Tyler H

No problem, I'm just learning this stuff myself and needed to see if I could regurgitate it somewhat clearly. It still stands that if you find I've made an error I would like to know, or anyone else for that matter. That's probably a question for the OP but to me "not tolerating" the war on drugs means that we denounce it and explain our reasons. I'm not sure what we can do other than that. I think race and IQ are certainly important but so are many other topics in relation to the use of force and how we can organize society in a peaceful, moral way. Some ideas are obviously more important to spread than others, but the ones near the top are not as clear. I think (and maybe I should take the advice I'm about to give) that if we spend time arguing about which one is the most important by the time we hash that out we could have in the same time made great progress in all fields had we just been spreading what we each thought was the most important idea. I inferred that tolerating it meant saying that millions in jail, the lives ruined or ended, the lack of compassion and help for victims of child abuse, the atrocities done by gangs, cartels, and governments seeking to make profit in a lucrative, illicit business with no recourse for restitution other than brutal violence, the wasted resources, etc, etc, is worth it. But worth what? The war on drugs has been a massive failure. All that money spent, lives lost, and societies destroyed for a situation worse than when it started. Is there a potential benefit? Probably; maybe a drug dealer here or there is off the street and a kid here or there isn't introduced to drugs because of it, and maybe their lives are radically different thereby. But I think the cons far outweigh any pros. I think those kids would have been better served if there was a campaign for better parenting instead of "just say no" or we'll lock you the fu*k up! And future children will be better served if we stop the war on drugs now instead of pouring $500 a second into a malevolent initiative empirically destined to fail. Is this worse than advocating that Apple be forced to violate the privacy of its customers so that more government agencies can have unfettered access to our personal data? I don't know, but it fundamentally doesn't matter to me because they're both bad and should be addressed. I thought virtue-signaling was mainly in reference to these SJW asshats.... err pussyhats now I guess lol... who say they are such good people for supporting ideas that have already been accepted by society as moral and therefore face no real persecution and in most cases are actually acting immorally. I think anyone talking about issues that get you ostracized and/or attacked by your family, friends, and/or employer should not be charged with virtue signaling. Sure, most people are cool with marijuana (except politicians loyal to special interests) but try telling someone heroin should be legal and see how they respond. You're a society destroying piece of dirt. I reserve the virtue-signaling epithet for the left, I don't think anyone in this forum is deserving of that charge. Again, if I've misunderstood something I wish to be corrected.

Why do they close down? This is a massive company with a board of directors and investors, why would they all be motivated to do this? What do they do with their assets? Retain ownership while unutilized? How would they get along without the income from their industry or the sale of their assets? My guess is that anyone with the know how to operate that company will capitalize on the hole left in the market and make a killing. The profits would be so attractive to entrepreneurs that more and more will enter the market until it reaches close to equilibrium with supply and demand. I think the theory is that the company won't get to the point where they are a monopoly because anyone concerned with monopolies will alter their consumption if any one company looks to be heading in that direction. Also the market has a limiting effect on the creation of monopolies in that as one company starts buying up other companies and it becomes apparent that they are moving towards monopoly then the remaining companies know that if they are the last hold out then they will be able to demand the highest price. With a significant portion of the populace concerned with the emergence of a monopoly the hold outs will have plenty of customers so I don't think that you could argue the larger company is pushing them all out of business and they can't compete, but maybe that could happen. Still, if you're concerned about voluntary monopolies surely the answer is not to create a coercive monopoly to steal from you in order to prevent monopolies. I think one important idea to keep in mind is that people are far more diligent about their own money than other people's money. If companies are bound to satisfying customers in order to make a profit and the customers are hell bent on voluntarism then there will be infinitely more checks and balances in those companies by all involved with a stake in the profits than any government, anywhere, ever. This was some of the most fascinating subject matter to me when I started learning about how a free society could operate. If you're interested too Stef does a way better job of explicating it with his entrepreneurial background than I do. Here's a podcast from way back in the day.

Shouldn't we call things by their proper names? Isn't "the law" just an opinion with a gun? I'd like to think that anything Trump does to reduce government is a good thing, but not if it only serves to facilitate far more government growth in the future. Even still, despite what good things Trump does from a freedom perspective, why not criticize the aspects in which he is expanding the size of the state? So far the only criticism I can recall is the Apple/FBI debacle. I apologize if my memory has failed in recollecting any others. I understand you guys want to go hard into the paint on the left, but is there no room to enlighten the newly acquired listenership on the conclusions reached by using reason and evidence as a methodology? Maybe I'm too eager to shove that jagged pill down half a million people's throats when we need to prepare them a little more. And maybe I'm mistaking the world for myself and need to remember the reason and evidence that most people don't listen to reason and evidence - super frustrating . At risk of being a concern troll, and I'm sure you guys have thought of this, but what if your donator base becomes majority religious right? Would that, consciously or unconsciously, affect what you put out for content? In the past you consistently "knocked over dominoes" to keep a clean house, but Christians and conservatives are currently getting a pass. As someone who invests in this show with the goal of spreading truth, philosophy, and principles of non-aggression I think this is a valid concern. If you see my concern as anything else I would certainly welcome any insights. I want to help move this conversation along, not hold it back in any way.

Yeah, actually it's more about not initiating force against peaceful people, not to mention the uninvolved victims that take a bullet to the chest because the SWAT team raided the wrong house. The point of the OP (I inferred) was to express that although Trump has done some things freedom minded people should be happy about doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize the areas in which his actions do not align with philosophical principles. It was on his website during the campaign. Not an argument Actually it is. It may not be deductive, valid, or true, but it is an argument. An argument is constituted of two or more propositions where one proposition, the conclusion, is claimed to follow from the others, the premises, which provide support for the truth of the conclusion. To paraphrase the propositions: Trump is projected to violently enforce the war on drugs Libertarian and anarchist principles are vehemently opposed to the war on drugs The war on drugs is not a war on inanimate objects but a war on people The war on drugs has cost billions of dollars The war on drugs has ruined the lives of millions of people The war on drugs puts people who are mentally ill due to dopamine deficiencies most likely caused by trauma and abuse in a cage with violent offenders where special interests make money off of their internment The war on drugs is shockingly bad and excessive The people of the United States should not allow the war on drugs Trumps mistakes should be addressed If we do not address Trump's mistakes because he's on our side, then we are no better than the media who ignored Obama's wretched foreign policy for which we criticize them As you may be able to see more easily here propositions 3, 4, and 6 provide support for proposition 5, which along with the unstated premise that the content of propositions 3-6 are negative (perhaps even immoral) events provides support for proposition 7. Proposition 7 along with the unstated premise that the people of the United States care for the sick provides support for the first conclusion, proposition 8 - this country should not tolerate the war on drugs. The second conclusion, proposition 9, is supported by propositions 1, 2, 7, and 10 where 7 is supported again by propositions 3-6 It is an inductive argument, but an argument nonetheless. Perhaps I'm wrong and you could show me how it is in fact not an argument.

Only coercive ones. Monopolies are for the most part a result of the state apparatus and would be nearly impossible to create or sustain in a free market environment. They could only come about by providing the absolute highest quality product at the absolute lowest cost. Nothing wrong with that, right? Aside from that there will be a market for superior products at a higher cost and inferior products at a lower cost. For a free society to come about a vast majority of people in a given area will have rejected the use of force as a way of organizing society and would also therefore exercise a great deal of caution in the prevention of a new state being formed. Furthermore, without the quasi-socially granted monopoly to initiate the use of force these purely free market institutions who are finding it difficult to compete with upstarts as it is will find it far more difficult, if not impossible, if they need to raise their prices to allocate resources to their undeclared weapon procuring divisions. Violence is expensive; so without the state (or any coercive institution) to disperse cost and risk while simultaneously centralizing profit no company would be able to remain viable while incurring costs its competitors could eschew. If we get to the point where everything is voluntary because of a philosophical enlightenment then any rumor of a company trying to resurrect a state would send its stock price into free fall. The chances of the state returning after this enlightenment are the same as slavery making a comeback. It could possibly happen, but it doesn't mean it wasn't a good thing to get rid of it in the first place and it doesn't mean that there isn't a preferred state(of being).

I think all that is necessary, and in my opinion the only way, is to stop providing them with the ill-gotten gains of the state. Those who can produce and add to society will stay and be welcome, and those who can't will either return home, receive voluntary charity, or resort to criminality in which case the use of force against them will be justified and they can be returned to their tax farm of origin. Also, I don't know why remittances are such a problem all of the sudden. Austrian economic theory has for a long time outlined the insignificance of trade imbalances with fiat currencies since the currencies must be returned to the nation of origin to be of any value to the selling nation. Without the promise of force backing backing the paper the money is worthless so the nation who traded goods for paper is holding a meretricious ticking time bomb until they can trade it back for goods from the buying nation. Any remittances sent back to Mexico will eventually need to be returned and until then are actually retarding some of the inflation we should be experiencing by taking part of the money supply out of circulation in the American economy. Maybe someone could explain what it is that I'm missing if this is no longer correct. Using force never produces the desired outcome without causing a new problem. The only way to solve these problems is with less coercion and more freedom. Use the gun of the state to "solve" one problem will only exacerbate another.

Yes, I agree.

Is this also from Tragedy and Hope? I found these excerpts quite interesting (referring to your quote here).

I don't know if it says anything about the power of government, but I do think it speaks to the politicians incentives and agendas. They are amoral, self-serving, power-seeking parasites who will say whatever needs to be said to gain power and do whatever needs to be done thereafter to maintain and expand that power. Yeah the hollowpoint ban and the other laws in the same vein are the ones that anger me the most. It's obvious they have no idea what they are talking about and making laws anyway or they are exploiting the fact that their constituents have no idea what they're talking about. Either way, pretty scummy behavior that can support my previous statement.

Though perhaps that still does not explain why military installments were not targeted.

How accurate does a 20 kiloton nuclear bomb need to be? I think that having the foresight that the US would not remain the only nuclear power in the world, the administration did not want to set a precedent of killing heads of state. Leaders tend to sacrifice the peasants rather than risk their own necks.

I don't think that's the same circumstance. There are different levels of choice and avoidability while acting in self-defense as opposed to what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If someone is shooting at me while holding an innocent person as a body shield, who is responsible for that person's injury? The hostage-taker of course. If I could avoid causing injury to the innocent I will, but not at the expense of myself or more innocents. The moral responsibility does not rest on my shoulders, but the initiator who created the circumstance. The US did not have to put those people to death to get to the perpetrators. They could have hit military targets or the emperor himself, but they didn't. There's a major difference between unavoidable in the moment collateral damage due to the cowardice of the evil actor and after the fact retaliatory measures against the innocent, which in my opinion are just as cowardly. Each side acts out against the less powerful to minimize their own risk and think they've accomplished some feat of heroism.

This speaks to a problem I see over and over again that is pivotal to the cycle of violence. Punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. If someone steals from you, you have the right to repossess the stolen goods. You do not have the right to steal from someone else just because you were stolen from. If some guy beats you up or even murders your family you do not get to murder his. And if some belligerent head of state unprovokingly (arguably not the case with Japan) attacks your country's citizens, you don't get to slaughter and mutilate hundreds of thousands of innocent propagandized people. If society continues to excuse the slaughter of innocents to punish the guilty we will never see the end of violence.

The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act should help with some of that, at least to allow travel between states with a firearm without wondering if there's some bizarre law you're suddenly breaking and could spend years in federal prison because you passed over an imaginary line. Funny that even with a republican house, senate, and president I'm not sure it'll pass.

During the firearms safety course in my state they told us that if you have a shell casing in your possession without the license you get a one year mandatory sentence.

So sorry, I didn't mean to downvote that, I upvoted your previous post to rectify. As far as I know the Japanese said "hey we'll surrender, we just want to keep our emperor," and the US said "nope," dropped two nukes on civilian populations, and then let them keep their emperor anyways. I'll take a look into that letter though, it's certainly possible they were using the process of surrender to delay for some tactical purpose. Regardless, were Hiroshima and Nagasaki the most necessary targets?

They were literally in the process of surrendering.

Yeah, lots of enthusiasts reload because it's cheaper. You could probably get set up for a few hundred bucks.

I was saying that in the 08 picture it looks like it's at noon, but it is a little blurry.

Then shouldn't it be the same time? Looks like 1:15 for Trump and high noon for Obama.

I thought the embargo meant they not only refused to trade the requisite materials but also forcibly prevented any nation from doing so. If so then it is not merely ostracism but the initiation of force. Even if it was merely ostracism, the fact that they knew Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor and withheld that information from the commanding officers on the base is evidence to me (although certainly not conclusive) that they were indeed trying to provoke Japan to attack as an excuse to enter the war.

Perhaps I'm still misunderstanding your argument, but I fail to see how this line of reasoning does not also justify me murdering someone for food or any other possession I deem necessary for my own survival. Edit: Also Germany justified their invasion for the same reason - Lebensraum. Was WWII a just war? Does that mean the countries who oppose this territorial land grab are doing so unjustly?

I'm unsure how this makes war just, could you explain?

I know, sorry, I didn't mean to detract from that purpose.

What a great song