body counts. If that’s your goal, congratulations.
…restrictions on automatic weapons is unwise,…
tk and pf,
Yes, I agree, the march toward totalitarianism probably has spillover effects and all sorts of unintended consequences.
It’s also the case that advocating removing the restrictions on automatic weapons is wise, even if the NAP would indicate that that would be righteous.
Single-constraint Fundamentalism has the advantage of simplifying politics for the Fundamentalist. It’s quite easy to be against any one thing that might be directionally incorrect. To me, that approach oversimplifies.
While States are responsible for millions of dead bodies, it’s also the case that not everything the State does kills or even harms. Sometimes, it does maintain domestic tranquility. Tweaks to the current domestic-tranquility regime do not necessarily lead to the Killing Fields, Holodomor, or the Holocaust.
I trust we all agree on at least this!
LD,
In point of fact, I have not taken a position on mandatory auto or firearm insurance. I do note that murder is illegal and yet it still happens. It strikes me as entirely sensible to signal with law that murder is a crime carrying substantial prison terms.
Consider the possibility that you are overreacting in this case.
For me, btw, my rule is that means are ends in themselves. I seek a balance of maximal liberty while maintaining reasonable levels of domestic tranquility. For me, the very best solutions achieve more of both, but sometimes they do not.
High-body-count mass shootings are contrary to domestic tranquility, as I see it.
robert capozzi,
Your comment about the folks who are made whole after a car accident have nothing to do with the effects of making insurance mandatory or not. Auto insurance has been mandatory since I’ve been old enough to drive. In that time I’ve been in a number of accidents and about half the time others who have hit me had no insurance. Making auto insurance mandatory doesn’t stop irresponsible people from driving without insurance.
Your solution is an example of the ‘end justifies the means reasoning while ignoring the fact that your means won’t bring about the ending you seek.
While millions to tens of millions were killed in war in the last century, tens to hundreds of millions were killed by their own governments.
I expect less than a million total worldwide were killed by individuals or gangs who were not either self styled governments, revolutionary groups aspiring to government status, or thinly veiled private death squads subcontracting for governments.
Nevertheless that latter number was still probably a significant increase from prior centuries, and IMO it’s not a coincidence that it happened during an era of increased totalitarianism. The ripple effects of government violence and coercion cause civilians to also attack each other.
Absolutely not. And I would think you would know better. It’s not that someone is in for lack of insurance, it’s that it sets off a chain of things which I described or contributes to it that leads to crimes that do lead to being locked up, or being trapped in government dependence and poverty, or both.
I’ll grant that the threat of xenophobic-based mass shootings is on the rise. So maybe Bob needs to contribute to a liability insurance victim fund before writing things like
There is an understandable resentment of those who are taxpayers who are already profoundly overburdened by the cost of government.
with respect to immigration.
No. This administrative state bullshit was in many ways at the root of the Ferguson riots.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/us/ferguson-missouri-racism-tickets-fines/index.html
RC,
I haven’t done any writing for Mr. Kokesh, nor do I expect to ever work for his campaign or his notional administration. So far as I can tell, he has the writing work well in hand (I have no idea whether he does it himself or has it ghosted).
In fact, I haven’t had any recruitment approaches from presidential campaigns in this cycle, unless receiving a review copy of Vermin Supreme’s book and writing said review might be considered such. There’s one current candidate I might do some work for if asked, and two prospective candidates I’ve already offered to help in any way I can. I doubt that either of the latter will run.
“Killings in war are surely awful. But domestic killings like El Paso and Dayton seem different to me, and probably to most onlookers.”
I specifically noted the existence of “private” killers like those in El Paso, Dayton, and numerous other cities, stretching back decades. I don’t have the data at hand to know whether that problem is getting worse, or better, or staying about the same. But IF it is getting worse, it has been getting worse during a period of increasing government regulation of every aspect of our lives. “That’s never worked before and is not working now, let’s do MORE of it” doesn’t seem like a reasonable proposal to address the problem.
Paulie ” . . . . .It gives cops another excuse to harass people, write tickets, give out court dates and feed the criminal injustice system and police-prison-industrial complex maw. People end up with criminal records, harder time getting and keeping legal jobs, getting housing or education, so resort to crime and/or government assistance to keep above ground. It all ties in together. . . . ”
Paulie: none of that happens to people who drive without insurance. I can’t recall one person I was locked up with who answered “what are you in for” with “letting my insurance lapse.”
I hope your post was tongue in cheek
“Property rights are based on a just system in which property is assumed to be appropriately gotten. I would think we agree that the truth falls far short of that!”
Exactly. I don’t just blithely assume the validity of, say, the property rights scheme recognized and implemented by the state of Florida. Nor would I expect giving the implementers and arbitrators of that system yet more power to dictate my every behavior to improve that system.
At present, there are various ways of opting out of the existing system of property rights jurisprudence — for example, by agreeing to arbitration instead of government court for any disputes arising from a contract or transaction. I’d like to see more of that happen, and insurance might be part of such a development, but if it’s state-mandated, it will be because that mandate serves the state, not because it makes things more just.
tk: It’s not like large-scale mass murders are a new “trend.” 270 million in the 20th century, not even counting “private” killers — of which there were plenty.
me: Killings in war are surely awful. But domestic killings like El Paso and Dayton seem different to me, and probably to most onlookers.
President Kokesh might well see it like you do. He might well make that very point in his first Oval Office address. You might even get the slot as his Chief Speechwriter!
tk: Which propertarian construct is on shaky ground
me: Property rights are based on a just system in which property is assumed to be appropriately gotten. I would think we agree that the truth falls far short of that! There is all sorts of ill-gotten property “owners” that get away with all sorts of unjust machinations. Often they have better lawyers.
LD,
You are forgetting about the folks who are made whole after a car accident because most have auto insurance.
MNR was a proponent of the idea that insurance companies could provide territorial defense. I’d think that Fundamentalists would be attracted to the idea that bodily defense could be better guaranteed by insurance companies as well.
…trying to get former members who broke away and are protesting outside to join again.
BR: The insurance agent. That annoying guy who’s always there trying to sell you something you don’t need, don’t want, and serves no purpose for society – because you don’t need it and don’t want it.
Me: Hmm, I could say that Fundamentalists are Ned Ryerson. Proposing single-constraint NAP-based remedies for government overreach/existence has so far proven to be unwanted by virtually all.
Now I do admit that my IPR efforts are a bit like standing outside a Scientology Mission explaining to those coming and going that there are no Thetans; it’s just something a science-fiction writer made up to snow his naive followers! 😉
It gives cops another excuse to harass people, write tickets, give out court dates and feed the criminal injustice system and police-prison-industrial complex maw. People end up with criminal records, harder time getting and keeping legal jobs, getting housing or education, so resort to crime and/or government assistance to keep above ground. It all ties in together.
Bingo.
robert capozzi,
The flaw in your idea about mandatory insurance is that you mistakenly believe that passing a law will make irresponsible people act responsibly. That’s like thinking that by passing a law you can make stupid people act intelligently.
Mandatory auto insurance laws only increased the cost of auto insurance and auto repairs, they don’t stop irresponsible people from driving without auto insurance or make them drive more carefully when they do.
You’re not necessarily wrong. My stronger sense though is that more intrusive regulation of citizenry leads to more mass shootings by lunatics, especially but not only those in power.
UK outlawed guns and now has a lot of problems with knife attacks. Consequently knives are now becoming more controlled. Sounds like chasing the rabbit to me.
I make way too many typos to get on anyone else’s case about it, but I lost your thread of meaning there.
Neither. I assume you can do search engine queries at least as well as I can, so I won’t. And you should read the original comment in full context and consider that I named just a few examples of the ever more popular alternate forms of transport, including ride services and alternatives to going somewhere such as deliveries and increasingly robust conferencing solutions.
I’ve been considering getting a motorized covered wheelchair myself. It’s still in the idea stage but becoming more tempting all the time.
Which propertarian construct is on shaky ground, and which jurisprudence system is it that has the problems you refer to?
Mass shootings do not “lead to” more intrusive regulations. Mass shootings are “an excuse for” more intrusive regulations. There’s a difference. The state always acts to increase its discretionary power, and if its advocates don’t have one excuse to convince people to let it do so, they’ll find another. And if indeed there are more mass shootings lately than in the past, those mass shootings have taken place in an environment of increasingly intrusive regulations, particularly since 1934 vis a vis guns.
tk: 1) You, have made the assertion and offered the solution, would be the one with more to tell;
me: Actually, I was intrigued by a progressive’s idea on a subject in the news. I didn’t make an “assertion.” I do assert that there are BIG problems with jurisprudence, that it requires substantial resources to be properly represented, that discovery is an imperfect means to establish facts, etc. Given this, that to me puts the propertarian construct onto shaky ground.
My sense is that these mass shootings by lunatics may lead to more intrusive regulations on the citizenry. My further sense is the Fundamentalists seem unwilling to reconsider their dogma on this and apparently most issues.
It’s not like large-scale mass murders are a new “trend.” 270 million in the 20th century, not even counting “private” killers — of which there were plenty.
pf: Do you know of any items which are not potentially lethal?
me: Repeating myself: “Mandating insurance for lethal items requires some judgment. If murders with broken bottles became a major thing, it might then become something to consider.”
It strikes me that large-scale mass murders suggest to me that something has gone wrong in this civil society. Maybe there’s nothing that can be done to address this disturbing trend. I find the idea that giving putting insurance companies in the position of regulating the behavior of their clients or making whole their victims.
It may violate the single-constraint Fundamentalist principle.
We know who he is. But IIRC, Bill Murray making Ned salesman of the year was part of his penance to escape Groundhogs day. Maybe not the best example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkW_ZkMtmlQ
Ned Ryerson. The insurance agent. That annoying guy who’s always there trying to sell you something you don’t need, don’t want, and serves no purpose for society – because you don’t need it and don’t want it. Next step is to make it mandatory – The Insurance Industry has been the primary mover behind mandatory insurance of all kinds.
The obvious glaring flaw is that criminal justice jurisprudence is based on retribution, not restitution. For that reason, the attempt to analogize gun violence with auto insurance is not valid(criminal vs civil). If the criminal jurisprudence regime WAS restitution-based, then discussions about generalized private liability insurance(as means to indemnify one from falling into the status of outlaw in the event of non-payment), might be valid(cue up the David Friedman medieval Iceland discussion). However, In the current world we live in, this skull session aside is a red herring.
A member of my household just received the first Libertarian presidential campaign mailing I’ve seen so far this election cycle. It’s from Behrman. Since it’s not addressed to me and the recipient isn’t home at the moment, I haven’t seen the contents yet.
Presidential Campaign fundraising to date
BEHRMAN, DAN $15,166.45
RUFF, KIM/PHILLIPS, JOHN $11229.15
KOKESH, ADAM $9,138.32
ARMSTRONG, KENNETH REED $8,538.68
Actually, I have noticed that these people, while rare, approximately disappear in Winter. They also often use shank’s mare to come up mystret, which is to put it mildly steep. I have seen tween-agers on one of the steep hills on skate boards. I have not heard of any of them winning a Darwin Award. Yet.
Au contraire. Already becoming common everywhere from SF and NYC to Little Rock and Birmingham. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed in Mass, one of the premiere hubs of alt methods of transport.
Tell you more about what?
You’ve asserted that there are flaws in the property rights / jurisprudence regime.
As a solution, you’ve called for adding another flaw to the property rights / jurisprudence regime.
It seems to me that:
1) You, have made the assertion and offered the solution, would be the one with more to tell; and
2) That if you have flaws at one level, the solution is probably to be found at that level or lower rather than at another, equally flawed level. If my house has a cracked foundation and leans east, it makes more sense to jack up the east side of the house and repair the foundation or pour new foundation that it does to put a cantilevered second-story balcony on the second story of the west side and stack a bunch of heavy rocks on that balcony.
Do you know of any items which are not potentially lethal? Anything from a bathtub to a hair dryer to paper cuts can be lethal. Is there anything which is not? Even if you live in a bubble, you might choke on it.
Exactly.
They should be personally responsible for abuse of whatever tool they use, whether it’s firearm, baton, taser, bare hands…doesn’t matter. Carrying a sidearm and not using it is not the problem here.
tk: correcting flaws in the property rights/jurisprudence regime.
me: Tell me more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOYRLdisrTE
BR,
Care to elaborate?
“walking, bicycling, skateboarding, scootering, and other alternative modes of transport are more practical alternatives to driving ”
So long as the city only caters to teenagers and near-teenagers, is located in an area that does not have snow or ice, and is flat as a sheet.
Otherwise, not very much.
“Interestingly, Fundamentalists so far won’t even acknowledge my point about the glaring flaws in the property rights/jurisprudence regime.”
That’s because “fundamentalists” feel no need to entertain the notion that flaws in the property rights/jurisprudence regime constitute good reason to introduce more flaws in the property rights/jurisprudence regime instead of correcting flaws in the property rights/jurisprudence regime.
robert capozzi
August 18, 2019 at 09:46
Something about insuring cop firearms resonates as well for me.
Yep. You ARE Ned Ryerson.
Personal liability insurance for cops also resonates.
I dont feel at all anything like Benito for entertaining mandatory insurance for potentially lethal items. Interestingly, Fundamentalists so far won’t even acknowledge my point about the glaring flaws in the property rights/jurisprudence regime.
I assume their view is Tough titties….. ?
PF,
Yes, it’s fun to speculate/guess what the world might look like if the roads were private. They are almost entirely not, however, nor will they be so in the next 5 years, barring the onset of the Frankel Singularity, the ultimate Black Swan.
Mandating insurance for lethal items requires some judgment. If murders with broken bottles became a major thing, it might then become something to consider.
“Something about insuring cop firearms resonates as well for me.”
Why insure something that has precisely zero capacity for damage on its own? if you’re going to insure something, insure the factor that actually DOES have that capacity. Personal liability insurance for cops. If they intentionally or negligently harm someone, whether they used a gun to do it is irrelevant.
“If gun and auto insurance need to be mandated by the government, how about bicycle insurance? Skateboard insurance? Baseball bat insurance? Frying pan insurance? Knife insurance?”
True, why not?
“Insurance” mandates are a prime example of Mussolinist “everything within the state, nothing outside the state” thinking. Or, to put it a different way, omnipotent state cultism. It’s already completely encompassed retirement, motorized transportation and most employment and ownership of real property, and one of the biggest laments in American politics is that it hasn’t encompassed healthcare completely yet.
At some point, in some place, there will probably be state-mandated “insurance” (with the premiums formatted as taxes) for, well, everything, beginning at birth. With prohibitions on all activities deemed to “risky” for coverage.
Something about insuring cop firearms resonates as well for me.
Auto insurance should not be mandatory either. However, if roads were privatized there would be nothing wrong with road network operators requiring insurance purchase as a condition of using their roads. It would probably be seamlessly built into a fuel tax/non-stop toll charge that most people would never even see. Then again, a lot of routine road usage would probably be replaced by professional delivery services, telecommuting, virtual reality type communications, jitney bus type ride app services, etc, etc.
Also, more people are moving back into urban cores where walking, bicycling, skateboarding, scootering, and other alternative modes of transport are more practical alternatives to driving everywhere. That process is retarded by all the red tape and subsidies big government gives to basically prop up existing big market players and throw roadblocks in the way of startups succeeding, thus slowing economic dynamism.
The same can be applied to more rapid development of those alternate transportation forms themselves. The only reason we have not been living in a jetsons world or better for some time already is red tape, as can be seen with side by side comparisons of the Koreas, formerly the two Germanies, DR and Haiti, etc.
If gun and auto insurance need to be mandated by the government, how about bicycle insurance? Skateboard insurance? Baseball bat insurance? Frying pan insurance? Knife insurance? My ex tried to attack me with a broken bottle once. Do we need glass bottle possession insurance?
In my former profession, as well as in my personal life I have seen many blunt objects, sharp objects, common household items combined to create poisons or explosives, etc, etc, turned into deadly weapons. Some people are adept at killing with their bare hands. Water or fire or smoke can be used to kill people, even large groups of people. Just how many things should government force people to carry insurance for?
BR: Because mandatory insurance is a fascist-socialist concept that causes great damage to personal liberty and economic growth.
Me: Hmm, possibly. I’d say that it could be viewed as a correction for the fundamental flaws in jurisprudence and a property-rights regime. If there’s no way to compensate for damages done, that problematic. Autos can cause significant damage, as can firearms. How can we protect protect property rights if there’s often no way to make a victim whole?
When the G-Man is required to carry private insurance as an indemnity for harm to others, then we can discuss the merit of the same requirement for joe six pack. That’s the egalitarian/fraternity canon.
A FB friend who I believe would be a “progressive” posted this idea: To carry a firearm, one would have to be insured, insured against doing harm to others. I can’t think of a good reason that this is a bad idea, in concept. I’m guessing that Fundamentalists/Canonicalists would oppose this requirement.
If so, why?
Because mandatory insurance is a fascist-socialist concept that causes great damage to personal liberty and economic growth.
RC, When it comes to the Groundhog Day reference, you would be Ned Ryerson.
The LP seems likely to wind up with 250 – 325 candidates this year. 2019 will likely be the second highest number of candidates the LP has ever had in an odd year, exceeded only by 2001.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man conduct his life to own the libs
Apparently, much of modern anti-immigrant, xenophobic networking funding originates from a single bored socialite heiress. Collective action is dominated by the minority.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html
And why would a Biblical Christian conservative party want to nominate a pagan heathen who rapes, tortures, dismembers, kills and drinks the blood of goats in his quest to start a global race war and become the fascist dictator/Roman god-emperor of the world? That seems like …not a very good fit.
I could be wrong but I don’t think the CP is interested in coming out as openly racist. Trump wants to maintain a wink and nod fig leaf as well, but that still leaves zero daylight for open racists. Maybe after his two terms are up they may have a chance, but even then it would be more likely to be someone like Steve King than someone like Augustus Invictus.
The insufferable clown got 42% of sampled registered libertarian voters in a third party watch poll
https://sites.google.com/view/thirdpartywatch/secret2/2020-green-and-libertarian-primary-polling?authuser=4
C’mon now, Chris… Invictus is no constitutionalist nor a Constitutionist. Perhaps the American Heritage Party if they still exist. He is everything the MSM says about Trump.
Augustus Invictus has announced today that he will be seeking the GOP’s 2020 presidential nomination.
From his campaign website:
PLATFORM
The Nine Principles
1) Restore Natural Order
2) Defend the West
3) End White Genocide
4) Make Americans Great Again
5) Better Dead than Red
6) Stop the Machines
7) Dismantle the Deep State
8) Eat the Bankers
9) Conquer
https://www.invictusforpresident.com
Comment from me: Invictus couldn’t scrape up $10,000 to be on the Florida GOP ballot against Rick Scott and Rocky De La Fuente, so how can he maintain any traction in the national GOP presidential primaries, where Bill Weld has basically zero traction (3%-97% Trump at a recent Iowa fair/political shindig/whatever. Invictus should seek the Constitution Party’s presidential nomination instead. Seriously. That would make the race exciting.
Constitution Party delegates, please start a draft movement encouragining Augustus Sol Invictus to seek the nomination of America’s “only Biblical, Christian conservative” political party. #Invictus4CP #ConstitutionPartyIsAugustusInvictus’PoliticalHome #DraftInvictus4CP2020
Sam Seder is an insufferable clown.
Sarwark ought to outsource debating ppl like Seder to the left libertarians. He walked right in to that…
ES: Stop the NAP nonsense and start play’n the game.
ME: couldn’t agree more!
Sam Seder posted his interview with Sarwark.
https://youtu.be/LrcEJL2JpGE
This reminds me of when Roger Stone showed up to the Ukrainian restaurant in Manhattan and Warren and I figured out who he was before anyone else.
I’ll throw in for 2020 if Seder gets any traction. Vohra and Kokesh ain’t gonna get Sam. He needs to be opposed intelligently and calmly. Give Sarwark credit, he stands in the ring until Seder pistol whips him with the studio mic.
Stop the NAP nonsense and start play’n the game.
Grundmann! lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzXoSFLuGNI
Not quite a Harlos Nonarchy Pod, but…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzXoSFLuGNI
Not quite a Harlos Nonarchy Pod, but Liberland is directionally a manifestation of Fundamentalism.
Can anyone explain why there can be up to a 24 hour delay before one’s post is put up? It is making posting here very difficult to say the least. Thanks.
tk,
Thanks for your concern. It’s not a painful grievance for me. It’s more of watching perpetual dysfunction played out over and over again, something like a political GROUNDHOG DAY. Bill Murray’s character doesn’t get things right because his premise is flawed. He keeps making the same basic mistake over and over again. Finally, after much failure, he has a change of mind, and life for him becomes substantially more pleasant and functional.
RC,
The behavior you describe isn’t “fundamentalist.” There is no Holy Book in which Gawd Hath Written the Non-Aggression Principle. People arrive at it from many different, and often seemingly contradictory, directions and different people give it greater or lesser weight versus other constraints and goals.
I understand it grieves you that the founders of the LP made it the central constraint the party builds its policy positions around, and that the founders and a subsequent convention chose to make it difficult to change that priority. But it’s not particularly different than early Republicans refusing to consider concessions on the expansion of slavery, or modern Democrats refusing to consider concessions on the regulation of abortion. They have principles they’re not willing to bargain away for other things and are only grudgingly at best willing to accept violations of.
Basically you’re aggrieved that some people ride their hobbyhorse instead of your hobbyhorses. I feel your pain.
TK,
Hmm, I’ve often heard Fundamentalists employing the “first sieve” as Policy X is aggressive and therefore immoral. All. The. Time.
A FB friend who I believe would be a “progressive” posted this idea: To carry a firearm, one would have to be insured, insured against doing harm to others. I can’t think of a good reason that this is a bad idea, in concept. I’m guessing that Fundamentalists/Canonicalists would oppose this requirement.
If so, why?
RC,
No, I’m not offering “canonicalist” as a substitute for “fundamentalist.” The former is a term referring to how people categorize things as belonging or not belonging to a particuar set. The latter is a term that doesn’t have any real relevance to libertarianism (find 100 of your “NAPists,” and you’ll probably find 200 different reasons for why they believe what they believe, very few of them referring to anything resembling “scripture”).
TK,
Are you offering Canonicalist as a substitute for Fundamentalist? Or would that be Canonist?
I do believe I can work with either…..
Yes, I engage in abolitionist talk. And, like most people in politics, I’m a constraintist.
You’d have to work pretty hard to find much daylight between me and Marc or me and Angela. Different levels of enthusiasm for different policy areas, of course. But as defined by e.g. Nozick, we’re very similar in that the non-aggression “side constraint” is the first sieve in our respective policy analysis toolboxes.
For “thin” libertarians, the non-aggression principle is the only constraint that defines libertarianism. That doesn’t mean that a “thin” libertarian won’t have other priorities as well. It just means that he or she won’t treat those priorities as specifically libertarian in nature.
“Thick” libertarians define libertarianism itself as consisting of non-aggression PLUS this or that other constraint. The difference between them and “thin” libertarians isn’t necessarily what policies they support, but whether or not they consider their reasons for doing so to constitute, for lack of a better word, coming to mind at the moment, “canonically” libertarian.
“Thin” and “thick” don’t really have anything to do with “abolitionism” (a goal) or “incrementalism” (a strategy). They’re just differences as to how many, and which constraints, exclusively define the overall libertarian “tent.”
tk,
Thanks. I’m referring to the primary thrust I observe among Fundamentalists. You, for ex., principally employ a constrainist approach in applying the NAP. You may well sometimes engage in abolitionist talk. MM and, say, AK seem to lead with the desire to abolish all or some of the State. They may well sometimes employ a constraintist approach.
“it appears that there’s at least 2 camps among the Fs: Constraintist Fs like yourself and Abolitionist Fs like, say, Montoni.”
The differentiation you think you’re seeing here doesn’t exist, because the two terms don’t address the same question. “Constraintism” refers to the role of a principle; “Abolitionism” refers to a goal.
All that “constraintism” means is this:
There are 100 policies up for evaluation.
The constraintist looks at those policies and immediately discards any which violate the constraint. They’re not up for his consideration, because the constraint is a policy sieve.
If anything, an NAP constraintist uses fewer constraints than most. Anything that doesn’t initiate force is deemed legitimate. He might or might not support it, but it goes on the table.
Look at the constraints currently observed by the “conservative” and “progressive” movements, and you’ll find them everywhere. A “conservative Republican” will generally reject any policy that she notices might liberalize abortion law, or cut “defense” spending, or acknowledge equal rights for LGBTQ persons, etc. All of those instantly come off the table. A “progressive Democrat” will generally reject any policy that he notices might restrict abortion, or cut “social welfare” spending, or leave room for discrimination against LGBTQ persons, etc.
Those larger movements abound with crazy quilts of constantly changing constraints. By comparison, the NAP constraintist is willing to talk about anything that doesn’t violate one, and only one, constraint.
As to what happens if all of the proposals on an issue violate the constraint, different NAP constraintists will respond differently. Some will wash our hands of the whole thing, others will look for compromises that involve the smallest violations of the constraint, etc.
TK from July: you’re using it to mean anyone who uses principles as foundations for their political views, even if they do so in a “nuanced” way. Which pretty much makes everyone in politics a “fundamentalist.”
Me: Thanks for the feedback, but it’s the “strict, literal” part of the definition that I point to with the Fundamentalist moniker. Now, as we unpeel this onion, it appears that there’s at least 2 camps among the Fs: Constraintist Fs like yourself and Abolitionist Fs like, say, Montoni. CFs and AFs will point to the platform, SoP, and even bylaws (and sometimes even the NAP itself) to make their points. There is very little play here.
Ecumenicalists like GJ and myself consider and sometimes use other considerations, most importantly what can sell and what will definitely NOT sell in assembling positions to advocate. Es will sometimes draw from principles NOT contained in the Good L Books. It’s a far more fluid approach to political analysis, I’d venture to say. Sometimes, there are contradictory principles at stake, such as with the Bake the Cake kerfuffle. There’s far more OTOH/OTO thinking with Es.
To the Fs, that’s “equivocation.” To this E, it’s an approach that aligns better with the truth, which is very often messy, contradictory, and even paradoxical.
As ever, I’m quite open to more accurate terminology….
Tap … tap … is this thing on?