Liberty Delivers a Better World While Utopians Promise a Perfect One

What manner of convoluted reasoning contends that which is man's deliverance from bondage should be considered antithetical to his freedom?

The paradoxical thinking of academics and shallow thinkers manifest in impracticable policy presents an existential threat to the well being of each and every one of us.

Liberty cannot be realized through the pursuit of utopian egalitarianism. A choice must be made between these two mutually exclusive concepts, they cannot coexist.


Liberty Delivers a Better World While Utopians Promise a Perfect One

Why are unattainable utopian visions attractive and inspirational to so many while the promises of liberty, under which a vastly-improved society can actually be attained, are so often disregarded? Leonard Read, among America’s most prolific defenders of liberty in the 20th century, considered that question.

This brought Read to focus on the crucial distinction between “inspirational” utopian ends and the means such ends necessarily entail. The collectivist means, backed by force, that utopias require are immoral, so such systems cannot be moral.

Visionary or utopian ends inspire some to pursue statist failures, sacrificing liberty for innumerable “good causes.” Read argued powerfully for instead focusing on the means (voluntary versus coercive) rather than stated ends that can be achieved only in someone’s imagination. Because the means utilized by statist “solutions” are immoral, such systems are morally inferior to voluntary arrangements.

Defending liberty requires developing our ability to “see” the unseen (and often unimagined) good that can only be accomplished by freeing people’s ability to peacefully create and innovate. We must also be able to “see” and articulate the inherent failings of the coercive and immoral means employed toward utopian goals, which are unachievable despite such means. With such vision, liberty can be recognized as far more inspirational than any statist alternative.

One Man's utopia is another Man's Hell, no thanks. When someone starts talking about a "perfect society" and Utopia, I know I'm talking to a Fascist who think they know better than everyone whats best for everyone. I wouldn't let them run a hot dog stand let alone a nation.

You know who thinks like that? People that were shoved into lockers when they were in school and have a deep seeded hatred for mankind and want to "fix" all the world's ills. Power hungry little toads with a complex and looking for payback.

Egalitarianism is a social disease.

reply to post by Carreau


It would sure help us all if they weren't voted into the office of the presidency.

reply to post by greencmp


We do not demand more from ourselves, or each other. The human tendency to empathize is also the weakness that gives rise to the exploit. And the exploit will always exist, as the more crafty seek to manipulate the masses in their bid to gain the appearance of legitimacy. Because there is also the exploit of mob mentality (where people tend to perceive that with the most support being the most proper).

Thus, the poor and disaffected are manipulated into giving up their own personal accountability for a promise to get some of someone else's money. I mean, the morality of "they have more than they need" seems perfectly logical in the mind of an empathetic being. All the while forgetting that it is not theirs to dole out, an that we all tend to be more generous with someone else's money.

Carreau
One Man's utopia is another Man's Hell, no thanks. When someone starts talking about a "perfect society" and Utopia, I know I'm talking to a Fascist who think they know better than everyone whats best for everyone. I wouldn't let them run a hot dog stand let alone a nation.

You know who thinks like that? People that were shoved into lockers when they were in school and have a deep seeded hatred for mankind and want to "fix" all the world's ills. Power hungry little toads with a complex and looking for payback.

Egalitarianism is a social disease.

edit on 29-9-2013 by Carreau because: (no reason given)

Yes but, that covers the enforcer classes only, many have very different motivations which are more commendable and yet, more insidious and even more destructive as they truly believe they are doing the right thing.

Given what you understand through 'Liberty' and 'Better' you are perhaps correct.

Given what I understand as better it's actually the naturally exponential development of science, technology and human knowledge in general and most certainly not 'liberty' or right wing ideology.

You're just misappropriating the merits of scientific and technological development and wrongfully attributing them to a quite flawed and dishonest (I would personally go so far as to describe it as actually Evil) view of the world.

Pejeu
Given what you understand through 'Liberty' and 'Better' you are perhaps correct.

Given what I understand as better it's actually the naturally exponential development of science, technology and human knowledge in general and most certainly not 'liberty' or right wing ideology.

You're just misappropriating the merits of scientific and technological development and wrongfully attributing them to a quite flawed and dishonest (I would personally go so far as to describe it as actually Evil) view of the world.

edit on 2013/9/30 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

edit on 2013/9/30 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

Are you suggesting that technological advancements are made by socialist authoritarianisms?

I think we can agree that we think of each other's ideology as manifest evil on earth.

It is a relief to speak to someone who doesn't mince words and believes in the party philosophy as written. We get a very different brand of socialist here who does not understand the requirements of implementation to achieve the planned ends that they envision.

reply to post by greencmp


No, I'm suggesting they occur inevitably with time.

They may occur marginally faster or slower in certain socio-economical contexts and economic / systems of government.

But they occur nonetheless.

And the nature of evolution (of all kinds) is such that it occurs at faster and faster rates as time passes. It accelerates.

Scientific development also occurred under socialist regimes like the nazis and soviets.

The nazis evolved technologically quite well, I think you will agree.

The soviets put a man in space before you did. They were also the first to launch a living creature into space and bring it back alive.

They were first to the moon (with an unmanned probe) and first to launch an artificial satellite in orbit. They were also the first to send probes to Mars.


And you need to factor in the fact that the USSR was devastated by the war. Which the US Mainland was hardly at all.

Pejeu
reply to post by greencmp

 

No, I'm suggesting they occur inevitably with time.

They may occur marginally faster or slower in certain socio-economical contexts and economic / systems of government.

But they occur nonetheless.

And the nature of evolution (of all kinds) is such that it occurs at faster and faster rates as time passes. It accelerates.

Scientific development also occurred under socialist regimes like the nazis and soviets.

The nazis evolved technologically quite well, I think you will agree.

The soviets put a man in space before you did. They were also the first to launch a living creature into space and bring it back alive.

They were first to the moon (with an unmanned probe) and first to launch an artificial satellite in orbit. They were also the first to send probes to Mars.

edit on 2013/10/1 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

And you need to factor in the fact that the USSR was devastated by the war. Which the US Mainland was hardly at all.

edit on 2013/10/1 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

If I may abbreviate, I believe you are suggesting that, with undisputed authority and power to allocate resources and fund research, the socialist philosophy can produce better results by utilizing the focused potential of otherwise distracted and uncoordinated labor of back and brain.

OK, that wasn't much of an abbreviation, granted. How about, "give me all the marbles and I will come up with something, trust me."

No, that's actually not what I'm saying.

I'm saying progress occurs. And you shouldn't claim credit for it as if somehow being an exclusive merit of 'capitalism'.

Which doesn't even exist as it would preclude banking, insurance, public roads and lots of other stuff we've grown to consider defining of civilized society.

Pejeu
No, that's actually not what I'm saying.

I'm saying progress occurs. And you shouldn't claim credit for it as if somehow being an exclusive merit of 'capitalism'.

Which doesn't even exist as it would preclude banking, insurance, public roads and lots of other stuff we've grown to consider defining of civilized society.

Progress occurs (I assume technological progress is what we are talking about here) when many different paths to the potential solutions to common problems are pursued and one or more prove to be both effective and practical.

I prefer to use the term free market to describe the socio-economic circumstances in which this happens but, capitalism will do. The down side is that most individual efforts fail and those people or organizations receive no reward from their own personal investment of resources and time. However, everybody benefits since the solution is discovered. Only those who are willing to risk that failure invest the necessary blood, sweat and tears. The 'winners' rightly deserve to 'capitalize' on their success for as long as they can until competitors can create more efficient processes for utilizing the intellectual fruits of that initial success. This is why monopolies cannot last in a truly free market even if they originate the solution.

Where you get the idea that capitalism precludes banking and insurance is beyond understanding. As I have said, I too am against centralized banking and fiat currency of any kind but, not banking itself which is vital.

Civilized society preceded government so any suggestion that the reverse is true is spurious. In the case of public schools, being socialistic institutions they should rightly disappear and have no place in a free society.

Roads and many other examples of necessities provided for by government is mostly rubbish with the exception of interstate highways whose original purpose were military and have been repurposed to serve free market ends. While it is the weakest argument I have and the hardest to counter of the examples you provide, if we need a department of roads then that is something we can talk about. I am not a fundamentalist, just a zealot.

reply to post by greencmp


Hell, i am a fundamentalist and I support the notion of roads maintained by various authorities. The Federal Government should function solely on the level of acting as a resource for the states. It should not thrust its might on the states demanding a bending to its will. Federal funding for roads is just like that. It is a carrot and stick approach to gaining state level acquiescence. Our Fed likes this approach quite a bit.

But I tend to stand by my belief that if we were to reduce the police force in our country considerably, individuals would tend to work out problems on their own. A Bandito was shot in the face here the other nite. He was beating his girlfriend and her dad walked in and caught him. Dad was in his 60's, the hubby/wife were in their 40's/50's. Not kids....just some jerk getting some immediate justice.

Is it barbaric? Yup. So is beating your wife. And I bet a lot fewer men would do that if someone with a gun might come through that door to stop them. If I had a daughter the level of alpha hormones that I would throw in the general direction of her boyfriends would be enough to have them pissing their pants.

People tend to feel that "it isn't their job" to watch out for another person. They feel that they pay their tax, so that is someone else's job. Thats why someone can die on the subway tracks while other film: they are just waiting for whoever is supposed to rescue that poor soul so that they can get the rescue on camera.

greencmpI prefer to use the term free market to describe the socio-economic circumstances in which this happens but, capitalism will do.

Yes, the old free market and invisible hand.

Please riddle me these, if you will:

1. What is the market? What is free about it and how can it be unfree (captive?, beholden?)?

2. What is intrinsic to the free market and what is extraneous to it? Where does it start and where does it end.

Are not communism, socialism, progressivism, state capitalism and others not chosen and implemented by the free market as well?

Didn't the free market choose to bring the nazis or bolsheviks to power?

Why?

Cause the market is only what you like to claim it is?

3. Do you or do you not agree that the free market gave us government in the first place and if this one is done away with the market will simply erect another in its stead?

4. Do you or do you not agree that every successful nation on the face of the Earth, both presently and throughout history, has enacted and maintained government?

The down side is that most individual efforts fail and those people or organizations receive no reward from their own personal investment of resources and time.

4. Do you or do you not agree that banking and insurance are (for profit) socialism?

However, everybody benefits since the solution is discovered.

If they can afford it.

Only those who are willing to risk that failure invest the necessary blood, sweat and tears. The 'winners' rightly deserve to 'capitalize' on their success for as long as they can until competitors can create more efficient processes for utilizing the intellectual fruits of that initial success.

5. So patents should never expire?

This is why monopolies cannot last in a truly free market even if they originate the solution.

6. Why? Because someone would have invented the square wheel to get away from royalties on the round one?

Where you get the idea that capitalism precludes banking and insurance is beyond understanding.

7. Very simple, my dear dialectical opponent.

a) Banks socialise the cost of lending through inflation by lending new money out of thin air each time they extend a loan.

Do you dispute that banks create new money when they extend a loan?

Or do you dispute that issuing new money (especially when it's not backed by anything) is inflationary?

b) Insurance is socialism in that you can receive more than you've contributed, if your claim is valid. And the rest of the people who are insured have no choice but to pay you more than you've put in.

If that's not socialism I don't know what is.

As I have said, I too am against centralized banking and fiat currency of any kind but, not banking itself which is vital.

Oh, I see.

Typical right wing p. o. v.

"We're against the Central Bank (your Federal Reserve) issuing 5~10% of the money supply out of thin air.

But we're completely down with the banking system issuing 90~95% of the money supply out of thin air."

No, that's not hypocritical AT ALL!

Civilized society preceded government so any suggestion that the reverse is true is spurious. In the case of public schools, being socialistic institutions they should rightly disappear and have no place in a free society.

No, it didn't. You just choose to claim that their early form of government wasn't government.

There is no such thing as civilisation without laws and enforcement of them. Which is what government is.

Of course you'll try and claim government isn't that.

Perhaps you only like certain types of government. Which you conveniently claim not to be government.

Roads and many other examples of necessities provided for by government is mostly rubbish with the exception of interstate highways whose original purpose were military and have been repurposed to serve free market ends. While it is the weakest argument I have and the hardest to counter of the examples you provide, if we need a department of roads then that is something we can talk about. I am not a fundamentalist, just a zealot.

Why do you do consider infrastructure not a merit of government?

Because government might not always actually be the one that builds and maintains it, just the one who pays for it and to maintain it?

Who would pay for it otherwise, if not another government that would rise in its place?

Pejeu

greencmpI prefer to use the term free market to describe the socio-economic circumstances in which this happens but, capitalism will do.

Yes, the old free market and invisible hand.

Please riddle me these, if you will:

1. What is the market? What is free about it and how can it be unfree (captive?, beholden?)?

2. What is intrinsic to the free market and what is extraneous to it? Where does it start and where does it end.

Are not communism, socialism, progressivism, state capitalism and others not chosen and implemented by the free market as well?

Didn't the free market choose to bring the nazis or bolsheviks to power?

Why?

Cause the market is only what you like to claim it is?

3. Do you or do you not agree that the free market gave us government in the first place and if this one is done away with the market will simply erect another in its stead?

4. Do you or do you not agree that every successful nation on the face of the Earth, both presently and throughout history, has enacted and maintained government?

The down side is that most individual efforts fail and those people or organizations receive no reward from their own personal investment of resources and time.

4. Do you or do you not agree that banking and insurance are (for profit) socialism?

However, everybody benefits since the solution is discovered.

If they can afford it.

Only those who are willing to risk that failure invest the necessary blood, sweat and tears. The 'winners' rightly deserve to 'capitalize' on their success for as long as they can until competitors can create more efficient processes for utilizing the intellectual fruits of that initial success.

5. So patents should never expire?

This is why monopolies cannot last in a truly free market even if they originate the solution.

6. Why? Because someone would have invented the square wheel to get away from royalties on the round one?

Where you get the idea that capitalism precludes banking and insurance is beyond understanding.

7. Very simple, my dear dialectical opponent.

a) Banks socialise the cost of lending through inflation by lending new money out of thin air each time they extend a loan.

Do you dispute that banks create new money when they extend a loan?

Or do you dispute that issuing new money (especially when it's not backed by anything) is inflationary?

b) Insurance is socialism in that you can receive more than you've contributed, if your claim is valid. And the rest of the people who are insured have no choice but to pay you more than you've put in.

If that's not socialism I don't know what is.

As I have said, I too am against centralized banking and fiat currency of any kind but, not banking itself which is vital.

Oh, I see.

Typical right wing p. o. v.

"We're against the Central Bank (your Federal Reserve) issuing 5~10% of the money supply out of thin air.

But we're completely down with the banking system issuing 90~95% of the money supply out of thin air."

No, that's not hypocritical AT ALL!

Civilized society preceded government so any suggestion that the reverse is true is spurious. In the case of public schools, being socialistic institutions they should rightly disappear and have no place in a free society.

No, it didn't. You just choose to claim that their early form of government wasn't government.

There is no such thing as civilisation without laws and enforcement of them. Which is what government is.

Of course you'll try and claim government isn't that.

Perhaps you only like certain types of government. Which you conveniently claim not to be government.

Roads and many other examples of necessities provided for by government is mostly rubbish with the exception of interstate highways whose original purpose were military and have been repurposed to serve free market ends. While it is the weakest argument I have and the hardest to counter of the examples you provide, if we need a department of roads then that is something we can talk about. I am not a fundamentalist, just a zealot.

Why do you do consider infrastructure not a merit of government?

Because government might not always actually be the one that builds and maintains it, just the one who pays for it and to maintain it?

Who would pay for it otherwise, if not another government that would rise in its place?

edit on 2013/10/6 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

edit on 2013/10/6 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

The free market is just what it appears to be, a free market without constraint based upon individual contracts and the unmolested flow of goods and services. It is not a political system.

Society creates governments, not the other way around. When governments fail (which they always do), society picks up the pieces and tries again.

You may find answers to some of your questions in my previous threads. For instance, I do not believe in patents or copyrights. Not because they are evil or unjust but, simply because they require an invasive government and can never be truly equitable as a result of the inevitable corruption and state violence that accompanies their implementation.

Of course, I do whole-heartedly believe in property as it is a prerequisite to individual liberty (in case you were wondering) but, not intellectual property as is discussed in the thread below:

Intellectual Property is Not True Property

I am an opponent of all fiat currency and central banking. Gold backed currency is the only stable monetary system and banks cannot 'create' fiat currency (be they central or otherwise) under that system.

You reveal your statist indoctrination by assigning credit for the creation of civilization to government, it is simply not true.

You're so funny it's not funny.

Intellectual property is probably the sole form of wholly and absolutely legitimate property.

All other property was, at very first, obtained by arbitrary appropriation from either the commons or the former owner. Or was obtained or derived from or with said property and/or resources thereon or under.

Basically all physical property is or was derived or obtained from or through or using property that was initially appropriated/claimed arbitrarily. Either from the commons or the former owner.

What you might call, according to your stupid 0AP, force.

That is to say, the entire continental US is actually land stolen from the indigenous Indians. Taken using force.

It needs to be given back or taken back by force, as per your own 0AP.

The same for the land usurped from its former owners to build your road and highway system.

It just goes to show what two-faced liars you people (libertarians) are.

Pejeu
You're so funny it's not funny.

Intellectual property is probably the sole form of wholly and absolutely legitimate property.

All other property was, at very first, obtained by arbitrary appropriation from either the commons or the former owner. Or was obtained or derived from or with said property and/or resources thereon or under.

Basically all physical property is or was derived or obtained from or through or using property that was initially appropriated/claimed arbitrarily. Either from the commons or the former owner.

What you might call, according to your stupid 0AP, force.

That is to say, the entire continental US is actually land stolen from the indigenous Indians. Taken using force.

It needs to be given back or taken back by force, as per your own 0AP.

The same for the land usurped from its former owners to build your road and highway system.

It just goes to show what two-faced liars you people (libertarians) are.

edit on 2013/10/19 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

Now, now, be a good little communist and tow the line. You are forgetting that you are supposed to be against all private property (intellectual included).

I am only against intellectual property because it is impossible to enforce without tremendously invasive and coercive state interference. I suppose that is why you are for it. Or is it just because I am against it that you, perhaps mistakenly, take the opposing viewpoint?

My position requires a bare minimum of government so, I am endeavoring to challenge all of the preconceptions that rely upon the state in an effort to broadly address the viability of my ideal. You are blathering and insulting once again, as expected.

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

-Thomas Sowell


Also, why has socialism done this in your country? I thought socialism was a utopian ideal that would make everything better?

For Romania's Orphans, Adoption Is Still A Rarity

Some people aren't happy unless they are controlling others, whether this is a regular personality type or a behavioral disease resulting from some lifetime experiences (like being spoiled) is unknown. To allow for happiness for all it needs to be understood that most evil in this world results from misunderstandings(quickly arrived false conclusions), ignorance and our material existence (limited resources, etc).

So if all real conflict can be solved by putting government funding into space colonization, we could theoretically escape the problem of real estate (ultimately preserving freedom) while avoiding the problems of one child policies and police states that come with a society bound to one earth and ever-growing technology and medical care.

No utopian societies can be afforded today without damage to individual happiness. In order to overcome that step, the space sector needs to be more adequately funded and re-shaped to make space colonization one of the leading directions of any space organization.

But today we are too tangled in the webs of the corporate control, devalued currency and all. We rather push all our effort to protecting those closest to us than to think about the end game. Whether we as a society destroy ourselves before being able to acknowledge this all to action is what remains to be seen.

Any argument brought up regarding this can easily be shot down by discrediting or assassination. Distractions can also be put into place by those at the top of the pyramid, too conditioned at childhood to realize what they are actually doing to their own species.