AncapFTW Posted December 22, 2015 Posted December 22, 2015 I was reading a review for the webcomic "Escape from Terra" and one of the reader comments on it was basically "I used to agree with Libertarianism, but then I turned fifteen." I pretty much interpreted that as "I used to accept the ideas of freedom and equality, but then I hit puberty and the primitive parts of my brain were flooded with testosterone. That, coupled with my now stronger "adult" body made the idea of ruling over people more appealing so I switched because of self interest." It was essentially his way of saying "that's just childish" without having to actually make an argument. I was wondering what other arguments everyone had heard that were basically non-arguments. 2
MysterionMuffles Posted December 22, 2015 Posted December 22, 2015 Me: I used to believe in the government. Acquaintance: What went wrong?
Will Torbald Posted December 22, 2015 Posted December 22, 2015 The most annoying one I've met is when the other person claims that private property is a function of the State instead of emerging from self ownership. At that point I just concede the other person is dysfunctional.
Anuojat Posted December 22, 2015 Posted December 22, 2015 "Taxation is the Prize WE pay for civilization." Implying that its voluntary and that there is a WE and also that State hold up civilization and society. Also on a personal level "Well you maybe believe that." "Thats YOUR philosofy/facts/reason ect." Implying that Stateism or Law is the foundation default position.
AncapFTW Posted December 22, 2015 Author Posted December 22, 2015 "Taxation is the Prize WE pay for civilization." Implying that its voluntary and that there is a WE and also that State hold up civilization and society. Also on a personal level "Well you maybe believe that." "Thats YOUR philosofy/facts/reason ect." Implying that Stateism or Law is the foundation default position. Maybe you should reply "Slavery is the price many Africans paid to come to the US.", but I doubt they would see the parallel. As for the second point, when the vast majority of people accept statism, it pretty much is the assumed position of everyone.
AccuTron Posted December 23, 2015 Posted December 23, 2015 Me, (to signature clipboard carrying young curvy woman out to save the planet and a little hate feels good too): (shortened version) "I used to believe the global warming because it was everywhere said, and I looked and was surprised to end up doing 75 hours research and about 1,500 websites of research, including research papers dozens of pages long. Falsified data, illegal math and science, etc." She ("it"): "I see where you're going with this," followed by smug scowl and turning away from me.
shirgall Posted December 23, 2015 Posted December 23, 2015 "Taxation is the Prize WE pay for civilization." I always like responding, "Where can I get a refund? Mine's broken."
Jer Posted December 23, 2015 Posted December 23, 2015 I had a university philosophy instructor call me naive and ask "what about the roads?"
dsayers Posted December 23, 2015 Posted December 23, 2015 "Taxation is the Prize WE pay for civilization." Implying that its voluntary and that there is a WE and also that State hold up civilization and society. Yeah. Pretty much anything that avoids the necessity of consent floors me. "Taxes are in exchange for services" for example. Or "you can always leave." As if the fact that I can stay at greater than arm's length from somebody is proof that I consented to them assaulting me.
DCLugi Posted December 23, 2015 Posted December 23, 2015 When I argue for the NAP I've gotten, "Life is violent. Just by being born you're aggressing against everyone so we need a system that equals it all out." To which I reply, "So, the best thing you can do is kill yourself."
AncapFTW Posted December 23, 2015 Author Posted December 23, 2015 I always like responding, "Where can I get a refund? Mine's broken." I was thinking "Sure, this form of civilization. Just like feudal civilization required monarchs and lords, and slave civilizations required slaves." They are essentially assuming that because it's a part of every civilization they are aware of that it MUST be part of civilization.
Cuffy_Meigs Posted January 8, 2016 Posted January 8, 2016 The one that most irritates me is "just because you read it on the internet, doesn't make it true". Repeated ad infinitum regardless of how much more supporting evidence you produce. Implication: you're a non-thinker who believes anything but I just KNOW and I shall preserve my unassailable position by not arguing with you! 1
AncapFTW Posted January 8, 2016 Author Posted January 8, 2016 The one that most irritates me is "just because you read it on the internet, doesn't make it true". Repeated ad infinitum regardless of how much more supporting evidence you produce. Implication: you're a non-thinker who believes anything but I just KNOW and I shall preserve my unassailable position by not arguing with you! "Just because you believe it, doesn't make it true." Not sure how they'd respond to that. 1
LibertarianSocialist Posted January 9, 2016 Posted January 9, 2016 Well, when I was 16 I read half of atlas shrugged and got into the ideology, but I could never figure out how capitalist entrepreneurship and meritocratism could be defended against tyrannical economic powerhouses. After that I devolved into my old greens party ideology of my family. Honestly quite a step backwards. I mean, I disagree with capitalist apologists but at least they have a basic (and often quite rational) understanding of the economic and philosophical underpinnings of their positions. I have learnt a lot from the Austrian school (thanks for time preference!), but most of my prejudicial greens propaganda (the state is our friend against evil corps, guns are bad and kill people, hunting is bad and kills people and cute animals, nuclear is bad and kills people, free markets are evil and just an excuse for corps to make money) had to be unlearned.
AynRand Posted January 9, 2016 Posted January 9, 2016 What's always annoyed me is the classic "why do you need an assault rifle?" This annoys me mainly because title 2 weapons are currently illegal in the United States so what they mean to say is "why do you need an AR-15?".
shirgall Posted January 9, 2016 Posted January 9, 2016 What's always annoyed me is the classic "why do you need an assault rifle?" This annoys me mainly because title 2 weapons are currently illegal in the United States so what they mean to say is "why do you need an AR-15?". There are exceptions of course. Police can get fully automatic stuff, and regular citizens can go through an annoying process and tax to own fully automatic firearms made before 1968.
neeeel Posted January 9, 2016 Posted January 9, 2016 I dislike the "what if" arguments. I was talking to my brother about stuff ( hes a muslim) and we were talking about the ban on pork, His thought process supporting that, was that its wrong to eat humans, so what if pigs were just regressed humans. I was baffled that he would put this out as if it was something supporting his belief. he did later qualify that he wasnt 100% sold on the idea. Similarly with christians, if you bring up something that seems logically inconsistent, they just wave if away with "well, what if god wants X"
AncapFTW Posted January 9, 2016 Author Posted January 9, 2016 There are exceptions of course. Police can get fully automatic stuff, and regular citizens can go through an annoying process and tax to own fully automatic firearms made before 1968. I think you can register yourself as a gun dealer and get more modern weapons. It makes you subject to periodic inspections and a lots of other bureaucracy, but at least it works.
shirgall Posted January 9, 2016 Posted January 9, 2016 I think you can register yourself as a gun dealer and get more modern weapons. It makes you subject to periodic inspections and a lots of other bureaucracy, but at least it works. Not just a FFL but a Class III dealer. Not trivial. Did you know that even becoming an FFL requires signoff of your landlord or HOA? Stef's point remains, the state wants to monopolize violence.
fezjones Posted January 13, 2016 Posted January 13, 2016 Some minarchy arguments can be the most annoying. They say, we need a state to run a court and criminal justice system. So they basically support anarchy. what i mean is, if the world economy was 99% free market firms and 1% firms-that-did-criminal justice-but-we-called-it-a-state, im pretty sure this counts as anarchy.
Matthijs Posted January 19, 2016 Posted January 19, 2016 I was explaining to someone that the initiation of force is not universally preferable behaviour because in order for it to be force it has to be unwanted. He didn't agree and this is why: "Well what if 400 million people will die if you don't kick Jack in the stomach? Thus the initiation of force is not always unwanted." So I asked him: "What is the connection between Jack and the 400 million people that are about to die if I don't kick Jack?" "Nothing" He said. Seriously what does one say to this nonsense? I told him my theory, just like gravity, is derived from real world logic and empiricism and that his scenario does not make sense with the real world. And somehow that made the theory invalid according to him. So I told him, well, yes, the initiation of force is immoral, so kicking Jack, who has nothing to do with the possible deaths of 400 million people, is immoral. He continued to call me a pancake and used some fancy difficult words to tell me how he won the discussion and celebrated. Later he told me I would be responsible for 400 million deaths. So I told him "How can I be responsible for 400 million deaths? Neither Jack, nor I have any connection with those people. So me not kicking jack wouldn't make me responsible for their deaths. He told me I was wrong ofcourse And I realised, Why am I even doing this? Bummer though because I was explaining to people how taxation was theft, and because of this guy I didn't get to do so.
AncapFTW Posted January 19, 2016 Author Posted January 19, 2016 I was explaining to someone that the initiation of force is not universally preferable behaviour because in order for it to be force it has to be unwanted. He didn't agree and this is why: "Well what if 400 million people will die if you don't kick Jack in the stomach? Thus the initiation of force is not always unwanted." So I asked him: "What is the connection between Jack and the 400 million people that are about to die if I don't kick Jack?" "Nothing" He said. Seriously what does one say to this nonsense? I told him my theory, just like gravity, is derived from real world logic and empiricism and that his scenario does not make sense with the real world. And somehow that made the theory invalid according to him. So I told him, well, yes, the initiation of force is immoral, so kicking Jack, who has nothing to do with the possible deaths of 400 million people, is immoral. He continued to call me a pancake and used some fancy difficult words to tell me how he won the discussion and celebrated. Later he told me I would be responsible for 400 million deaths. So I told him "How can I be responsible for 400 million deaths? Neither Jack, nor I have any connection with those people. So me not kicking jack wouldn't make me responsible for their deaths. He told me I was wrong ofcourse And I realised, Why am I even doing this? Bummer though because I was explaining to people how taxation was theft, and because of this guy I didn't get to do so. So, Jack will somehow Butterfly effect the result of WWIII? That's like saying "What if I could say some magic words and float? That makes Gravity invalid", only it's stupider.
Mister Mister Posted January 19, 2016 Posted January 19, 2016 "People are irrational so we need a government"..."Well if people are irrational how can we expect them to vote rationally?"..."Look it's not perfect, but at least people get a say"
Matthijs Posted January 20, 2016 Posted January 20, 2016 So, Jack will somehow Butterfly effect the result of WWIII? That's like saying "What if I could say some magic words and float? That makes Gravity invalid", only it's stupider. Exactly! It's funny how at some point people resort to using a lot of difficult words so their false arguments sound really smart Though it's sad that many people are impressed by this and will pick his side because of this.
vegancap Posted February 7, 2016 Posted February 7, 2016 I think the most infuriating argument I come across is with AnComms when they claim that working for a wage is 'slavery'. On so many levels that's not only wrong but highly insulting to people who've been a victim of human trafficking etc.
AncapFTW Posted February 8, 2016 Author Posted February 8, 2016 I think the most infuriating argument I come across is with AnComms when they claim that working for a wage is 'slavery'. On so many levels that's not only wrong but highly insulting to people who've been a victim of human trafficking etc. That's part of what I call "arguing with nature", where they use concepts which only apply to people and apply them to something in nature.
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