From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Sep 27 2000 - 02:24:25 MDT
"Corwyn J. Alambar" wrote:
>
> Mike S. Lorrey wrote:
> My problems are really three-fold here as to specifics. #1: I'v ebrought
> up the environmental issue before. Group A may wish to simply be left alone,
> but they're deforesting a hillside above Group B's settlement, causing the
> water to be fouled and increasing the damage of floods in the springtime. To
> fix the flood problem, Group B builds a dam to moderate flooding - but now
> Group C isn't getting enough water. How do you resolve this in a libertarian
> fashion, if negotiation fails?
By having a group of arbiters or an overarching state that all the
groups have agreed to let settle these matters or arbitrate their
settlement in a just (respecting individual rights) manner.
>
> #2: Not everyone will play by the "non-coercive" rule. Simply look at how
> powerful a memetic structure religion is. I would love to be left alone - but
> a group of people reading one of a handful of passages from Leviticus suddenly
> gets this idea that I am less deserving to live than they are. One of the
> tradeoffs in modern western political systems is that this sort of activity is
> mostly curtailed.
>
Memetic infections are NOT forms of coercion that libertarianism is
arrayed against. It is against the initiation of physical force. These
religious no-noughts can believe whatever they like and teach whatever
they like. But they cannot physically coerce or harm you without
breaking the law.
> #3: Markets are wonderful, btu I doubt withotu a regulatory regime that they
> would be as resistant to fraud and manipulation as they are now. Market-based
> systems work, but I don't know if I could trust a mechanism that operates
> on the honor system to play such a vital role in my life
>
It doesn't operate on "the honor system". It operates on upholding
individual rights. When it doesn't it is out of there.
> The other issue here is the ability of a libertarian society or culture to
> resist the influence of a better organized, more coercive society. My concern
> is less the libertarian society acting in a physically coercive way (One could
> argue abot memetic coercion, such as a proselytizing meme, but I don't know
> how that fits into a libertarian view) but more a non-libertarian society
> acting in a coercive manne rtowards the libertarian one. The closest thing
> we have to a guattantor that this won't happen is the presence of nuclear
> devices, and to a lesser extent the ability to locate in a place beyond
> traditional borders and geographic pressures (i.e. space)
Dunno what you are really getting at there. The less repressive US of
the 18th and 19th century stood up rather well to more repressive and
better organized and richer countries.
- samantha
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