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RE: Logic Discussions: Statheism - The New World Religion
Wow. A 9 comment rebuttal full of logical fallacies...
all your comments on all land being owned are false @sardonyx. If it was true public land wouldn't exist today. Nice strawman. Abolish the state, and millions of acres of land become available for homesteading.
I note you ignored my comment on corporations only existing because of government protection. In an actual free market system, corporations would collapse due their malfeasance and the massive increases on competition. Because of this, any comment on how corporate enterprise corrupts government is moot. The former cannot even exist without the latter.
I'm glad you accept there is no right to rule. Power to rule is immaterial, only one's consent to be ruled matters.
Ps: I know the divine right to rule is nonsense. Unfortunately, there is no other justification around for forcing someone to act without consenting to that action.
Also, re voting, it doesn't matter how you vote unless you are in the top 10% of society (Google: corruption is legal in America, there is a video that explains the evidence and cause) . They are the ones who decide if an action happens via the corruption you and I despise.
Finally, you seem to assume socialism can work. If so, explain Venezuela, Mao's China, Soviet Russia, the early days of the Jamestown colony in Virginia, and all the other forms of socialism that failed spectacularly.
(1) Communism cannot work on large scales, because it interferes with individualism. It works spectacularly at the small scale - as with families, the Apostles, and Kibbutzes. Communism is not socialism, and if you define it to be so, then I do not argue for that form of socialism. I argue for the European model. Denmark would be a fine example.
(2) Venezuela failed for several reasons. Socialism there replaced right-wing government, which had utterly destroyed the economy and was close to collapse. Google "caracazas". So right-versus-left - neither has a great success in Venezeula. Several years ago, the right-wong won landslide majorities in parliament, and things got worse, not better.
Why? I'd like to say the extra rightwingishness of the govt.; but the real answer is the same as for why Chavez failed. Their economy lives on oil, and they are subject to the whims of the world price of oil and on the goals of the oil companies. Chavez nationalized the oil, so the oil companies set out to break venezuela. Also, the media there is controlled by right-wing media corporations. There is no doubt that the corporations can break any nation on the planet that they choose to. Fall in line or else. Also, the corporations rule America, so America sets out to break those nations too - look at the various embargoes designed to do just that. Simply put, its a full-scale war between the capitalists and anyone who defies them. Examples are made. Happened in America also. America today is the history of a broken people who have been beaten into submission by the corporations. So its a long story, and one that you are just going to dismiss, so why do I bother? According to you, Denmark is a failed state - it has to be, because its socialist. Venezuela today is better than it was when Chavez took over. According to you, it was better under the right-wing dictatorship. You are so caught up in your labels and prejudice to see the facts.
The overriding reality is that Venezuela prospers or fails in response to the price of oil and the cooperation (or otherwise) of the powerful elite. In Europe, the elite cooperate, so socialism works.
Jamestown? I think that failed because it was based on corporatism. "Jamestown was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 (O.S., May 14, 1607 N.S.),[3] and was considered permanent after brief abandonment in 1610."
Either that or it failed because of malaria and isolation.
OK, seeing as your replies were short so I can reply without spending hours, I'll reply:
(1) If all public land (available for hiking, and in many cases exploitation, by private individuals, not Yellowstone, I admit) were owned by private individuals, there would be no room for homesteading. Ted Turner does not allow homesteading on his ranch. There would be a one-time bonanza during which the billionaires would buy up all public land, and then it would be locked up. There would be no "homesteading". Not unless the state decided to allocate it in lots of 10 acres max per individual. Even then, within a generation it would all be bought up by conglomerates. What "public land" means is that we still have lots of areas where you and me can visit, and our children, and our children's children. Move this to private hands and you would be limited to moving on public highways only. Because the land is public, in theory the state CAN make it available for homesteading. If it were private, nobody would ever do that.
Open up the Ted Turner Ranch, or shadier, less public figures ranches, and homestead there. See if private land favors homesteading.
Your belief that corporations would disappear if the state disappeared is nonsense. That is, unless you believe that with the collapse of the state, all laws would be abolished and that rioters would burn and loot the corporations with impunity. In fact, what would happen is that the corporations would make their own private laws and hire mercenaries to enforce those laws. Like they did during the days of the robber barons.
Your consent to be ruled is irrelevant. If you do not consent, history shows us that you will be killed in a nasty and brutal way by your overlord as an example so that their serfs dont get fancy notions about freedom.
Basically, we have moved from a system where roving bands of well-armed men looted and stole from villages, to one in which they paid a "knight" protection money so he and his buddies would not loot, just take taxes - a system easier on both parties - a system that has continued to today, when roving bands of police officers imprison or shoot anyone who bucks the system - The system is quite subtle today, and complex, with serried ranks of people getting kickbacks - judges, politicians, think-tank leaders, you name it, but the alternative is that the police are disbanded and the likes of Donald Trump will simply throw you off your land and build a golf course (read up on "michael Forbes Trump". The "rule of law" is there to avoid violence, not to avoid thievery by the powerful. The major difference is that today you get a vote, whereas 1000 years ago you did not. If you fail to use it, you are voting to give away your power. So quit whining that the system is rigged; we all have the power if we use it. The general problem is that we do not use it. Power to rule is the ONLY determinant. Your consent is meaningless except regarding your spending power (miniscule) and your vote. Weakening your vote just makes you worse off.
Regarding Venezuela, when it became socialist, things became rapidly better. You just do not know about the right-wing government that preceded Chavez. Its because things got better for the majority that Chavez got huge landslide victories at the polls. The people LOVED Chavez. Not the rich and internet-savvy people, but those who got their own houses, food, schooling and healthcare for the first time.
Last December, a right-wing government came in, and since then, things seem to have taken a nose-dive.
However, Venezuela is not the example to follow - its fortunes follow oil prices. Regardless of govt, things go up when oil prices go up and things go down when oil prices go down.
The REAL examples are Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, and to a lesser extent, Germany, France, the UK, Canada and Australia. All of these have govt. healthcare, govt. safety nets, govt retirement schemes, and in some cases, (mainly singapore), govt-owned businesses.
Compare those with America. Not overall wealth (GDP), but MEDIAN wealth, life quality, and happiness scores.
By the way, Soviet Russia and Maoist China were communist dictatorships - tyranny never works because it breeds resentment and uniformity of thought. Doesn't work. And Oligarchy, coming to a USA near you soon, will fail and collapse for the same reason. People do not like being kept down.
When Russia became capitalist, it imploded. Thats why people in Russia love Putin today - because they are hankering after the "good old days" of Soviet-era Russia. Collapse of Russian government gave rise to the Russian Mafia and billionaires looting the old state companies for their private gain. This wasn't due to "statist power" - it was due to a collapse of statist power and a change to quasi-anarchy. The kind that most here seem to adore.
Recent changes in China have improved things greatly. China is no longer quite so cummunist, but is socialist. Living standards are improving by leaps and bounds. Because the people have freedom, not tyranny.
Your mistake is in equating dictatorship communism (the only way in which communism can work in large countries, because people will fail to agree in large numbers, so force needs to be imposed for communism to work) with democratic, free-market socialism.
Having social security and govt. healthcare makes life better for the average person, not worse. Thats why any country that has either of these cannot abolish them, because the people would lynch anyone to tried to do so.
Living with the stress that if you lose your job you lose your healthcare and food supply is too stressful for a society to live with. A stressed society is a depressed society is an unproductive and resentful society. It breeds crime and terrorism. Thats why America is the homicide capital of the civilized world.
If you hate govt. move to Somalia. They have none. If you have a gun, you do not need to pay taxes. Enjoy.
(1) That state land is only there because it wasnt all given away 200 years ago. If it had been, there would be no public land to give away today. I was referring mainly to agriculturally productive land in reasonable climates with a water supply and near a communications network.
(2) I ignored your remark for a reason. Its an assumption about an hypothetical that is highly unlikely to ever come about. Long before Union Pacific defined corporations as people, there were robber barons. These people monopolized production and hired their own police force to beat up their own workers to force striking workers back to their work. Your chicken and egg remark is therefore more of an unprovable red herring than anything else.
(3) Being ruled does not require consent. Never has.
The question is whether government is better than what went before - fascism, the east india company, tzarist russia, living under the mongols, the holy Roman empire, where the church ruled by burning...
I think we have it better today - and in countries where we have more government - Norway, Sweden, Denmark - the people answer polls saying that that they are very happy - more so than the people in America do.
But ultimately, the question is not yes government or no government - but what laws we pass and how our government operates. Its not government size that counts - its its quality.
Like you, I am for small government - but only if that gives most people a better life. Not as an ideological requirement.
We need to eliminate government that harms and to create/increase government that helps.
Eliminating government from a country is like eliminating management from a company.
It might be good in some ways, but it could be disastrous in others.
It's not really something that can be decided by cliches.
Does a cooperative have management? I guess - its managed by the workers. Is that big government or small government? So labels and cliches are not useful.
What matters is doing what works and eliminating what doesnt.