fuser wrote:Thanks to government regulation, I am entitled of obligatory leave for vacations from my employer unlike the medieval peasants who lived on the mercy of their lord protector. Then, you seem to underestimate the economical circumstances from where all these concepts of "freedom" arise. What is the use of freedom of going to France, when you can't afford to go to France?
I here by declare all poor in sub Saharan Africa to be absolutely free for moving into las vegas, now how good that freedom is?
So if I am willing to work a job that does not offer vacation, I am not free to do so, and you would argue that this means freedom.
Or if I, as an employer, want to offer jobs without vacation knowing full well that I'm already cutting out the best candidates, I am not free to do so, and that, to you, is an atmosphere of freedom.
I would call this the obvious blatant hypocrisy of statism.
lucky wrote:Can you point to whose position specifically you are referring?
Anyone that's not an anarchist, especially minarchists, take this position.
Quantum wrote:The only reason why America originally had a "small" government was simply because it lacked the technological and infrastructural mean to enforce such a large country and had little manpower to do so. A person back then could have slipped beyond the Appalachians, far beyond the outreach of the government and with global telecommunications, monitoring is cheaper than ever. Big government is here to stay and won't wither away like anarchists wish.
How can you say that considering the nature of governments, including the monarchy, prior to the industrial revolution, and all the revolutions that followed in Europe? Even Marx acknowledged that the far smaller capitalist governments that emerged were better than the systems that existed previously.
Rich wrote:Stop talking drivel. First you don't need a visa. You can leave your employer at any time. You can go on a holiday or get a job. In medieval times you had to to doff your cap to every Lord and superior. if the local Lord didn't want you in his domain then that was that. At times even dress codes were enforced according to social class. Religious rules were often rigidly enforced, no deviation from official doctrine was allowed. Peasants could be whipped or have other savage punishments inflicted on them by their social superiors. King, Lord, Church and Guild put massive restrictions on what you couldn't do and what you had to do. Attending church for example was not a voluntary act.
And this challenges the position that governments do not bring freedom how?
Phred wrote:No, it shows that minarchism suffered from "mission creep" in the US. This does nothing to show minarchism qua minarchism can't work, it merely shows that the people of the US allowed their federal government to engage in more than minarchism.
Phred
Minarchism can't work because it violates the non aggression principle. The U.S. is the most recent and best evidence that violating the non aggression principle never works as intended. It was by far the best attempt ever made to make it work and such an opportunity will never come again, except maybe when we colonize Mars. A libertarian can generally tell you why a state run economic or social program will fail, yet most simply can't apply that logic to the very existence of government.
fuser wrote:Yes, you are being dogmatic with your narrow world view i.e basically, "government = evil, no government = paradise" irrespective of any hard facts.
I'm sorry you didn't understand the position, assuming you're not being intentionally deceptive.
The argument is not that no government means paradise. Living standards in the U.S. Empire are obviously far better than stateless Somalia, for example. The argument is that it's impossible to keep a minimalist government small.
There are a number of principled reasons that libertarians USUALLY understand very well that explain this. It's unfortunate that rather than discuss these seriously, you want to a comment as silly as 'libertarians think that if there's a free market in health care, no one will ever get sick!'