tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.comments2023-10-06T08:53:14.731-04:00Eternal vigilanceRicketsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comBlogger195125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-64576431018610703572020-08-22T15:48:14.537-04:002020-08-22T15:48:14.537-04:00Note: GNU Taler looks like a good project here.
ht...Note: GNU Taler looks like a good project here.<br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_TalerRicketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-63779224897887134802017-02-28T19:38:03.012-05:002017-02-28T19:38:03.012-05:00Good points.
The situation with TV news is odd. I ...Good points.<br />The situation with TV news is odd. I never watch it either, and frankly, I can't imagine watching it (demands too much attention and provides too little information)...yet it apparently is still quite influential. Everyone talks about the divide between different news sources (CNN vs Fox), but I wonder if the bigger divide is between Internet and TV.Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-90823865831595111262017-02-27T01:52:35.257-05:002017-02-27T01:52:35.257-05:00You are starting to see the long-term cumulative e...You are starting to see the long-term cumulative effects of living under a 9-11 security state regime. It is getting close to a generation now. Ive always taken libertarianism seriously. The long-term consequences of a security state, consequences that have been well-documented by history, is the erosion of trust(who can you trust?) and an oppressive cultural cynicism that eventually sets in. <br /><br />America is bit different than the totalitarianism of the past in that it still, to some extent, operates under some semblance of a "free press." Although, frankly, I've long since abstained from Cable/Satellite news. Any time I happen to catch it accidentally, it's like I'm watching a bad 80s Arnold dystopian flick. Add, to a large extent, the free press may not matter all that much. I have found is that the spontaneous order of the polity is the ministry of truth.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-84735617409441578732016-11-03T02:18:31.949-04:002016-11-03T02:18:31.949-04:00At this point neither side would accept victory by...At this point neither side would accept victory by the other as legitimate. A Trump victory would be viewed by partisan Dems as a result of Russian government interference in US domestic politics. A Clinton victory would be viewed by partisan Repubs as a consequence of a corrupt liberal establishment conspiracy to protect "crooked Hillary"(side note: as a long time follower of wikileaks, it is a bit discombobulating to see wikileaks suddenly become the darling of the hard right) and illegal immigrant voting.<br /><br />From a classic libertarian class analysis perspective, one might say that the only differences between the candidates is rhetorical. Either one would merge seamlessly with the security state bureaucracy. It is impossible to make a lesser of two evils calculation b/c with Trump you might actually see more popular resistance to exact same policies carried out by Clinton with barely a whimper. An obvious example: mass deportations. The Dems are mass deporters, but b/c the rhetorical is nicer, popular dissent is often muted(almost as if what you say is more important than what you do).<br /><br />Personally, I find the behavior of liberal democracies dominated by a security state bureaucratic apparatus to be following a similar script laid out by Anthony de Jasay in the 80s re: communist governments dominated by a security state bureaucratic apparatus. The unitary firm. The real threat of someone like Trump to the Firm is the rhetorical legitimacy of the American polity.<br /><br />One thing is clear: Both sides claim this a contest between apocalypse vs salvation.Neither, however, is willing to concede a reduction in state power to avoid an outcome of a state strong enough to execute an apocalypse. Each side is more than willing to gamble apocalypse as outcome as the price for a state strong enough to serve as means to their preferred ends. People are not Rawlsian liberals.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-43969813518633858802016-11-02T21:57:41.634-04:002016-11-02T21:57:41.634-04:00True. And this "free college" will be on...True. And this "free college" will be one more privilege that can be revoked for minor offenses, such as smoking pot.<br />https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/eligibility/criminal-convictions#drug-convictions<br />Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-25234879193574072002016-11-02T19:13:06.249-04:002016-11-02T19:13:06.249-04:00Not to mention "zero tolerance" (a la at...Not to mention "zero tolerance" (a la at the high school level) social control would follow a sure as stink on dog shit....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-91828354296471835972016-09-28T19:40:30.070-04:002016-09-28T19:40:30.070-04:00That Johnson sees a blatantly regressive tax as be...That Johnson sees a blatantly regressive tax as better suggests he misdiagnoses who actually reaps the benefits of government. Targeting high volume finance transactions & the holders of land & natural resources would make more sense. b-psychohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15172010361866675350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-54142616850092213912016-09-21T21:31:04.093-04:002016-09-21T21:31:04.093-04:00Thanks for dropping by and leaving the links. See ...Thanks for dropping by and leaving the links. See you around.Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-20649943364278918382016-09-14T13:35:00.599-04:002016-09-14T13:35:00.599-04:00Ah, good to see you posting again.
I don't pa...Ah, good to see you posting again.<br /><br />I don't particularly have any use for guns either. For one, I could usually defend myself without needing one. Secondly, I've been too much of a non-compliant agent re: banned substances. Gun==weapon charge, turning my agorist tendencies into a criminal category of violent felony, even though, of course, there is no aggression or violence involved. <br /><br />Btw, I usually comment on at http://rationalreview.news-digests.com/ or liberty.me<br /><br />dLAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-61442713508247468732016-06-20T21:29:33.116-04:002016-06-20T21:29:33.116-04:00Hey Lorraine! Thanks for dropping in. I thought th...Hey Lorraine! Thanks for dropping in. I thought that I would have lost all my contacts during my absence...it's good to still be noticed (even though I do sometimes enjoy speaking to the void).<br /><br />Thanks for fleshing out the idea -- in my experience, left-libertarians definitely appreciate the democratic constraints on the government. Even right-libertarians may agree that a democratic government is the best protection for liberty (after Aristotle, I think).<br /><br />I hadn't heard of the caps-macks-socks continuum, but it makes sense (https://aaeblog.com/2012/03/07/famous-blue-raincoat/)<br /><br />On business and government, it connects to my original point, even if it could stand separately. Left libertarians not only distrust both government and business, but see the governmental elite and business elite as a unified ruling class -- money and power are exchangeable commodities.<br /><br />On the issue of competition, I see the state (democratic or not) as the most ruthlessly competitive institution we have. Private property is a refuge from competition, when it's instituted correctly.Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-3239042591865679452016-06-20T13:33:24.283-04:002016-06-20T13:33:24.283-04:00And by the way, welcome back to the blogosphere. ...And by the way, welcome back to the blogosphere. We all must do everything we can to rescue what's left of the blogosphere from the clutches of the likes of medium.com...Lorrainehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13567383019731167967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-87324847613274153192016-06-20T13:27:38.164-04:002016-06-20T13:27:38.164-04:00Right libertarians believe the government is democ...Right libertarians believe the government is democratic. They also believe democracy is a bad thing. Left libertarians believe democratic government is a bad thing, but mainly because of the government part, not the democratic part. I think at least some left libertarians would say that democratic government is a lesser evil than non-democratic government, or at the very least that democratic government is no worse than non-democratic government. Right libertarians in America have gotten so enmeshed into small-government conservative causes that they get mired in slogans like "America is supposed to be a republic not a democracy," or in the case of the more intelligent ones, get into stuff like "public choice theory" which I perceive primarily as a critique of democracy. The question of whether democracy has merit as an organizing principle in non-government contexts seems also to divide right-libertarians and left-libertarians. Of course right-libertarians will say they have no objection in principle to democratic governance of non-government entities, so long as they are demonstrably "voluntary," and the left-styled subset of market anarchists will say they have no objection in principle to for-profit business organized on a top-down basis, so long as it has no opportunities to extract rents. These non-objections strike me more as matters of style than substance, and of course differences over hypothetical questions such as whether cooperation or competition will be the path of resistance in a political power vacuum. For that reason I think of left-leaning-market-anarchists as more of a center faction than a left faction among libertarians. The macks in Roderick Long's caps-macks-socks continuum of preferences.<br /><br />To me it's really quite simple:<br /><br />* Right libertarians distrust government<br />* Left libertarians distrust both government and business<br /><br />Middle of the road libertarians, I suppose, believe in "socialist ends via market means." I do not. For me the whole point of socialism (or as I prefer, communism) is to get cooperation to <i>supplant</i> competition.Lorrainehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13567383019731167967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-61765967764134057892014-07-08T01:14:37.639-04:002014-07-08T01:14:37.639-04:00So is there any way to direct that frivolous anger...So is there any way to direct that frivolous anger at the more substantial targets? Or maybe people intentionally refrain from directing their anger at the institutions that really impact their lives.Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-60970597908279689592014-07-06T20:03:58.203-04:002014-07-06T20:03:58.203-04:00of course, social media, twitter in particular, ar...of course, social media, twitter in particular, are in no small part connected graphs of moral outage. <br /><br />However, there is a difference between what i would call good reasons to be morally outraged--police brutality,state secrecy,wars--and superficial reasons to be outraged, i.e.what celebrity X said or sports star Y did.<br /><br />Either way, too much outrage/hate not good for the self<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRPxao3e_jYAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-89853770422199733342013-08-20T13:46:41.214-04:002013-08-20T13:46:41.214-04:00a brief reprieve before the child arrives and my c...a brief reprieve before the child arrives and my contract expires...<br /><br />I haven't quite broken the compulsion to post.Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-86685946448604792062013-08-14T12:21:26.175-04:002013-08-14T12:21:26.175-04:00so, this is what the other side feels like :)so, this is what the other side feels like :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-84627317390614676632013-05-19T23:25:40.875-04:002013-05-19T23:25:40.875-04:00thanks for the feedback.thanks for the feedback.Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-47031122648192482932013-05-18T22:42:24.159-04:002013-05-18T22:42:24.159-04:00A final commentary on what I wrote above. An immed...A final commentary on what I wrote above. An immediate interpretation is that communitarians get the last laugh on politics and libertarians get the last laugh on culture. But I would say no one laughs in the end. <br /><br />Communitarianism's intrinsic conservatism forces it to legitimize a security state as being the natural progression of human flourishing and morality. The convergence of communitarian politics and libertarian culture gives us the "Pink Police State," a condition which readily maximizes the discretionary, arbitrary authority of the State in every aspect of human life. Sadly, I think way too many "libertarians" buy into the teology of "the progress of history" and will legitimize this "pink police state" as a libertarian progress.<br /><br />In the end, I continue to maintain that politically, libertarianism reduces to nothing more than a positive theory of dystopia.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-49961671141709474212013-05-18T22:22:33.657-04:002013-05-18T22:22:33.657-04:00NOTE: length restrictions prevented me from publis...NOTE: length restrictions prevented me from publishing my full comment. The last paragraph below is being carried over.<br />-----------------------------------<br /><br />Finally, in terms of human nature, my observation is that it is conflicted, not settled one way or another towards authority or liberty. There is no doubt great evidence of a moral race to prohibition, but always in its wake rises the inevitable black market. When States fail, off-the-books economic activity soars. In the United States, we officially glorify institutions of authority, but in our entertainment, people generally only pay to see the celebration of the criminal, the outlaw, and the individualist rebel operating on long odds. People will simultaneously cheer the authoritarianism in Boston while paying in droves to cheer the symbolic military defeat of the same empire in something like Avatar.<br /><br />dLAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-55735233994549449102013-05-18T22:20:35.423-04:002013-05-18T22:20:35.423-04:00Good essay. And yes it is a correct interpretation...Good essay. And yes it is a correct interpretation. <br /><br />The communitarian(or "intrinsic") formulation more or less holds that humans must be political animals in order to be moral. Politics(or the political community) is central to the orientation of humans around what it means to be moral or what justice is supposed to entail. In the western tradition, this view is generally associated with the ancient greeks. In the more recent era, this view finds its chief proponent in Hegel.<br /><br />The liberal(or "instrumental") view holds the State to be an artificial construct apart from the moral community used only by the latter as a means to secure some end as divined by said community. This is the instrument of the social contract. For Locke, the end of the moral community is property. For Hobbes, it's security. For Rawls, it's primary goods(signifying the moral community is very risk adverse). However, the liberal methodology of the moral community is the rational calculation of the individual agent. The moral community is the "State of Nature."<br /><br />I just read "Man the Political Animal." A central point the author is making is that the liberal model of the State has failed to limit its scope . Hence "limited government" may require a more intrinsic foundation than liberal enlightenment one. Interestingly, de Jasay, in his demolition of the rational basis for "constrained government," suggests that "taboos" are perhaps the only thing that can limit the State(e.g, "torture" used to be a taboo. Now it is no longer one and hence it has been given a legal justification). This implies a certain nod to an intrinsic foundation. But for de Jasay, this is an observation in passing, not an argument. de Jasay would hold that the liberal enlightenment "presumption of liberty" is an epistemological necessity for science and the scientific method(science is a core component of the western tradition).<br /><br />The fundamental weakness of communitarianism is that it is too conservative. Empirically, the "security state" dismisses the claim that the State is us. As you pointed out in your last post, "Do Secrets make you Stupid," the security state creates caste hierarchical stratification of information/secrets privilege. The orientation of the security state ends up revolving around the principle that human agency itself is a threat. But this is just part of a bigger problem for communitarianism. The world's political institutions are by and large liberal. And these institutions inexorable centralize around political economy to the extent that States begin to resemble political economic firms. The communitarian archetype is line with the more ancient modest version of the city State. But communitarianism's strict adherence to teological orthodoxy("the progress of history and the state") binds them too tightly to the political status quo(and to defend it). To replace liberal institutionalism with with something more apropos to political structure of the "city-state" would require moral agents operating outside of the current political community consensus. But this type of moral agency is condemned/rejected by communitarians. The intrinsic conservatism of communitarianism renders the communitarian version of the political animal null and void.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-10245364262880124972013-05-15T13:15:47.323-04:002013-05-15T13:15:47.323-04:00To say all should treat as sacred things that only...To say all should treat as sacred things that only have meaning to and within that specific faith group is to say "everyone should believe what I believe".<br /><br />...which is what they always say in other ways. Shaming isn't convincing, though they seem to find it easier.b-psychohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15172010361866675350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-6108050443305147312013-04-28T04:07:36.496-04:002013-04-28T04:07:36.496-04:00An old post i wrote on the topic
http://rulingcla...An old post i wrote on the topic<br /><br />http://rulingclass.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/de-jasay-and-the-model-of-the-total-state/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-59562545087064742602013-04-28T03:58:33.915-04:002013-04-28T03:58:33.915-04:00Cato unbound debate on the topic 5 years ago may p...Cato unbound debate on the topic 5 years ago may prove helpful<br /><br />http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/february-2008/<br /><br /> I haven't read all of hi stuff, so i couldn't answer your question. His method, which can be described more or less as "critical rationalist," is not the most entertaining style, no doubt.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-90797527161507448552013-04-28T02:13:24.593-04:002013-04-28T02:13:24.593-04:00What is de Jasey's most acessible/concise book...What is de Jasey's most acessible/concise book?<br /><br />Here is the list from Wikipedia:<br /><br /><br /> The State (1985)<br /> Social Contract, Free Ride (1989)<br /> Choice, Contract, Consent: A Restatement of Liberalism (1991)<br /> Before Resorting to Politics (1996)<br /> Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order (1997)<br /> Justice and its Surroundings (2002)<br /> Political Philosophy, Clearly (2010)<br /> Political Economy, Concisely (2010)<br /> Liberale Vernunft, Soziale Verwirrung (2010)<br />Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9279394.post-30192668767533776932013-04-28T02:12:33.742-04:002013-04-28T02:12:33.742-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ricketsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02579799843541826447noreply@blogger.com