Topic: I am pretty confident we are the new wealthy elite, gentlemen. - page 198. (Read 631985 times)

I also get the feeling that the intellectual level on this forum is somewhat above average.

And i TOTALLY support YOUR right to accept taxation. There is no problem at all with YOU accepting a certain level of taxation. The only problem that might arise, arises if you support me being taxed even though i do not accept a certain level of taxation.

Sure there is a better way. Its called dont engage in commerce with people who are not assured. This will protect you from people with normal time preferences. For protection against people with ridiculously low time preferences buy insurance.

Unfortunately that was the easy part, the hard parts are: convincing people that they do not need rulers inorder to have organized society; figuring out how to dismantle the state without hurting too many of the dependent people in the process; and finally figure out how to dismantle the state without invoking a suicidal rampage that could destroy all life on the planet (they have the weaponry to do that)

Nice test, apparently I'm right wingish libertarianish, but I already knew that.

I have come to realize that I am more Libertarian than I ever thought!  I pretty much score close to the middle on the graph though so I avoid all extremes.    Not a bad place to be I think. 

Did you see the test / Political Compass that I put several months ago on the politics thread?

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3359922

Been watching this pop up from time to time over the last year and a half...  Im beginning to think this OP was a god damn genius. Ha Ha...

TC

Wish I had been there, it took me a while to discover Bitcoins unfortunately. But I wholeheartedly support the idea.

We were the first through the door!  Of the first 1000 or so forum members here, roughly four were NOT of the libertarian persuasion.  The political debates at the time were between flavors of libertarianism.  Of course, that all changed as the popularity of Bitcoin (and thus the membership here) exploded, but it was nice having a safe haven while it lasted.

Well, I agree with you, and I agree that it is settled, but that doesn't make it any less debated in my experience.

I like this discussion, I haven't been debating libertarianism for quite a while, and I have a feeling that there are quite a few libertarians gravitating towards cryptocurrencies.

No, I think you misunderstand the point.  The core right of mankind is the right to life.  If I own myself, which I obviously do, I own my life.  If I truly own anything, that means I have the right to destroy that thing.  I have the right to destroy myself, and I can actually sell the right to destroy myself to another.  However, if I were to sell myself to a human-hunter for sport, and he fails to follow through, he's also 'quit' his claim and, by reason of my own continuing to exist, have immediately homesteading my corporeal body once again.  It's not the selling of self in the moment that's impossible, it's the ongoing arrangement that is impossible, because I can change my mind at any time.  And if I can change my mind and walk off the chain gang, then it's not really slavery, is it?


Not in my experience.  Both issues seem pretty well settled.  The first isn't prohibited in any way, it's just impossible to sustain; and the second is obvious.  If I own myself, which I obviously do, and I have the right to destroy myself, which I do, then I have a right to part myself out.  The tricky part is proving after the fact that it was an agreement I freely entered into without coercion.  If I'm only selling one kidney for a very large sum of money, and am still alive after the fact to assert that my kidney wasn't stolen from me, then I shoudl be able to sell that kidney; and I should be able to buy one in like manner.  However, selling all my parts is tricker, since it becomes less obvious that I actually gained anything. ; but I can think of a scenerio or two where even that would make sense.  Say, for example, I had an inoperable brain tumor, but my heart was in excellent shape.  My own doctors gave me six months to live.  Then some really rich guy comes and offers to pay my next of kin an ungodly sum of money for my heart, because he has a teenaged son who needs a heart transplant in the next 3 months and I'm a match.  IF I coudl verify that my own bills woudl be paid, and a fund set up for my kids to go to college, such a trade woudl be rational as long as I truly believed (and had not been decieved) that my own life was short.

Well, I'm no longer a hard core libertarian, so I accept a certain level of taxation.
But if a better way is presented I will support it.

I dont think any anarchists are advocating going down into the basement of the whitehouse and flipping some giant frankensteinian on/off switch.

This is a false dilemma you are providing us with. Just because it isnt feasible to end statism right NOW within the next 10 seconds, doesn't mean that one must support the idea that one group of people should have the right to forcibly confiscate the property of another group.

Exactly, I'm glad you got it.

So am I the only one who sold his bitcoins for like $12 each because he was a broke med student?  Sigh.  To have been here this long and not be one of the wealthy elite is depressing. 

Ah, a state sanctioned militia.  That makes sense, actually.

Yes I know, By selling yourself as a slave you give up the freedom that you as a libertarian claim cannot be given up, and so on, hence the back door, which actually just makes it a long term employment.
Selling yourself to slavery and selling your own organs is usually some of the most debated questions in the libertarian community.

No I am serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Swedish Marines Home Guard.
And as a board member of the local chapter of the Swedish Federation for Voluntary Defence Education and Training.
And we have no troops nor have we had any in Iraq.

I'm sure that you have to realize on an intellectual level that this statement is impossible.  Even the S&M sex slaves aren't really slaves, they're just play-acting.  You cannot 'sell yourself' beyond a limited term and under very limited conditions, thus nothing like chattel slavery at all.  Even those same S&M sex slaves have that 'safe word' that makes it all stop.

Wait, what?  Are you serving in the National Guard and donating your service pay to the Iraqi Orphans' Fund or what?

No, unless the slaves voluntarily sold themselves to slavedom, and even then I would have to consider some back door out of slavery.
I know where you are going, as I stated earlier, I have been there myself. But I can't see any practical way of doing it right now.

if slavery was the simplest and easiest way of getting cotton would you support it?