Hey look! the FBI and NSA are data-mining and analyzing your data!

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

In principle in the way you deal with people in your life without the state needing to tell you how to do it (although it regulates your life more and more).

The problem I think that is happening here is that you are not introducing a first step into the subject. It's a bit like saying to someone who wants to know why the earth moves that they should read a thesis by Stephen Hawking. Furthermore the method in which you put forward this thesis is borderline fanatical, comparable to fundamentalist preachers and extremist Imams in its ferocity and vehemence.
Sure, it's good to be passionate about a subject, but brow-beating people from a pulpit of righteousness that your cause is just and the only true way...well, makes you sound a lot like some of the people that you have argued against in the past in different threads.

Putting this to one side, and coming back to the point at hand. What you describe, in essence, is the state of mankind in the days around the Neolithic era, when it boiled down to small local settlements which spawned new settlements off each other like buds from a plant. Eventually this collective group of settlements pooled their resources to form a nation, it may not have been done peacefully, it most likely was done through force, but there was strength in numbers against both disease, other settlements and predators. It enabled them to do greater things, to pool their knowledge and basically lead to where we are today, through a few thousand years.
There is a reason, a real reason, that we don't live that way any more, and it's got little to do with government greed, although certainly there is a factor in that, because after all government is made up of perfectly ordinary people just like you and me, but a need for collective strength.
I would put money on, if it still existed, the likelihood that any attempt to split a state into seperate individual states would eventually result in the reunification of those states into one larger entity. You can deregulate, transfer powers, like devolution in the United Kingdom, but somewhere along the line the buck has to stop, there has to be one entity which decides the collective direction of a nation, be it a King, President, Fuhrer, General Secretary, Ayatollah, anyone, that central figure has to exist to interact with the figures from other nations, even if it's only a figurehead and the real business is done by the worker-ants underneath them.
Yes, the current democracy is bloated, and yes it is probably quite corrupt, but you show me one governmental system in this planets history that has NOT suffered from corruption of some sort in its existence, and lasted longer than a year.
Furthermore, and here's the real kicker, any one nation that is dissolved into a collection of smaller states, will almost immediately be overrun by its neighbours, because it will be unable to form proper resistance without a central organisation, each individual militia will be fighting a separate battle against a unified army, so unless those militia have someone rich and power backing them, they will be kicked around by the unified force and destroyed.
Things throughout history happen for a reason, civilization evolves for a reason, right now democracy seems to be the government of choice, five hundred years ago it was monarchy, ninety years ago everyone was convinced that communism and socialism was the answer. Perhaps through some sort of giant war or ecological disaster Hoppes work will come to fruition, I don't deny that should the planets population be reduced by three quarters of its current size then governmental types would have to rapidly evolve to suit the situation, and unless communications were swiftly restored between nations then there would be a break-up of states across the globe, because civilizations adapt, they have to, or they die.
Sure, it makes for some good fiction to have a civil war in America, Texas is independent, California tries to become the new Athens and instead becomes Rome post-visigoths, the Monroe Republic rules with an iron fist (yeah, I've seen some episodes of it, and no, I'm not impressed by it) or Cheyenne rules through subterfuge (much better imho), but each of those works of fiction require a major catastrophe to take place to break the current situation. No amount of links, posts, tirades, sermons or judgement on an internet forum is going to create the sort of catastrophe required to break up a nation.
I, too, am disillusioned with the current political system in the United Kingdom, and a tad fearful of the one in America, here in the UK everyone has taken the middle ground and there is little difference between the parties, in America the middle ground has been napalmed and both sides are flying off the opposite ends of the spectrum, neither system particularly works, however I would much rather live under a democracy than under a system that, by typing these words, I am automatically picked up in the early hours of the morning by a policeman and spend the rest of my short life in a prison cell.
Sure, there are some circumstances in a democracy at the moment that can cause this to occur, and at the moment, they usually involve Islam, and now surely, Skybird, you cannot call for greater security against Islamic extremists on one hand, and decry increased government surveillance on another. It just doesn't work that way.

[desertstriker]

great Now i have to watch "V for Vendeta" good movie to watch and was ahead of its time and pretty well depicts what is happening with terrorism and the patriot act.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

So is this partisan blame, or a a-hole government as a whole?

As much as I would like to mash one clear person on this, I feel it is institutional, and much like the stealth bomber, been around longer than we had awareness to it.

Silly. I take nothing partisan from this, it only affirms my belief of the firm need for a constitutional convention, and a purge of the house and congress.


They all act as if they did not know, hoping someone (the president) takes the bullet for everyones conspiracy.

For Legislative bodies to all of a sudden act outraged at this, when the crap they pulled far outweighs this....sad, on many levels.

I still want to know why they get free healthcare when they wish to abolish the same benefit to the poorer american??


This is what happens when the extortion money does not go where it is supposed to, scandal....

No president is ever going to give back the powers that were granted to George W. Bush in 2001. If you're scared that Obama has them, well, guess what? A bunch of us warned you that Bush wasn't gonna be president forever. And even if the Patriot Act were, through some miracle, overturned in court or legislated out of existence through your theoretical constitutional convention, it's already too late because the web of surveillance has been put in place. You can bet that its future legality has already been set up.

You can't unscrew the virgin once the cherry's popped.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

Silly. I take nothing partisan from this, it only affirms my belief of the firm need for a constitutional convention, and a purge of the house and congress.

Seriously? Have you considered what that would entail? The original only came about because men of wisdom fought and bickered and compromised. At the Virginia ratification discussions Patrick Henry said there should be a new convention then, and a Bill Of Rights should be placed withing the document itself. Fortunately he was not heard, mainly because they weren't sure a second convention wouldn't create an entirely new Constitution that would be much worse.

If a new Constitutional Convention were to be called (and thank whatever powers you pray to that they made it so difficult) there is no rule that it would have to do what you want, and every chance that the things you believe in would be ignored. They would have carte blanc to create whatevery they wanted. What if it came up with a new Constitution that truly made America a socialist state? What if it took away all our rights? What if it went in the opposite direction, and guaranteed all rights but totally eliminated all Federal interference, for better or for worse? First off, at least two-thirds of the States would have to ratify it (unless of course it did away with the States entirely, as some have suggested in the past), and that in itself seems highly unlikely.

So let me ask this: If you had the power to rewrite the Constitution as you say, what exactly would you change? How would you make it better?

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

So let me ask this: If you had the power to rewrite the Constitution as you say, what exactly would you change? How would you make it better?

No one can honestly answer that there is no way that it would not be a complete compromise unless as you said they got rid of the 2/3 majority by getting rid of states which would never fly.

All though I would like to see Soopamans answer.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

The problem I think that is happening here is that you are not introducing a first step into the subject. It's a bit like saying to someone who wants to know why the earth moves that they should read a thesis by Stephen Hawking. Furthermore the method in which you put forward this thesis is borderline fanatical, comparable to fundamentalist preachers and extremist Imams in its ferocity and vehemence.

Vehement yes, and intentionally. that is for biographic reasons which I do not wish to publicly talk about, and for the reason of that I see all Europe around going to hell, aggression between various peoples in different countries growing again, totalitarianism openly being invited under different labels, conflicts between states growing and growing, and everybody cheering to even accelerate the overall decline. Yes, I am very angry there. I also cannot believe and understand this... this monumental and needless waste of potential and opportunities. In wanting to understand why these processes nevertheless run on, I realised that my old ideas did not work and that I needed to pout everything into question. And that I did.

I am in short time right now, and get back to you later this day. For the moment just this: I am a realist, and do not assume I would not know that they have made it almost impossible, both legally and psychologically, to just overthrow the current order - I know it, and many of the names I mentioned know it as well. Hoppe repeatedly said that he has almost no optimism for the future,. regarding whether the libertarian social order based on the old and honorable tradition of what is called "natural law" (that is explained early in Rothbards book on Ethics) could be achieved. I, like he, argue from a theoretic standpoint and say what should be looked for, what should be tried to reach. It would be the right thing to do. But I have almost no hope that people will do it. Part of libertarianism is and must be to nevertheless demand the right nevertheless, and he who says that it should be had later, or in smaller steps, and in a limited, reduced format, already has betrayed freedom and liberty.

You ask what to do, and probably also what it is. Again, check the content list of Rothbard'S book, The Ethics of Liberty, the chapters make it easy to identify the matter you might be interested in i form of your questions. I do not even agree with all of that, for example the chapter on children's rights (or lack of), made me swallow twice. Regarding the how, my reply is: disloyalty to states, parties and politicians. Do not help the state. Be disobedient. Talk to you next people, spread the ideas of libertarianism. Boycott the common political showacts, they only serve the purpose of legitimising state-run crime. Refuse to pay taxes if you can get away with it. Do not cooperate with state organs. In other words: refuse to give moral legitimation to those who take freedom away from you. Historically, you would be in very good and high and honorable company with all that. And that is not just Thoreau.

The Hoppe book gives a good historic introduction on how and why republican state order took over from monarchies at the WWI-era - and what consequences that has for the citizens in affected states: taxes exploded in following decades, freedom declined, war became even more total and barbaric than ever before, all civilisational inhibitions removed. It has much to do with the change from monarchies to republics. In I think 14 chapters, he repeats himself quite oftenb. That makes it comfportable to read, becasue you store it in mind easy that way, and every chapter deals with the (same) matter form a slightly different perspective and focusses on slightly different objects. And yes, the book caused quite a stirr.

I get back to you later, I have no time right now.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Seriously? Have you considered what that would entail? The original only came about because men of wisdom fought and bickered and compromised. At the Virginia ratification discussions Patrick Henry said there should be a new convention then, and a Bill Of Rights should be placed withing the document itself. Fortunately he was not heard, mainly because they weren't sure a second convention wouldn't create an entirely new Constitution that would be much worse.

If a new Constitutional Convention were to be called (and thank whatever powers you pray to that they made it so difficult) there is no rule that it would have to do what you want, and every chance that the things you believe in would be ignored. They would have carte blanc to create whatevery they wanted. What if it came up with a new Constitution that truly made America a socialist state? What if it took away all our rights? What if it went in the opposite direction, and guaranteed all rights but totally eliminated all Federal interference, for better or for worse? First off, at least two-thirds of the States would have to ratify it (unless of course it did away with the States entirely, as some have suggested in the past), and that in itself seems highly unlikely.

So let me ask this: If you had the power to rewrite the Constitution as you say, what exactly would you change? How would you make it better?

The declaration of independence was a good thing. The constitution less so, mainly for it founds the belief that the people must be governed by a government (that there must be a general state). From a libertarian POV, that statement already is unacceptable, no matter the idea of the people being allowed to chnage the government (which in practice proves almost impossible, I would say, for people have to deal with the same politicians time and time again and agfain and again - you just cannot get ride of them, for decades).

What it comes down to, is a question I assume you would like: who monitors the monitors? The checks and balances do not work well, for the judge's name is Capone, the grand jury is formed up by mafiosi, and the witnesses are next of kin of the suspect.

See, you absolutely sank some hooks in me back then. More than you or Neal maybe imagine.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

No one can honestly answer that there is no way that it would not be a complete compromise unless as you said they got rid of the 2/3 majority by getting rid of states which would never fly.

All though I would like to see Soopamans answer.

That's my point. There is no real answer, but I have met more than a few people who say they want to try, which makes me nervous to say the least.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The declaration of independence was a good thing. The constitution less so, mainly for it founds the belief that the people must be governed by a government (that there must be a general state).

I see your point, but for them it was more than just a belief. They were faced with the reality of three major powers (Britain, France and Russia) who refused to make trade treaties with the individual states. They had to have some kind of central power just to deal with foreign governments, or else face the possibility of separate States making their own deals and possibly being swallowed up by those powers, leaving the rest surrounded and outnumbered. For them it was an absolute necessity. Franklin's statement from the signing of the Declaration, "We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately", was a very real concept, and one which affected the next generation, which accounts for Lincoln's belief that the Union had to come before all. Right or wrong, that was the bogeyman they saw awaiting them if they didn't create a strong central government.

As for the monitoring question, that is something that is always there as well. They had their own arguments, hence the battle between Hamilton and Jefferson over the National Bank. They couldn't concieve of modern technology and its problems. On the other hand the fact that this has come to light at all shows that the invasiveness of such technology works both ways. In this case the people really are the monitor. Yes, it was done, but it has been brought to everyone's attention and it is the government that is on the run because of it. It will continue to happen, and all we can hope for is that we can keep up with them, if not ahead of them. The beauty of it is that the technology involved is available to everybody.

In wanting to understand why these processes nevertheless run on, I realised that my old ideas did not work and that I needed to pout everything into question. And that I did.

Yet the answer to the questions which you cannot even see is that your new "ideals" don't work any more than your old ones did.

[Platapus]

Awesome point about the risk of writing a new constitution. I think the only thing worse than relying on a 200 year old constitution is trying to write a new one today.

It would be an interesting academic train-wreck to watch what would result from a constitutional debate between representatives of FIFTY states.

Actually, if we can get the entire congress to focus on writing a new constitution, it would keep them busy for the next 20-50 years and that might be better off for the citizens. LoL

[STEED]

It's crossed the pond.

GCHQ Prism spying claims: Agency to report 'shortly'

Eavesdropping centre GCHQ will report to MPs within days over claims it secretly gathered intelligence from the world's largest internet companies.
The Guardian claims the UK's listening post accessed data on the internet activity of Britons obtained by a US spying programme called Prism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22824379

So what is new?

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Awesome point about the risk of writing a new constitution. I think the only thing worse than relying on a 200 year old constitution is trying to write a new one today.

I don't know how anyone can arrive at the conclusion that the constitution and the bill of rights is outdated. Yes, they were written 200 years ago, yes we have new technologies, however, Mankind has not changed or evolved. Sure some social quirks may change here or there, but people behave today, just as they did 200 years ago, just as they did 2000 years ago. The constitution and the bill of rights was written with human behavior in mind. If humans had changed, we'd have stopped killing each other, or trying to gain control or advantage over each other, a long time ago.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Vehement yes, and intentionally. that is for biographic reasons which I do not wish to publicly talk about, and for the reason of that I see all Europe around going to hell, aggression between various peoples in different countries growing again, totalitarianism openly being invited under different labels, conflicts between states growing and growing, and everybody cheering to even accelerate the overall decline. Yes, I am very angry there. I also cannot believe and understand this... this monumental and needless waste of potential and opportunities. In wanting to understand why these processes nevertheless run on, I realised that my old ideas did not work and that I needed to pout everything into question. And that I did.

I can, in some respects, see where you're coming from, and I too am concerned about the potential of the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the conflict between states. Unfortunately when you look back through history, it is an almost inevitable consequence. This is the longest period of peace in Europe since the Roman Empire, and it won't last forever no matter how hard the nations within the EU try. There will be another war in Europe, I couldn't say when, whether it will be in our lifetimes, who can say? But it will happen.
You cannot eliminate greed, that is the major stumbling block of most of humanity, our jealousy and desire to have something that we do not, be it wealth, land or power, and no matter what political system you put in place, it will be ruined by those who climb the ladder by treading on the heads of those below them.

I am in short time right now, and get back to you later this day. For the moment just this: I am a realist, and do not assume I would not know that they have made it almost impossible, both legally and psychologically, to just overthrow the current order - I know it, and many of the names I mentioned know it as well. Hoppe repeatedly said that he has almost no optimism for the future,. regarding whether the libertarian social order based on the old and honorable tradition of what is called "natural law" (that is explained early in Rothbards book on Ethics) could be achieved. I, like he, argue from a theoretic standpoint and say what should be looked for, what should be tried to reach. It would be the right thing to do. But I have almost no hope that people will do it. Part of libertarianism is and must be to nevertheless demand the right nevertheless, and he who says that it should be had later, or in smaller steps, and in a limited, reduced format, already has betrayed freedom and liberty.

Hmmm, natural law, now that is an interesting concept, and I understand how it can be applied to the laws of a state, however the reason we have such a myriad display of laws in this day and age is that no matter how big the mousetrap, there will always be a bigger mouse. You set up a series of laws based upon natural law, and it will likely be circumnavigated by people who look to use illegality to further their cause, and so you will need to pass further laws to close that loop-hole, and then they will create a new loop-hole, and so on and so forth. However the idea of creating a city which would be 'established in accordance with nature' is quite an intoxicating proposition, although I suspect that the law of nature that it would follow the closest is that of 'survival of the fittest' or to be more exact 'survival of the biggest and strongest', which would mean that those who are less fortunate in life would be excluded and we would wind up straight back at square one.

You ask what to do, and probably also what it is. Again, check the content list of Rothbard'S book, The Ethics of Liberty, the chapters make it easy to identify the matter you might be interested in i form of your questions. I do not even agree with all of that, for example the chapter on children's rights (or lack of), made me swallow twice. Regarding the how, my reply is: disloyalty to states, parties and politicians. Do not help the state. Be disobedient. Talk to you next people, spread the ideas of libertarianism. Boycott the common political showacts, they only serve the purpose of legitimising state-run crime. Refuse to pay taxes if you can get away with it. Do not cooperate with state organs. In other words: refuse to give moral legitimation to those who take freedom away from you. Historically, you would be in very good and high and honorable company with all that. And that is not just Thoreau.

I think that many of us only give as little as we can to the 'big machine', certainly if I could get away with not paying taxes I don't think I would hesitate, although that would be more through the desire of the accumilation of wealth than it would be through a libertarian viewpoint.
Likewise one could argue that the multi-national companies that avoid paying tax and move nations to accumilate vast sums of wealth are, not giving moral legitimation to the state, but again, it's not any political ideal that motivates them, and I do wonder if Hoppes work would withstand the inherent greed that is apparent in some people in society and the measures which they are willing to go to in order to further their own means.

The Hoppe book gives a good historic introduction on how and why republican state order took over from monarchies at the WWI-era - and what consequences that has for the citizens in affected states: taxes exploded in following decades, freedom declined, war became even more total and barbaric than ever before, all civilisational inhibitions removed. It has much to do with the change from monarchies to republics. In I think 14 chapters, he repeats himself quite oftenb. That makes it comfportable to read, becasue you store it in mind easy that way, and every chapter deals with the (same) matter form a slightly different perspective and focusses on slightly different objects. And yes, the book caused quite a stirr.

I get back to you later, I have no time right now.

I can understand how the book would cause a stir, after all, the republics and democracys are seen as the government of the moment and this book attacking them would be seen as alarming as the sudden rise of republicanism in the 17th and 18th centuries, which is where I think you can trace the beginnings of the Republic and Democratic orders in Europe and North America. Did this directly lead to a more total and barbaric warfare? I would hesitate to link the two, and point more in the direction of technological advances enabling mass destruction to become much easier. Of course, one could equally circle back and state that such advances were accelerated by the rise of scientific discovery under the Republican and Democratic orders, but then that would be undercut by such examples as the Portuguese Renaissance (although, equally one could come back and argue that the Renaissance itself sparked from Republican Italy and the trade hub that it was at the time between the Middle East and Europe) and indeed one could also point to the scientific discoveries undertaken by various other nations throughout the years which have been monarchical or dictatorial in their political system.
However, the wars of the monarchical eras were no less barbaric than those of the twentieth century, the only real difference is the scale of them which is limited by the technology. If Otto the Great or Henry VIII had had access to tactical missiles, tanks and jet fighters, one would suspect that they would not have used them for small border skirmishes. Technology enables you to do more with less, and therefore wars themselves expand in nature, as do atrocities committed in them. Would the Nazis have been able to kill as many 'undesirables' as they did if they had had to use an axe on each one? Would the French revolution have taken as many lives as it did without the invention of Madame Guillotine?
Likewise, you can look at technology and the decline of freedom, certainly if you go back to the medieval era, you may have had greater freedom from immediate governmental supervision, however you still had to pay your tithe, you still had to obey the laws of the land, and if you were caught you were either executed or had something removed. Technology has increased the ability of the government to close the cracks that people could fall through, whereas back in the medieval era you could theoretically live outside of the government, now it is very hard not to, and one could also argue that population growth has also played its part in this (and indeed circling back, that population growth has been expedited by technology) so that the gaps in between habitats has shrunk significantly and there are much fewer places to hide now.
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, 'preppers' for example, they take very little from the state and prefer to be as self-sufficient as possible, unfortunately for the rest of us, most preppers are quite wealthy to begin with, and they need to be to afford the equipment they use to 'live off the grid'. There are also nations where the technological level is relatively high, and yet the rule of law is pretty absent, Somalia for example, where cellphones exist alongside feudal lords. However, one can blame external forces for a lot of these exceptional nations, certainly if the Western world had not developed cellphones, it is unlikely that Somalia would be using them (although equally one can also blame some external forces for Somalias unrest in the first place).
So I would not be so quick as the pile all the blame for todays ills on the rise of the republican state, moreso that it is merely the continuation of the natural world order which is shaped by human behaviour.

[Catfish]

When they read and control all, the only way out is becoming a terrorist.
Because if you do not like it, or say anything against it, you instantly become one by their definition. Self-evident.