FDR 2379

[arandersen]

In this most recent podcast you are spending a lot of time arguing over the details of how a free society would deal with crime better than a government would. This is a utilitarian argument, also know as an argument from circumstance, as opposed to a moral argument, also known as an argument from definition (I believe). But to me, all of your power lies in making the latter argument, from morality or definition. I get so discouraged when anarcho-capitalists spend so much time trying to set up their hypothetical world of DRO's etc, because those utilitarian arguments are ultimately unwinnable and non-falsifiable.

The most powerful argument I have heard you make is your slavery analogy, how even though no one can explain exactly how a poor former slave will support himself, slavery is still immoral and should be abolished.

But if you are going to make a utilitarian argument, your best one is when you point out how the current government run system is clearly so deficient that a private system could not possibly be worse, especially because it is only humans who will run either system. In this current podcast, when the guest was saying that private citizens, especially rich ones, don't care about the poor and won't care about investigating crimes among the poor, you should have just asked him why he thinks government employees care any more, or less, about the poor than anyone else, and even though they might be getting paid, via taxation, to investigate crimes, what is their incentive to actually solve a crime, as opposed to a private agency. You got close to that when you started to ask him if people in general care about the poor, but he avoided you, and you didn't follow through.

I am not criticizing, just saying that when you are talking to an idiot, I would prefer to hear you give a beautiful speech based on morality, regardless of utility.

[arandersen]

PS - I am fully aware that you have always emphasized that argument from morality is the end all and be all of the freedom debate, and I totally agree. So my feedback can be boiled down to that I hope you just hammer that over and over and not bother with the utilitarian what-if arguments.