26
Feb
2014
The Pros and Cons of Being Murdered by the President
This guy Matt Walsh is really growing on me. People keep linking him on Facebook; it’s gotten to the point where I may just have to update my Blogroll, something that happens as often as a Fort Knox audit.
Walsh is sarcastically engaging in the “Against me” style of argument.
Very effective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUoZBfz7r0U#t=1m0s
Yes, I support prohibitions against murder being enforced against you. And against me too. Against everyone.
Cool. I support prohibitions against murder being enforced against everyone as well. I suspect MF does also.
What I don’t support is only being forced to pay for one (and only one) agency to enforce said prohibitions.
That’s not the issue. Molyneux thinks he has a knock out punch with “against me” . All he has is a sleazy rhetorical trick. It exploits people’s reluctance to break certain social conventions and pretends that’s an argument.
If you read what I said I didn’t stipulate an enforcement mechanism or agent. We can discuss MF’s preference for letting the rich buy thugs in a separate thread.
See that everyone? Ken B refuses to answer a simple yes or no question with a simple yes or no answer.
Sleazy rhetorical trick? How is it sleazy and how is it rhetorical?
When I asked you that question, my waiting for your answer isn’t my argument. Your answer is your argument.
Exploits people’s reluctance to break with social conventions? The question’s answer IS what you believe is the correct social convention. We make the social convention by what we think, choose, and do.
Also, my position isn’t “letting the rich buy thugs.” My position is me buying my own protection, and I am still waiting for you to answer if that justifies you supporting me being shot.
You are running scared Ken B, desperately trying to avoid the necessary implications of whatever you answer. You know that whatever you answer, it will make you uncomfortable. Either you would have to support me being shot, for wanting to choose my own protection, or, you would declare yourself an anarchist, for thinking it would be wrong if I were shot.
Haha, “If you closely read what I said, I never stipulated an enforcement mechanism”. Yes, I understand you want to answer the question without actually answering the question. I understand you are so afraid of answering yes or no that you will go to desperate lengths to attack the question for makong you feel so uncomfortable.
We can discuss my preferences “for lwtting rich guys hire thugs” in another thread? Why not this one? Why don’t you just admit that you need more time to figure out what the hell you believe?
I know this question is a tough one. But feeling extremely emotional about it is a sign of an important question. It means it is touching on convictions you have held for a long time, and have not had the pleasure of being tested. Your whole intellectual investment in your life is flashing before your eyes. And why? Because you’re finally personalizing it Ken B. Instead of staying in the abstract realm, where you can say all kinds of stuff about politics and ethics, you instead go face to face with a real person and practising your ethics with them, to see if what you believe in the abstract, is what you believe for real world humans.
It is silly for you to say “That’s not the issue.” That is just another way of saying “I don’t want to talk about that right now.” An issue is being presented to you. Will you engage it? Or will you play the role of a theist who is too afraid of engaging evolution and biology?
Think about it some more Ken B. At least you didn’t come right out and say I ought to be shot, which means you are someone who, like me in the past, has a belief of what’s right in his heart and mind, but who also believes he must SAY certain things for the sake of appearances, because he’s been brainwashed by those who want to control other people into believing anarchy is evil.
Prefacing your statement with “Yes”, as if you are actually answering the question, is a lame and easily recognizable attempt to dodge the question.
So I’ll ask you:
Do you Ken B support me being shot if I choose to not pay the state for my protection, but instead pay someone of my choosing, or, none at all and stand my own ground?
Of you answer anything else other than yes or no, if you quobble with my grammar, if you answer a different question not asked, then it would be clear that your answer is yes.
This is your moment Ken B to test yourself on whether you are actually a minarchist, or anarchist. Do you have what it takes? Will you back your bravado and snark with courage and honesty?
Do you support me being shot by thugs for hire if I fail to pay them or you for services rendered?
Okay so now you stole from me. I may simply refuse to render you services ever again. OR I may confiscate like property. OR I may motivate you to do some work for me.
I am not going to have a big pissing match with you, destroy your home, murder you, traumatize your family and neighbors all for some irrelevant and miniscule, 50 buck tax.
So no.
Really it depends on the terms of the contract and value at stake. Forgiveness and then repossession. Murder seems extreme.
Repossesion? You mean possible theft. Because who owes who what is disputed.
Disputing over who’s right does not mean there is no right answer.
Hi Ken,
“Repossesion? You mean possible theft. Because who owes who what is disputed.”
I think contracts would become more important and integrated. I think property would become more obvious and integrated. Finally I think security features(non violent) would become more integrated to prevent deadbeats like you from stealing. Simply put, you would not be able to use the services to such an extent that any appreciable amount of dollar owed would accumulate.
Ken you are being lord Keynes at this point.
Are these thugs hired to collect payment from you whether you have given your expressed consent to the “service” or not?
If so, no, of course I do not support you being shot.
If on the other hand you did express your consent, and the agreement contains anarchist inspired exhaustive stipulations concerning redress and enforcement procedures, then I would only support you being shot if you consented to such enforcement in arbitration in accordance with your contract.
IN THE ABSENCE of any contract expressedly consented to between you and Mr. X, then I would not support either you or me being shot for failing to pay Mr. X who we never agreed to make any exchange.
So, Ken B, will support me being shot if I choose not to pay the government for my “protection” amd instead choose to pay someone else, or nobody?
If Major so-called Freedom don’t want to pay taxes, which is the membership fee that the citizens of the U.S of A require of people who want to live in the U.S. of A, he should find himself a nice island to live on. I don’t think he should be shot if refuses to pay his taxes and I’m sure you don’t either, Ken B. But I do think he should be prosecuted in a court of law, which is how the citizens of the U.S. of A deal with people who breaks the rules of their community. Agree with me on this one, Ken B?
The obligation to cease and desist if there is disageewment is on the non-owner of the land, not the government.
If I don’t want to pay you, then if you live with me peacefully then you have the obligation to move to an island.
” I don’t think he should be shot if refuses to pay his taxes and I’m sure you don’t either, Ken B. But I do think he should be prosecuted in a court”
And if I refuse to accept the legitimacy of such a court?
Son, you live in a community called a nation. That community makes rules about the rights and obligations of its members. The courts were created by the community to protect law abiding members from the law-breakers. If you don’t accept the legitimacy of the courts, it’s time for you to leave the the community and head off to that island I’ve been talking about. Otherwise you’ll get a fair trial and a jury will decide whether your arguments cut it.
The government doesn’t exist to protect individual rights and freedoms. It exists to violate them for its own benefit and the benefit of parasitical special interest groups.
It is not my obligation to move to the island. It is the obligation of non-owners to move to the island if they can’t behave.
You’re just telling me the coercive nature of the state. That is not an argument of its moral legitimacy.
Gramps, you’re just spewing state religion mantras I’ve heard a million times already. It’s flawed.
That’s just your opinion, son. I think government is a necessary part of any community, as do most citizens who’ve got past the teenage years. I think it’s immoral to enjoy the benefits of living in a community without abiding by its rules. You think otherwise, you should get into politics and try to get people to vote for your program. Wouldn’t think much of your chances, but you’ve got the right to try.
No, it’s not just my opinion gramps. It’s the truth.
Your belief that government is necessary, is false. Government is not necessary. Protection against violence does not imply government. It can’t imply it. Government initiates violence in order to even exist.
It’s immoral to violate individual rights in the name of rules and law.
I don’t want to get into politics of government because I don’t want to initiate violence against people.
I don’t have a right to impose my will on you using state power.
Is it your stated belief that the US government is the owner of all land within the borders of the United States?
Now what gave you that idea? Private property is the American way. But the enforcement of property rights, including settling disputes, needs a higher authority that can adjudicate and enforce. That’s why owning property and being a good citizen go hand-in-hand. Rights don’t count for nothing without a community that recognises and upholds them.
Buford,
“But the enforcement of property rights, including settling disputes, needs a higher authority that can adjudicate and enforce.”
Is there an even higher authority then that must settle disputes between the higher authority and the people under it’s control? And what “higher authority” will settle disputes between two other higher authorities? Wouldn’t this require a one world order? But even in this case, the question still remains who will settle disputes between the one world order and those whom it rules?
“Rights don’t count for nothing without a community that recognises and upholds them”.
All you are saying here is that people’s rights can’t be well protected without a favorable public opinion towards the protection of rights. But that doesn’t mean that rights have to be protected through aggression by a “community monopolist”. If a particular community favors private property rights, then why is there a need to monopolize the “protection” of such rights?
“Now what gave you that idea?”
Isn’t it obvious? You said that merely by virtue of LIVING in the territory called the US, people have to pay the government money.
That is you suggesting the government owns the land.
Yes. But here’s the important point: if he is acquitted it ends. MF will not afford you or me that. If we are acqitted of crimes he accuses us of by the thugs he hires he can hire another set. And another. And another. Endlessly. That,s the key point. There is no final answer in his system, only the next auction.
“if he is acquitted it ends. MF will not afford you or me that.”
You fail to notice the actual underlying motive in competing protection:
It isn’t WHO should have final say, it is WHAT should have final say: Reason, logic and evidence.
Competing protection provides for the best opportunity for personal vendettas to be made subservient to justice, precisely because a private law society presupposes a recognition among the mass population that private property rights should prevail.
Your problem Ken B is that you keep attributing the incredible injustice of statism, onto private law as if the problems you infer from statism, are the same in private law societies.
There is a final rule. It is organic. There is no final person or group of people. It will differ depending on how well justice is understood and served, which of course is the case in every society.
You are taking a desire for an END, and pretending in your mind that an unfair end NOW is better than an indeterminate end LATER.
It’s not “endless” as you claim. Practically speaking, it cannot possibly NEVER end. An individual will experience SOME form of justice, good or bad. But because protection is competitive, there is more opportunity for the good to take place, than the bad. This is because goods are undersupplied in monopolistic systems. You said so yourself.
All you’re doing, at the end of the day, is taking your fears, your emotions, your unwillingness to be a self-responsible individual due to a need for a clear-cut mommy and daddy figure in society, and making excuses and flawed arguments in order to make yourself feel better, and in so doing, believing yourself to have made a rationally correct argument.
You wouldn’t even answer my direct question about whether you would support me being shot if I wanted to hire my own protection and opt out of the state’s protection.
Simple question.
Incredibly difficult answer for those who are too afraid to think straight. Just stop being afraid already.
I have always enjoyed watching Stephan and this video is a good one, however most of the Statist I have befriended, whether republican or democrat, when pressed, will say yes they do support my murder if need be. The collective is more important than the individual. Never jeopardize the entire machine for the benefit of 1 person. Whats a little state sponsored murder amongst friends…
So all though this “against me” makes iron clad sense to Stephan, statist simply don’t think rationally.
I think you are right; that’s why you have to go after the people who rarely think about political authority, or at least partisan politics; people who are less emotionally deep into collectivist thought. They will be less combative and intellectually resistant to questions like, “Do you have the right use violence against me in situation so and so?”
I think my sarcasm sensors need to be replaced after watching that.
I also need to re-calibrate my rant rating scale because that was outside of my current range of score values.
Like Bob said about his blogroll getting updated, these two things don’t happen often.
The doge is pleased.
What’s the big deal, anyway? Quit your whining. Killing a few Americans is so much better than burning Columbia, South Carolina to the ground and bayoneting all the pet dogs in front of the children.
http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2012/09/more-on-drones.html
Hey Roddis, you’ll dig this…
A frequent commenter on Sumner’s blog has, after my inquiry, revealed a desire to have me shot. Not kidding:
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=26254#comment-320513
That can’t be that unusual a desire.
A person should be murdered for POINTING OUT CORRECTLY that a certain money policy is necessarily based upon violence to be used against innocent people by a self deluded cohort in perpetual denial of its very nature?
Mises wrote that a government stands or falls based on the ideas of the mass population.
If we do have a tyrannical state, it’s because the mass population has ideas which support it.
If you think about it, where the mass of people are improving is their rhetoric, to appear sane and civilized. But underneath it all, there is something rarely addressed.
Imagine being at the dinner table with colleagues and friends and family, and you ask them if they support something like central banking or welfare, and then ask them if they support you being shot of you disagree.
It’s difficult to do. I think for a libertarian, it more scary than public speaking.
Considering that our position consists mostly of “Everything you know is wrong” and “You are the cause of the our most severe problems that would not otherwise exist”, and considering that most people don’t know and don’t care to know the first thing about the NAP, intervention or economic calculation, I found the Two Minutes Hate conducted by Jon Stewart on Peter Schiff and Judge Napolitano far more disturbing than other people did.
It is difficult to do with your family; and can backfire as well. If you come off as being to combative, some people may shutdown, and then they will be the ones to afraid to talk about controversial moral theories. So depending on the person you have to find that balance and not make it to personal. Many times you have to lead them to these questions; they have to think that they have come up with the answers themselves. Bob pointed to the recent Tom Woods podcast that does a good job of talking about being impersonal but effective, by using hypothetical everyday situations that are analogous to actions of the State, and then pointing out the hypocrisy of the dual morality that exists between agents of the State and private citizens.
See, comrade, where spouting bourgeois economics will lead you?
Ever heard of the Solovetsky islands? They are beautiful this time of the year.
you always were ton e deaf.
I know my singing kills, but come on…
MF,
Take a look at Geddis’s web site. He might not shoot you, but he might try to use Aiki Jujitsu on you. Not a nice man.
pretty funny
This is all you actually have to know. They use anti-tank missiles.
Usually I’ll get one of two responses, either: “Of course they don’t!” or “Of course they do!”
Doesn’t matter, of course. If they have a tool, they will abuse it.
Being murdered by the President is not so bad. You can pick cotton, sing songs and eat gruel.
Actually you can’t. You know, because you’re dead.
In the afterlife?
If you’re going to burn, try not to use water as a starter…
People like Joe read s word like gruel and don’t realize it is an obvious signal of sarcasm.
Yes, being blown to bits is only bad because it is involuntary. Take away the part where it’s involuntary and its not so bad. You don’t have to carry your firewood the rest of the way home. You don’t have to put up with your little brother anymore. Your family doesn’t have to buy a casket. You don’t have to eat tonight’s gruel.
Joe reveals too much.
People who cash paychecks and get to vote actually thought Walter block thinks slavery wasn’t that bad. They weren’t even lying just to unethically attack block, they really thought it.
Can we get some better trolls in here please?