From: mark@unicorn.com
Date: Wed Dec 16 1998 - 06:21:37 MST
Webb_S [Webb_S@bls.gov] wrote:
>Again, I'm not blaming capitalist theory for anything.
So why did you bring it up in the first place?
>My point is that
>some cultures do not share the sort of libertarian worldview required for
>effective implementation of this theory.
And we've seen the results of that; their economies collapsed, and the West
is teetering after them. For the same reasons; they won't accept a free
market, and keep playing with the economy until they destroy it. That they
don't like this is their problem, not capitalism's.
>That's not quite how it works, but go ahead and do what you feel is right.
So you're finally admitting that if I stop paying taxes the Almighty State
will use force to make me do so, and that you only have your job because
people are coerced into paying?
>I never claimed anything even remotely like this. I said that *personally*
>I feel more threatened by American business practices than by Uncle Sam.
Yeah, "I got mine, screw you", right? Who cares what your comrades in the
government are doing as long as they leave you alone? Personally I do care
when they burn kids to death and shoot unarmed women through the head from
long range and splatter their brains over their babies. But if it doesn't
threaten you *personally* it must be alright, eh?
>Ah, I take it you've read Murray Rothbard?
No, I've just spent too long living in various depressing socialist states
around the world. I hate them all, and I'm just waiting to see which country
comes out of the Y2K chaos closest to libertarianism/AC before I move.
>In my view, there is nothing
>wrong with preferring the comfort of home and hearth to the constant state
>of disequilibrium and unrest associated with transhumanism.
Indeed, there is nothing wrong with that (except that some enterprising
nanobot will eventually decide to dismantle them for raw materials), but
there is an awful lot wrong with using force to make me support them, or
to prevent me from leading my life my way. If they want to live in quiet
seclusion and leave me alone, that's fine. But they won't, because I'm
a direct threat to their quiet life.
[This, incidentally, is a good example of what I meant about the aim of
socialism being elimination of change and creation of a static society,
which someone questioned a while ago.]
>We should
>respect these peoples preferences if we want them to respect ours.
When they start respecting me, I'll start respecting them; we've been
"respecting" them for decades, and every time we "respect" them an inch
they take a mile. I'm tired of seeing these people drag down so many who
actually want to do something with their lives rather than vegetate and
die. So I say fuck 'em.
Mark
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