This is understood, I think. At the same time, there are some people (and this usually happens from the Republican side of American politics) who tied “social gains” and “military force” so tightly that the two become the same side of the same coin. She may not be condoning war, but it’s important to make sure that she’s not thinking the gains come from war – someone who does that might think at some point that war IS an acceptable answer if the gaisn are big enough and they never, EVER are.

# She was also suggesting that we are not thinking enough about the hardships others face

I used to be a so-called “liberal”. Before I really took a look at the world around me, and questioned the very basic parts, I blamed people being “greedy” and thought if we just found ways to even out those disparities, we’d be better off. As a liberal, I needed to be “shown the gun”. I’m willing to bet that Alice really DOES care about others, most people do care about others. But there’s a flip side – for every person who gets a dollar of help, someone else was robbed of a dollar. It takes human wealth to create more wealth, and simply transfering money around doesn’t do anything to solve that unless the people who are having problems are assisted in eliminating those problems. Those problems are, in almost every case, caused directly or indirectly by the government – the same one she’s probably thinking will help them. It is a matter of thinking about others but that requires challenging every assumption and very few people really do that. That’s why I post really long comments on people’s blogs, and chat about it on IRC all the time. Liberty is an empowering message end empowered people do good things.

# I was trying to talk specifically about how good his influence was for my value of good.

Understood. That’s the great thing about humanity though – you ALWAYS talk about your perceptions because they’re the only ones any person can talk about. I understand what it means to be an individual, so I assumed that’s what you meant. I’m not defending Bill Gates either, I think he’s a weasel of a man (He’s testified before congress asking them to spend more money on areas he wants). I was simply pointing out that he has done both good AND bad and that the value of his contributions are essentially left up to the individual. None are wrong – the free market moves because different human beings have different sets of values.

# The interesting think in an-cap is that proprietary software would exist, but not have the monopoly.

That’s not technically true. Firstly, it’s impossible to say exactly what the market will do, it probably won’t do a single thing. What systems fall into place for drivers might be different than userspace applications. There really are a large number of possibilities. My personal opinion is that the opposite would happen, the distinctions between “proprietary” and “non-free” would vanish almost instantly and that, given that sudden market shift, companies would be forced to do inventive things in order to turn a profit. I think Microsoft would look at the lack of copyright and do “Oh crap, what can we sell to pay our employees!?!” and some hacker would say “Well, the installers are out there free to download – we could sell source code!”. I think by eliminating copyright, the ONLY barrier to TOTAL software freedom would be access to the source code and very few companies would find keeping source code hidden to be a profitable thing.

That said, I seriously urge you to read a specific chapter from the book “The Market For Liberty” called “The Self-Regulating Market”. In specific, do a CTRL+F for the term “market monopoly”, there’s some very specific things you’ll learn about the nature of “monopolies”. You can download “The Market For Liberty” as a PDF http://www.mises.org/books/marketforliberty.pdf or in a few other formats at http://book.freekeene.com/

# I think something like a minarchy might be an acceptable balance. Also, I am still struggling to shake off liberal ideas (by this I mean state welfare).

I hate to keep tossing out references to other people because I think having liberty presented by people you know is better. Also, I hate Bible thumpers who keep pointing to one place over and over for “wisdom” as if the ideas aren’t something they share now… That said, this is the SECOND time I’m going to reference “The Market For Liberty”, but this time I’m going to quote it directly…

— Can men ever achieve a laissez-faire society? Many people have an unshakable conviction that anything so “ideal” could never become a practical reality. They can’t explain why they’re so sure of this; they just feel an unreasoned “certainty” that it must be so. What is behind this reasonless “certainty” that the good (liberty) is unachievable? The answer lies in the inverted “morality” of tradition… —

I’m not gonna tell you what it is. You’ll have to download it and read it yourself. You can do a find on those words, it’s a direct quote.

#In my opinion, happniess is more important than property.

***Warning: Highly semantic arguement, you’ve been warned!***:

“Happiness” does not exist. It can’t be touched, transfered, given or taken. Happiness itsn’t a thing, and you can’t compare it to a thing, like property. If you create that false dichotomy, you leave open this question – “If a man derives happiness by the property and wealth he earns without hurting others” which is more important – property or happiness? The two are entirely different concepts – the existance of one doesn’t relate at all to the other. You can be poor and happy or wealthy and miserable. Furthermore, your having property doesn’t mean other people must be unhappy. Perhaps something to ponder on, if you’d like more about how the words we use shape how we see the world. Check out http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/tl07a.shtml and do a find for “Two Tribes”.

@ydb1: Yes, I agree with you, thanks for the links. I also looked up the suffragette movement and found out it started out long before the war.
About your litmus test, it is a good idea. I’d like to think I’d past, but my split second reaction is “there is no factual evidence for software patents”. Slightly worrying :S

@kdean: Concerning Bill Gates, I was trying to talk specifically about how good his influence was for my value of good. The interesting think in an-cap is that proprietary software would exist, but not have the monopoly. I still think proprietary software itself is unethical – but in an-cap I would be able to act on that using my spending power.

@kdean, libervisco: I broadly agree with what you are saying. Mostly the way you talk about wealth and its creation makes sense. I’m not, however, convinced that the government is unnecessary, I think something like a minarchy might be an acceptable balance. Also, I am still struggling to shake off liberal ideas (by this I mean state welfare). In my opinion, happniess is more important than property. But that said, surely one of the biggest contributions to happiness is freedom.

What I think, in short, is that often there is some good in what is otherwise evil, but that doesn’t make the evil any less so nor does it make it the right way of achieving what little good it achieved.

But throughout history, mostly because of the unwillingness to think for themselves and take control of themselves as individuals, people have been doing things the hard way, which also happens to be the wrong way. This led them to acting not even like animals, but even worse, totally betraying the essence of life, let alone the essence of sentient life. People don’t want to be hurt or killed yet so often cheer on others to kill as many other people under the pretense of these people being their enemies (often for the stupidest of reasons such as government telling them they are a threat, they are different people, worse people, less valuable people and deserve what they get).

Seriously, with mentalities such as those, the mentality that gives validity to force and violence, even in limited circumstances, things like women’s rights and some other human rights seem like a joke. If you condone violence upon other people even when those people done nothing to you or anyone else, then what’s the point of even beginning to talk about the violation of other human rights? I mean, if you condone violence upon peaceful people (which is what people essentially do whenever they condone any war) you are already destroying one right without which no other human rights can really exist nor make sense.

War is destruction. It is destruction of all value. It is the anti-thesis of freedom, an anti-thesis of a free market. But to government, that is the foolish belief in the validity of “government”, it is a favorite tool.

Cheers

The notions of “good” and “bad” are defined by individuals. There are some things, based in human nature that are universal (murder, for instance, is considered a universal moral because every group of humans has died from being killed). As hard as this is to keep in mind, everything you consider “bad” is framed by your upbringing and point of reference. In some groups, “piercing your body or getting a tattoo” is a severe transgression because it defiles “God’s Work”. Likewise, in socialist groups, “not paying taxes” is considered “wrong” because those circles believe that there is this “collective” called “society”. Neither “society” nor “God” can actually be offended by anything since they exist only in the minds of those who believe they do, yet both groups will argue that their opinions are “right”.

You may consider Bill Gates to be a blight on the computing world, and as a Linux user, I’m not fond of the man myself. That said, Microsoft marketed computers to people. Before the time of Microsoft, computers were relegated to companies and universities. The move from “business tool” to “household item” was ushered in by Windows, the marketing behind it and the ease of use in comparison to the other things at the time. This made people want to have computers and I think that is a GREAT thing – people without computers don’t write Free Software, for instance.

Another thing to think about with the “restriction of users” comes from governments themselves, actually. When people are able to make their own choices, they choose what is best for them. Perhaps that’s the simplicity of Mac OS X or the flexibility of Linux or the stability of OpenBSD. However, when the government gets involved, the decisions that people think are best often get tossed out the window (no pun intended). How big of a market might Windows have if universities (funded by the government) didn’t REQUIRE Windows? How many people might be familiar with Mac OS X today if the government hadn’t contracted with Microsoft for hundreds of thousands of licenses for libraries and schools?

If a person or a company uses violence to get what they want, people are outraged. When the government uses force to make sure students are in government schools using MS Office to write their papers, however, nobody bats and eye. Microsoft is certainly at fault for dealing with that kind of monopoly, but you can’t ignore that Microsoft couldn’t have done it alone. A vast majority of people do use Windows of their own choice though, and as long as it is THEIR choice, it is my place to honor it.

#She replied by stating the fact taht we are much better off than other places, such as China and Zimbabwe, which are both poor and oppresive.

There are statist apologists in the United States that do that too. Some know what they’re doing, some do not. Just because someone else is MORE evil does not make “lesser” evils right. Yes, you might be MORE free in on place than another, but if you’re not free to do what you want, that distinction is a matter of degrees – like saying a robbery victim wasn’t hurt so badly – he only had a days wages in his pockets instead of a weeks. Either way, he was robbed.

# You should be grateful for all of the good things that have been gained for you by war and oppression – wealth

War creates wealth? Um, no. Wealth is unlimited and created by human potential and inventiveness. Violence, and especially war, destroy wealth. Always. For every bomb exploded, every ship sunk, every plane shot down that is human labor which was destroyed – devalued to the point of nothing. You don’t EVER gain wealth by destroying.

# womens rights (brought about by WWII)

Whomever said this is either brainwashed or never questions themselves. Did waging a war magically “create” rights? There is no such thing as “women’s rights”! There are human rights – the right to life, liberty and property. Anything less than ALL people being given these rights is an evil. The person saying this (Alice, was it?) assumes that the war resulted in a gain, and I disagree. People have rights because they are people, and if those rights weren’t evident prior to WWII there was some force preventing them from exercising their rights. That force – government. Government is, and as long as it exists always will be, nothing more than individuals committing violence which the majority of people consider acceptable. I refuse to accept violence as an acceptable means.

# As Alice points out, many of my 1st world priveleges are due to this kind of thing.

I’ve got to disagree – building of wealth is an inherent human right. Things like computers and medicine and xboxes and such all that exist. They all exist because someone created them, filling a need, and other people were willing to trade some of the wealth they created for it. People everywhere want fun and enjoyment and health and security. As discussed by Dr. Mary Ruwart, wealth is unlimited! (http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/chap2.html). You having those things aren’t caused by the violence of the government claiming you – others not having those things is caused by the government’s claiming THEM. It is not merely coincidence that government people who use force more often result in depriving the people in the areas they claim as “theirs”. Oppressive government people are oppressive because they use force. Since those people destroy wealth rather than create it, and take wealth from other people to sustain their violence, the more oppressive a government becomes, the more impoverished the people tyrannized by it.

# Then, the question remainds, what about socially? Would we have womens rights without the war etc. This is a question I ifnd I can not answer.

Do you respect women? Why? I’d wager yes, because women create value (as friends, as workers, as PEOPLE). You like value because value improves your life. This is human nature. We’re all different people and we all contribute our wealth in different ways. Because we can’t do EVERYTHING ourselves, to have a productive life, we need to tap the wealth of other people. Women are people, so I’d say yes, without people being forced to disrespect women at the threat of violence (How were people ever deprived of liberty without violence or threats of violence?) “women’s rights” would exist.

# do we need to restrict peoples freedoms (in the way governemnt was) to ensure the freedoms of others.

You are a human being. Human beings are individuals. One human can’t think for another, can’t make decisions for another person. So let me remove this veil of lies for you and rephrase the question. Could you, as a moral human being, do what government does and sleep at night? Could you shoot people for waving a different flag? Would you physically restrain a friend and forcefully throw him in a cage because he was smoking a plant? Would you walk into someone’s home and demand that they give you a percentage of their income?

Would you, as a moral human being, feel it’s okay to hire other people to do these things? There’s no “we”, there’s only you. Only you can be responsible for what you do in the world. Would you, as a moral human being, cast a vote knowing that it will lead to those actions becoming a reality?

If that approach doesn’t raise some ethical issues let’s ask this one – how does government protect life, liberty and property by threatening life (try defending yourself when a police officer kicks in your door and raises a weapon against your family), liberty (try smoking some cannabis in public and see if your liberty isn’t restricted) or property (try keeping all of the money you earn when the government people claim they are entitled to collect taxes)?

# I used to like the idea of democratic government and the welfare starte – it gave the best for all people.

I’ve got to disagree – I’m a person and the welfare state I live in takes my money. I work an honest job, creating value for people with my skills, and both myself and those people benefit from that action without being violent towards each other. All of the money I earn is mine, from a day’s worth of honest work. Then, some people calling themselves “the government” steal my money and make me choose between paying my bills or eating. They threaten to send men with guns to my home if I do not pay them money and those men will force me into a cage if I don’t pay. If I resist going into the cage, they will beat me or shoot me. I’m a good person, I freely give to charity because I don’t like seeing people in bad situations. I know that other people feel the same (http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/June/200706261522251CJsamohT0.8012354.html). I don’t understand how “everyone” is better off if people are being stolen from and threatened. It’s clear to me that things like “poverty” are being addressed by people freely (because people are good) so I don’t understand why the government people take so much and hinder hard working people like myself from doing more good with what they have to help other people.

# But, the ideal of voluntaryism sounds even better, just a bit too good to be true.

Voluntary society won’t solve all of the worlds problems. There are a small percentage of people who actually want to hurt other people but the number of people who want to protect themselves from those people will always be greater. There will still be people who have a hard time financially because life still does unexpected things, there will just be more options to rebound from those events. In a voluntary society the only barriers to what can be done are your sense of ethics, the laws of physics and your willingness to take action. I’ve got a LOT of faith that without the artificial barriers, a lot of problems will have solutions.

It’s clear that today’s system doesn’t sit right with you. You sense there’s something wrong. Granted, you might not trust in the positivity of other humans, but even if it only works half as good as it might, is worse than today? If the only benefit was that government people stopped being allowed to use violence, would it be much worse?

# I really want New Hampshire to sucessfully become anarchist, just so I can see how well it really works.

It won’t work unless the people who want to see it help make it. There’s a song by John Mayer called “Waiting for the world to change” – catchy song but really depressing. Waiting and seeing never yields the kind of results you want, unless you simply want to get older. That said, anarchy is a term that makes people afraid, but a voluntary society is something that people have control over. If people wanted to form a group and collect taxes within their own circles, they could. If that group of people wanted to hire a police force to patrol their own neighborhood, they could. Voluntaryism is all about honoring other people’s choices as long as they aren’t using violence against you.

# A lot of what I say is manipulated (not malicously of course), by a particular group of people – free software advocates, especially those in #libervis on freenode, who have also made me rethink governemnt.

For the sake of disclosure, I’m one of those people. Just wanna make sure your other readers know that.

Now that my lawyer is back in his kennel, it’s only manipulation because what we say isn’t the norm. You were taught in government school to “respect authority” and we’re asking you to question what authority one human can have over another. You are taught by TV and print what is “sexy” and what is “ugly”. You’re always manipulated, because no two people ever agree on things (and they shouldn’t, even twins doesn’t live the same lives). Life is a constant stream of information, some challenge what you believe, some seek to reaffirm it.

# Am I brainwashing myself, or just unbrainwashing myself?

Neither, you’re simply asking questions. I think that’s a good thing – you can’t find answers by silencing questions.

I’d like to dismantle the argument that war and oppression have positive effects. Firstly, “war creates wealth”. French economist Frederic Bastiat wrote an essay titled That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen that everyone should read. Bastiat begins with a parable of a reckless youngster who breaks a shop window. A crowd gathers around the broken window and remarks that this will be a good thing and a creator of wealth, since the shopkeeper will now patronize the services of the glazier, who now has more money to spend on other things; that is what is seen. What is not seen is that were the window not to be broken the shopkeeper would have spent the money on a suit he had wanted, and he would have had a window and a suit; now he has only a window. This applies to war in two ways: firstly, the destruction brought about by war only serves to harm wealth, and the activity associated with reconstruction is but the patronizing of the glazier, i.e., when compared to what is not seen, everyone is worse off; secondly, the mobilization for war on the part of the belligerents taxes resources away from the private economy, and thus only consumes wealth rather than building it.

Secondly, “war brings rights”. While there have been cases where women’s rights have accompanied wars, on the whole, war makes the State bigger and thus liberty smaller. The book Crisis and Leviathan details how during war and national crises the “ratchet effect” causes government to grow dramatically, then after the end of the crisis deflate to a level well above that before the crisis. Sure, women have obtained suffrage after world wars; but socialism and the police state have increased to such a degree as to vastly overshadow the gains for women that were most likely coming anyway.

A few more points I’d like to comment on:

“do we need to restrict peoples freedoms (in the way governemnt was) to ensure the freedoms of others”

A lot of that depends on philosophical definitions. If we define freedom as most libertarians do, I don’t have the freedom to walk up to you on the street and steal your wallet, so it’s not restricting my freedom to pass a law saying that I’m not allowed to do that.

“A lot of what I say is manipulated (not malicously of course), by a particular group of people – free software advocates, especially those in #libervis on freenode, who have also made me rethink governemnt. Am I brainwashing myself, or just unbrainwashing myself?”

A good litmus test to see if you’re brainwashed or unbrainwashed is the ability to have an educated mind in the manner that Aristotle describes it: the ability to “entertain a thought without accepting it”. If I were to argue without using fallacies that software patents are essential to innovation, or that government is morally good, would you be able to entertain my argument?