Robert Stempien

I have this thought experiment of something that might develop in a free society, nuke and anti-nuke insurance(Not very good names I guess). Nuke insurance would be a large company with nuclear weapons to use to deter other countries from attacking the property owners in a stateless society, and anti-nuke insurance would provide some kind of nuclear shut down protocal or some way of stop the nukes dead in their tracks.(I don't know enough about nuclear weapons to know if such a thing is even possible.) I would think the two different companies would cooperate for this so the nuke insurance company would not get a bad reputation. I think the nuke insurance company would also try and focus on making the weapons damage as small as possible and mainly trying to get them set up to hit the capital of each country, and they would probably carry liability insurance to pay restitution to any "citizen" of any country they nuke. All of this is just a thought experiment though, and its important to keep in mind that no one will exactly know what kinds of markets will be popular in a free society.

another one from my grandpa: "we need to spread democracy around the world to save it" which to me is like saying we need to infect everyone around the world with AIDS to help them

wtf?

its important that you do two things, stay calm and rational as the other person gets pissed off(and they will, statist arguments are all emotional) and make sure that you have the last post of the argument, keep argueing with them until they give up. when other people read it it will make you and your position look better.

Theres nothing wrong with voting and protesting if you think it could do some good, just understand that the federal government most likely will never be fixed from the inside, its important to look at nonpolitical ways of getting rid of the state too, like agorism, and education. i would suggest getting a blog or youtube channel and use it as a bully pulpit. That is what im attempting to do and it is how most people find out about libertarianism nowadays.

Got two good ones from debating my uncle this weekend 1. Well if you hate the government so much why don't you go to Syria? After I asked him what would happen if I had lots of power and demanded taxes and had the force to back up my demands. 2. Thats fine, you would be the government then

Clearly everyone worrys whether or not their food and drink contain poison, so entrepenuers would have an ncentive on the market to show consumers that their food is more safe then their competiters. There would probably also be a lot of firms forming like consumer report that focus on verifying the safety of the product in question and stamping a sticker of their approval on it. If the firm who does this has a good reputation of never lying and providing regerous saftey tests then consumers will come to trust that sticker alot.

I posted this, not because I'm particularly interested in this judge, but because I remember Tom DiLorenzo's excellent article from 2000. Anti-trust, Anti-truth by Thomas DiLorenzo I liked the article, this is another good one by DIlorenzo, about the difference between political entrepenuers and market entrepenuers, political ones were the actual "Robber barons" in this time period that lobbied the state for regulations to lower the competition and market entrepenuers were and are people like Rockefeller that simply created a much better business. I personally think that BIll Gates is a political entrepenuer, not a market one, because of the monopoly grants he has receaved from the state in the form of the nonfree copyright licenses always used on windows, even as far back as Altair BASIC when BIll Gates saw everyone sharing copies of it without buying licenses of it instead of coming up with a different way to make money off of his software like a good market entrepenuer he bitched and moaned until the state asserted his monopoly. The propriatary software model that microsoft makes its money off of can only survive like it has when the state subsidizes it through copyright.

don't worry, lots of frustration like this happens to libertarians, its born out of the public ignoring us

u have to be careful when defending yourself against state aggression like this that it does not end up being aggression on your part, so try to avoid thinga like killing innocents in the cross fire

Well, like I said in my first post I have mixed feelings about it. I stated my objections in my other posts, but it's just a plain fact that hardly anyone down here has ever heard of Stefan Molyneux, or Murray Rothbard, or Hans Herman Hoppe, or even people like Milton Friedman or Ayn Rand for that matter. But they have heard of Ron Paul, and most of them do want to know more about what he stands for. I suppose that would not have been the case if he hadn't "run for office". I'm off to bed, nice talkin to ya, I'll visit your blog any day soon! nice talking to u too, hope u like my blog, and Ron Paul's legacy that he will be remembered for I think will be all of his education efforts, not any political success, politics was just his vehicle

You have more than that: your freedom of speech to proclaim the immorality of all the things you speak of. In the end I think only sound arguments can change peoples minds, not elections. iI do use my freedom of speech for that(I blog about my beliefs) and your probably right that in the end the state will be destroyed because everyone realizes its immoral, but its good to keep in mind other methods to lessen the power of the state, like agorism and voting. to be honest, I think we cannot possibly change the government from within at the federal level, elections mostly work the best at the state and local level but the feds r locked in. what a federal election ends up serving as is a way to educate people, it can really make people think when they ask who u r voting for and instead of saying what ever D & R is running u say "I'm going to vote for (insert lp candidate name here) the libertarian party candidate"

Actually, we sort of have a history like that in the Netherlands as well, although it's a couple of hundred years longer ago. We fought Spanish statist agression, and taxation, back in the sixteenth century, We won! and for a century we had a minarchist society that brought us unprecedented prosperity, it's still referred to as our "Golden Age". We seem to have forgotten these lessons though. People now tend to turn to the government for every single aspect of their lives, and, worse than that, the lives of others. But... nowadays more and more people actually start to realize the government is doing an extremely bad job on pretty much everything she does, and demands an extremely high price for it. You can feel this dissatisfaction not only here but all over Europe, what with the Euro crisis and all. Perhaps there's hope after all. its like Stefan has mentioned a few times, under a minarchist system there's so little government involvement that things get incredibly prosperous, but the small government grows under all that prosperity and eventually swallows it all up, and yet we still have people here in the united states saying "if the state simply stays at the size authorized by the constitution then evrything will be fine!"

I actually live in such a society. Although I have to admit our government rarely agressively "squashes" resistance attempts. Mainly because there hardly ever is one, mostly sheeple down here. I guess you would be somewhat right if you voted for changing the gun laws or for taking away the right of the government to "squash" resistance, since in those cases you would not be voting for the initiation of violence (as you would by voting for killing blondes). I still feel however that by participating in a statist election on these matters you give the wrong signal because, as I said before, you then implicitly agree these matters may be settled by taking votes. What if your side loses? Then you also lose all credibility to denounce the very matters you want to change. "Hey we gave you a chance to change it, but you lost, now shut up will you!" You have a point, I agree in this day of age it's impossible not to use at least some government facilities since they're so omnipresent. I do feel however we should actively try to minimize it, and never stop advocating free market solutions. But I'm sure that's something we DO agree on :-) its not really giving Implicent concent, its like if a thief points a gun at u and says "your wallet or your watch" your not concenting to being robbed by deciding to give him your cheap rollex nockoff as opposed to your wallet filled with lots of federal reserve notes. the thing with voting for people like Ron Paul is I can do that without breaking laws, all other ways of fighting the state involve things like agorism where u stop paying taxes and don't comply with state licensing and while I have absolutely no moral issues with doing either of those I don't want to deal with all the extra risk of the state kidnapping me for not following its rules, while voting is alot less effective way to fight the state I can at least do something without putting my own life and family at risk.

They usually call themselves "social-democrats", to obscure the fact they're downright socialists. And there are an awful lot of them I'm afraid, still much work to do. it sounds like the situation is a lot worse in Europe. at least in the united states all of our propaganda and history and founding documents point towards freedom, so we can always tell people that "this is what our founders would have wanted"

I fundamentally disagree with you on this point. By taking part in a vote on whether to kill all blondes (or kill any blonde, or initiate any kind of agression for that matter) you implicitly agree with the fact that killing blondes can be a matter that is settled by taking votes. It can't, it's murder. not nessicarily, u would have to look at the situation, what if we live in a society where guns are completely illegal and the state is so big that it can effectively squash any resistance attempts, voting no on initiating force might be the only way a conserned group of people could stop such aggression from happening. and by participating in a statist election I'm not admitting that an election has the right to decide anything, I'm simply using the system I'm forced to live with to try and minimize its damage. that would be like saying sense I drive on a government road I consent to the government stealing from me and stealing land to build roads, I don't, but the road is there, I'm forced to pay for it, so I might as well use it

Same here, my parents are fairly liberal (mind you: the word 'liberal' in Europe still means what it originally meant, it does not have the leftist connotation it has in the US, I guess you would call them "classical liberals") I still have a hard time though convincing them I only take there views to the next logical step. yah, my dad every so often tries to tell me that I'm not a libertarian, I'm an anarcho-capitalist, I think he's just trolling me when he does that though, my grandma though once that our debate was a bit pointless sense we agree on like 85% of things. I didn't realize liberal still had the old meaning in Europe, what do u guys call the new pinko liberals then?

I don't think voting or running for office village the NAP, at least if u do it right, if u do like Ron Paul and run solely on the platform of shrinking the state and then in office make an attempt to only shrink the state and not raise it than that to me is not immoral, as well with voting I believe even as far back as Lysander Spooner it was defended as a form of self defense, to vote in someone who is going to screw u over the least, and really u have no idea what the politician u vote for is going to do, so I don't think voting for anyone could truly be considered aggression because of the disconnect between what u vote for and what happens, now if we were, god forbid, in a direct democracy were people get to vote on who to go to war with or what is made illegal than I think participating in a vote on whether or not to kill all blondes or even one blonde named jaine would be immoral if u vote yes to the aggressive activity because u are in effect becoming an accessory to the activity sense it would not happen without your vote, but moral if u vote no.

like my dad, if he didn't work so much I'd make him answer all of these, its kind of funny, usually children rebel against their parents by taking opposite political views, but i just took the more principled wing of libertarianism than my dad

The original function of a "bank" was to safely store deposited commodity money and I think most people still think of it as something like that to some extent. Safety deposit box vendors are now the true "banks". Once banks started trading their deposit notes as money and risking insolvency by overprinting deposit notes and lending they, became risky investment vehicles. I would contend that credit, interest and lending are still pretty critical bank functions. The idea of CD seems like a legit way to do both conservative lending and perhaps even fractional reserve. The bank explicitly makes a contract with the depositor that their money isn't available for a certain term (three years) in return for agreed upon interest payments. OK, but that's not really storing it in the bank in the traditional sense, its another investment opportunity, that's really what fractional reserve banking is, but most people put their money in a fractional reserve bank on the assumption that it is safe in the bank

Fractional reserve banking is by definition deceptive, if everyone is fully aware of the fact that their money isnt in the bank then it is not a bank but a very poor investment vehicle, like buying stocks only with a lot more risk and not a lot of return. If everyone is fully aware, I don't see how there is any deception. In most (if not all) countries, when a business becomes insolvent, bank loans must be repaid before the shareholders can get anything. Therefore, an interest-bearing bank account will have a lower risk than stocks, but also (as you say) not a lot of return. I think if most people r actually made aware of the fact that their money isn't really in the bank then most people won't put their money in, or they will put a much reduced amount in.

1) Please provide more information as to the example of the story and what happened, what age, why he felt you were bad and why he couldn't talk to you. 2) Verbal abuse is still abuse. I think I was like 1or 2, I don't even remember it,I really don't remember being spanked after that.

No, but that sounds like something he would say, I think in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" one of the characters suggested having a legislature set up specifically to strike down laws and thats it, and another was to have politicians pay out of their own pockets for what ever government programs they want. He was quite Libertarian in some of his books, and some of them, like Starship Troopers he was quite unlibertarian though. Btw, what did u think about my site? im trying to get some regular viewers.

Can you expand upon what you mean in context to "slowing down the state". Also, are you describing a political process, in that the state will slow itself down due to political pressure or other similar factors? Im describing a political process, Its the second amendment that has kept the gun control laws we have to deal with, not all the pro-property rights arguments that are the real reason to be opposed to gun laws. It will be an appeal to constitutionism that will strike down Obamacare(If it is struck down) not all the correct arguments that point out that it is theft and a coersive racket. The argument from morality must not be forgotten and infact should be the forefront of our arguments against the state, but it also helps to point out to people that even their own "Social Contract" that they go on and on about doesn't allow 80% of the stuff that the state does.

I've heard Stefan mention in his videos before about peaceful parenting, not spanking your child and such, and while I do not really want children for a few more years I would like to ask afew questions about it so I can correctly raise my children in accordence to it 1) My dad spanked me afew times when I was a little kid, but only when I was young enough that he could not explain to me what I did wrong, I was wondering if Stefan or anyone else had advice about how to show your child they have done wrong at this age before they can be reasoned with? 2) Do you also include yelling at your child as abusive?