Since its election time over in the US, Political Compass Thread!

@plaintomato said:

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman said:

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman said:

The problem is that it lacks a Z axis, for those who are politically conservative but socially liberal. For example being pro-marijuana legalisation does not mean you support libertarianism.

Well being pro-marijuana means you are more for the individual making his own choice, which is a libertarian value.

Not necessarily. For example what about a dictatorship which legalises marijuana, gay marriage and abortion?

'Libertarian' means 'favouring the sovereignty of the individual to make his own choice if he's not harming anyone else in the process'.

In other words, individuals should decide, not the state.

And your example... well. A dictatorship is not libertarian but if it were to legalize marijuana, gay marriage and abortion they would become slightly more libertarian (but still would be very authoritarian, obviously).

'Libertarian' is not a binary word.

@A_Talking_Donkey said:

Yeah, but that's sort of his point. You can be pro-big government and pro-marijuana legalization at the same time. It isn't about states rights existing or not, its about the specifics of things they reach.

The Libertarian would say it'd be pretty naive to think that you can have "big government" that limits "the specifics of things they reach". Power seeks to preserve and expand its power.

One of the problems with right leaning libertarianism is that, on the far right, individual freedoms and corporate freedoms are equally revered - but if you look at corporations that are the size of countries, they are run like totalitarian governments and, like big authoritarian government - unregulated they will do anything to exercise, expand and preserve their own power and influence, and can grow more powerful than the "small government".

Of for the love of God.

Can McDonalds send you a bill if you don't buy its food?

Can Apple use their armed goons to slaughter civilians on the other part of the world?

Can Microsoft forcibly take $16,000,000,000,000 from their customers and give it to their buddies in banking?

Can Goldman Sachs pepper spray people if they disobey their loan restrictions?

I'm sorry, but saying that corporations are like governments just shows that you have no idea what either of these terms mean.

Governments do not prevent corporations from growing. Corporations can't exist without a government, because they rely on subsidies, lobbying and regulations to stop their market competitors from threatening their position which they would have to defend like everyone else in a free market system - by providing the best services at the lowest prices.

That's a moot point considering you probably attended a school and travel on roads.

Economic Left/Right: -3.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92

As others mentioned before, some of the questions were poorly worded or just straight up stupid and there's no neutral button either.

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman said:

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman said:

The problem is that it lacks a Z axis, for those who are politically conservative but socially liberal. For example being pro-marijuana legalisation does not mean you support libertarianism.

Well being pro-marijuana means you are more for the individual making his own choice, which is a libertarian value.

Not necessarily. For example what about a dictatorship which legalises marijuana, gay marriage and abortion?

'Libertarian' means 'favouring the sovereignty of the individual to make his own choice if he's not harming anyone else in the process'.

In other words, individuals should decide, not the state.

And your example... well. A dictatorship is not libertarian but if it were to legalize marijuana, gay marriage and abortion they would become slightly more libertarian (but still would be very authoritarian, obviously).

'Libertarian' is not a binary word.

So? My point is that this survery suggests that 'libertarian' policies are in fact libertarian. Marijuana legalisation is not a libertarian policy. It may be the policy of libertarians, but in and of itself it is not libertarian, same for abortion. Look at the Chinese. If you were the Chinese Government, you would have clicked yes to being pro-abortion, and the survey well have taken that as meaning they were libertarian, when in reality they're far from it, and the reasons for being pro-abortion are very far from libertarian. A dictator can introduce marijuana legalisation to undercut drug trafficking, legalise abortion as a means of controlling population growth, and gay marriage as some kind of happy families policy, and still not give two shits about "the sovereignty of the individual".

@Inkerman: Being pro marijuana legislation means your take on the issue is libertarian.

If we are considering who should have the final say in the matter of issue X, the libertarian position is that the individual should decide, and the authoritarian position is that the state should decide.

It doesn't matter if you're pro-marijuana because you believe it will add to the state's tax revenue or increase the liberty of the individual. The act of giving the individual the choice instead of the state means that your stance on the issue is libertarian.

It doesn't matter what the intents are, because we're not evaluating whether the intents of marijuana legislation are libertarian; we're debating whether giving the people the option to choose instead of the state is libertarian (which it, by definition, is).

@A_Talking_Donkey said:

That's a moot point considering you probably attended a school and travel on roads.

If a thief steals your wallet and gives you some change for a bus home, are you justifying the theft if you take the money?

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman: Being pro marijuana legislation means your take on the issue is libertarian.

If we are considering who should have the final say in the matter of issue X, the libertarian position is that the individual should decide, and the authoritarian position is that the state should decide.

It doesn't matter if you're pro-marijuana because you believe it will add to the state's tax revenue or increase the liberty of the individual. The act of giving the individual the choice instead of the state means that your stance on the issue is libertarian.

It doesn't matter what the intents are, because we're not evaluating whether the intents of marijuana legislation are libertarian; we're debating whether giving the people the option to choose instead of the state is libertarian (which it, by definition, is).

Then by that logic every single possible policy is either libertarian or authoritarian, which is a gross overstatement, and still leaves us with a survey that labels socially conscious fascists as 'libertarian'.

@Inkerman said:

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman: Being pro marijuana legislation means your take on the issue is libertarian.

If we are considering who should have the final say in the matter of issue X, the libertarian position is that the individual should decide, and the authoritarian position is that the state should decide.

It doesn't matter if you're pro-marijuana because you believe it will add to the state's tax revenue or increase the liberty of the individual. The act of giving the individual the choice instead of the state means that your stance on the issue is libertarian.

It doesn't matter what the intents are, because we're not evaluating whether the intents of marijuana legislation are libertarian; we're debating whether giving the people the option to choose instead of the state is libertarian (which it, by definition, is).

Then by that logic every single possible policy is either libertarian or authoritarian, which is a gross overstatement, and still leaves us with a survey that labels socially conscious fascists as 'libertarian'.

It is. Give me one that is not.

@A_Talking_Donkey said:

That's a moot point considering you probably attended a school and travel on roads.

I don't say gov't doesn't have a position, and I'm not anit-taxes - opportunities for natural monopolies like roads and infrastructure, where competition isn't a natural reality, are exactly the limited types of things governments should have their hands in.

@imsh_pl said:

@plaintomato said:

The Libertarian would say it'd be pretty naive to think that you can have "big government" that limits "the specifics of things they reach". Power seeks to preserve and expand its power.

One of the problems with right leaning libertarianism is that, on the far right, individual freedoms and corporate freedoms are equally revered - but if you look at corporations that are the size of countries, they are run like totalitarian governments and, like big authoritarian government - unregulated they will do anything to exercise, expand and preserve their own power and influence, and can grow more powerful than the "small government".

Of for the love of God.

Can McDonalds send you a bill if you don't buy its food?

Can Apple use their armed goons to slaughter civilians on the other part of the world?

Can Microsoft forcibly take $16,000,000,000,000 from their customers and give it to their buddies in banking?

Can Goldman Sachs pepper spray people if they disobey their loan restrictions?

I'm sorry, but saying that corporations are like governments just shows that you have no idea what either of these terms mean.

Governments do not prevent corporations from growing. Corporations can't exist without a government, because they rely on subsidies, lobbying and regulations to stop their market competitors from threatening their position which they would have to defend like everyone else in a free market system - by providing the best services at the lowest prices.

That's either naive oversimplification if you don't know what you are talking about, or intentional misdirection if you do know what you are talking about. The structure of a corporation is totalitarian - that's not really a problem, kind of the way it has to be, and in the U.S. control is limited to their employees who choose to be employed there (unless you want to get into monopolies and SuperPACs). But if you can't do a little research and see how unregulated enterprises have behaved historically, maybe do a little research on monopolies, collusion, insider trading, the broken patent system and etc - nobody can help you learn about what you don't want to learn about.

I actually tend to lean strongly toward deregulation because I think a lot of regulation is excessive or outdated, but no regulation is dangerous as a matter of historical fact. That's not really a legitimate point of debate...the debate is always how much and what kind of regulation, not whether there needs to be regulation.

And in all over the world, yes, business enterprises can and do "use their armed goons to slaughter civilians", just like governments. A drug cartel would be one example even someone born and raised in the U.S. public school system could recognize.

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman said:

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman: Being pro marijuana legislation means your take on the issue is libertarian.

If we are considering who should have the final say in the matter of issue X, the libertarian position is that the individual should decide, and the authoritarian position is that the state should decide.

It doesn't matter if you're pro-marijuana because you believe it will add to the state's tax revenue or increase the liberty of the individual. The act of giving the individual the choice instead of the state means that your stance on the issue is libertarian.

It doesn't matter what the intents are, because we're not evaluating whether the intents of marijuana legislation are libertarian; we're debating whether giving the people the option to choose instead of the state is libertarian (which it, by definition, is).

Then by that logic every single possible policy is either libertarian or authoritarian, which is a gross overstatement, and still leaves us with a survey that labels socially conscious fascists as 'libertarian'.

It is. Give me one that is not.

Assuming that every policy has some miniscule libertarian or authoritarian policy viewpoint misses the point entirely. When the Government is deciding how much it should fund garbage men, it is not usually making the assessment based on whether to be more authoritarian or not. My point is the survey links the two when they may in fact not be linked, whereby you end up with a situation where socially conscious fascists and left-leaning democrats are treated as the same and its absurd.

@Inkerman said:

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman said:

Then by that logic every single possible policy is either libertarian or authoritarian, which is a gross overstatement, and still leaves us with a survey that labels socially conscious fascists as 'libertarian'.

It is. Give me one that is not.

Assuming that every policy has some miniscule libertarian or authoritarian policy viewpoint misses the point entirely. When the Government is deciding how much it should fund garbage men, it is not usually making the assessment based on whether to be more authoritarian or not. My point is the survey links the two when they may in fact not be linked, whereby you end up with a situation where socially conscious fascists and left-leaning democrats are treated as the same and its absurd.

I'm not really trying to justify the survey in any way right now, I'm sorry if it wasn't clear.

But I'm sticking to my argument that any single governmental policy X has only 2 stances: libertarian and authoritarian (that is, of course, to every 'yes' or 'no' issue, like marijuana legalisation, not to a 'how much' or 'in what way' issue).

@plaintomato said:

That's either naive oversimplification if you don't know what you are talking about, or intentional misdirection if you do know what you are talking about. The structure of a corporation is totalitarian - that's not really a problem, kind of the way it has to be, and in the U.S. control is limited to their employees who choose to be employed there (unless you want to get into monopolies and SuperPACs).

'Totalitarian' only refers to government. If you are employed in a corporation you agreed to its rules of conduct, including how much you'll be paid, in what conditions you'll work, who you'll be accepting orders from, etc.

A voluntary organization which you're not forced to enter - such as a corporation - cannot be totalitarian, because totalitarianism is a political system.

'Totalitarian' does not mean 'one(few) person ordering others around', it means 'one(few) person ordering others around with or without their prior consent'.

But if you can't do a little research and see how unregulated enterprises have behaved historically, maybe do a little research on monopolies, collusion, insider trading, the broken patent system and etc - nobody can help you learn about what you don't want to learn about.

I've done quite a bit, actually. The only way to achieve a monopoly in a free market is to provide the best products for the cheapest price. Show me an example of a monopoly which was not achieved through some kind of political means, like regulations, patents, subsidies, etc.

I actually tend to lean strongly toward deregulation because I think a lot of regulation is excessive or outdated, but no regulation is dangerous as a matter of historical fact. That's not really a legitimate point of debate...the debate is always how much and what kind of regulation, not whether there needs to be regulation.

Sure, give me an example of unregulated markets being dangerous. And yes, I oppose state regulations, the market does a way better job of regulating itself than the government can ever hope to do.

And in all over the world, yes, business enterprises can and do "use their armed goons to slaughter civilians", just like governments. A drug cartel would be one example even someone born and raised in the U.S. public school system could recognize.

There's a key difference though: a drug cartel cannot morally slaughter civilians.

The only difference between a government harming people under its jurisdiction without their permission and a drug cartel harming people under its jurisdiction without their permission is that they are considered the two moral opposites: one is good (or at least permissable), the other evil. But the acts are exactly the same.

And their scale is simply incomparable. Governments are responsible for over 260,000,000 deaths in the 20th century IF YOU ONLY COUNT DEMOCIDE, that is EXCLUDE all the wars.

Private deaths are below 9,000,000, and many of those are indirectly caused by the drug war.

I'm some kind of strange moderate, liberal, libertarian hybrid.

@EpicSteve said:

Some of those questions are really stupid. Like the one asking if you should be automatically loyal to your country. I get that it's a liberal stereotype that they aren't patriotic, so I wonder if that's what it's looking for.

It is a partially biased quiz, some of the questions seem kind of loaded.

@pyrodactyl said:

@imsh_pl You keep bringging up the fact that the best way to make more money and be more successfull in a free market is to offer the best product at the lowest price. Let me blow your mind with an even better way: you just have to agree with/eliminate the competiton and charge whatever the fuck you want for your product. You get much bigger profits from that kind of tactics and it only requires to be at the top in the first place.

And how do you eliminate the competition?

You have 3 options

1.Provide the best services at the lowest price so the customers want to trade with you

2.Eliminate the competition by threats of violence

3.Eliminate the competition by lobbying the government to regulate, subsidize, and restrict the market in your favour

(Please tell me if you can think of more)

Now for definitions

A free market is a form of economic association in which every trade that takes place is made by two or more parties voluntarily agreeing on the terms (price, conditions of trade etc.)

A trade is voluntary if none of the parties involved was threatened with physical violence in order to agree to, disagree with, accept or reject the terms of the exchange by anyone (be it the other party or a 3rd party).

And now we have a question: How do you make most profit in a free market?

Option 1 - provide the services people want at the lowest price. This agrees with the terms because no one is threatened with force to enter or not enter a contract.

Option 2 - this clearly does not fit. If MegaCorp threatens to assasinate farmer Bob because he wants to sell his crops at lower prices, MegaCorp violates the free market principle that you cannot use threates of violence to encourage or discourage anyone to trade. Hence, if there's a threat of force, we can't have a free market.

Option 3 - we just have to see what government regulations are. If the government says, for example, that farmer Bob cannot sell raw milk or he'll get a fine, what is it really saying? It's saying that even if Bob does sell raw milk to me, voluntarily, and I agree, then it will order Bob to pay a certain amount of money or armed men will come to his house and take him to jail, which is a threat of violence. Hence, if there are government regulations to peaceful exchange, we do not have a free market regulations.

We can conclude that:

1.If a corporation has a monopoly which is assisted by threats of violence (like a mafia for example), this is no fault of a free market

2.If a corporation has a monopoly which is assisted by government regulations to peaceful exchange, this is no fault of the free market

Now: could you give me an example of a corporation/business which has or had a monopoly without any government regulations/other threats of violence present when the corporation/business rose to power? In other words: can you give me an example of a free market monopoly? Historical would be preferred.

I've taken it before, I'm pretty far right and slightly down if I remember right

@imsh_pl said:

@plaintomato said:

That's either naive oversimplification if you don't know what you are talking about, or intentional misdirection if you do know what you are talking about. The structure of a corporation is totalitarian - that's not really a problem, kind of the way it has to be, and in the U.S. control is limited to their employees who choose to be employed there (unless you want to get into monopolies and SuperPACs).

'Totalitarian' only refers to government. If you are employed in a corporation you agreed to its rules of conduct, including how much you'll be paid, in what conditions you'll work, who you'll be accepting orders from, etc.

A voluntary organization which you're not forced to enter - such as a corporation - cannot be totalitarian, because totalitarianism is a political system.

But if you can't do a little research and see how unregulated enterprises have behaved historically, maybe do a little research on monopolies, collusion, insider trading, the broken patent system and etc - nobody can help you learn about what you don't want to learn about.

I've done quite a bit, actually. The only way to achieve a monopoly in a free market is to provide the best products for the cheapest price. Show me an example of a monopoly which was not achieved through some kind of political means, like regulations, patents, subsidies, etc.

I actually tend to lean strongly toward deregulation because I think a lot of regulation is excessive or outdated, but no regulation is dangerous as a matter of historical fact. That's not really a legitimate point of debate...the debate is always how much and what kind of regulation, not whether there needs to be regulation.

Sure, give me an example of unregulated markets being dangerous. And yes, I oppose state regulations, the market does a way better job of regulating itself than the government can ever hope to do.

And in all over the world, yes, business enterprises can and do "use their armed goons to slaughter civilians", just like governments. A drug cartel would be one example even someone born and raised in the U.S. public school system could recognize.

There's a key difference though: a drug cartel cannot morally slaughter civilians.

The only difference between a government harming people under its jurisdiction without their permission and a drug cartel harming people under its jurisdiction without their permission is that they are considered the two moral opposites: one is good (or at least permissable), the other evil. But the acts are exactly the same.

And their scale is simply incomparable. Governments are responsible for over 260,000,000 deaths in the 20th century IF YOU ONLY COUNT DEMOCIDE, that is EXCLUDE all the wars.

Private deaths are below 9,000,000, and many of those are indirectly caused by the drug war.

This is the kind of conversation I enjoy if interesting points can be discussed, but it's pretty obvious you are coming from a position of indoctrination. You can narrow the use of the word "totalitarian" however you want, but corporations being generally totalitarian in structure is another fact that's not really worth debating - if it helps to consider it in terms of analogy rather than strict application then go ahead and allow yourself that latitude. Corporations tend to seek and exert whatever control they possibly can, mitigated by market factors AND regulation, and they are governed, regardless of whether you want to call that governance structure by some other term like management. You tow the company line or get out - and I'm not saying that's always a bad thing, just a fact of life.

You say you've done quite a bit of research, but when your research is only from sources that support your own pre-existing view, you develop this inability to consider the holes in these "absolute truths" that you cling to like a religion. I like a little Ayn Rand in my reading too, but if that's the only doctrine you research your efforts will leave you more than a little imbalanced. Challenge your perceptions sometime, you'll either be surprised or reaffirmed - it really won't hurt you.

I won't waste my breath on refuting your defense of the noble monopoly, that's another thing that really isn't a subject of debate - monopolies are bad, mmm-kay. But I do love your comment on how drug cartels can't be moral. They are a business enterprise that isn't subject to regulation (we try and stop them, if only for show, but that's not the point), fighting for monopoly exactly to the extent that regulation can't prevent them from doing so. Depending on the market, you have to present a different face to attract buyers - Huggies couldn't exactly use cartel tactics without disenfranchising their buyers, but if you think that this means Huggies could be relied upon to adhere to some self imposed morality given the chance to strengthen their market position or sell a cheaper product for higher prices...well, you just keep on keepin' on.

If you need another example of real stand up moral business practices in the absence of regulation try the American cotton industry in the 1800s. It wasn't exactly free market forces that sorted out that situation now was it?

The funniest part of all this is that, judging on where you are coming from, chances are pretty high we might both cast a vote for Ron Paul if the opportunity arose. I just don't have my head up my ass about why and how far to take it - our divergence seems to stem primarily from your idea that free markets somehow promote honorable business practices as if by magic; this relates to your "option 2" in your post above (good post BTW) - corporations can and will (try to) violate your stated free market principles for gain in the absence of regulation, and also rape all available resources including humanity in the rush to get while the getting is good unless they can control that resource for long term gain (Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Call of Duty).

Also regarding your other post, a monopoly can not realistically exist in a way that promotes the free market practices you describe above. Just look at your XBL or PSN contract and tell me corporations don't take advantage of the exclusive benefits they offer to get you to agree to terms you have no opportunity to negotiate - a choice sure, but was it really a choice you considered? Did you even read it? When the product is sufficiently desirable your description of a free market exchange becomes utter bogus - the exchange always has been and always will be manipulated in the favor or the party who least needs the benefit of the exchange; monopolies just exacerbate that truth to a point where the practice can't be justified as easily as the terms of an XBL contract. This is why there is such a thing as contract law, instead of just contracts; that clause requiring you give them your first born son isn't enforceable.

@imsh_pl said:

Now: could you give me an example of a corporation/business which has or had a monopoly without any government regulations/other threats of violence present when the corporation/business rose to power? In other words: can you give me an example of a free market monopoly? Historical would be preferred.

LOL, give me an example of a free market where corporations/businesses didn't violate the free market principles. The pure circumstance from which you want your example doesn't exist; there has never been a business monopoly that didn't violate free market principles. The reason for this is simple: corporations (as a general rule), if given a truly free market, will quickly violate your free market principles, resulting in calls for regulation.

So, back to my original point: consolidation of power is bad, whether it be the to the far right where corporations become more powerful than governments, or to the far left where governments grow to absorb corporations. That concept is, I think, what you were refuting in the first place.

Shit guys. It just occurred to me that the election is going to be over today. Finished. Done. In honor of that I shall check out this survey.

Our race has many superior qualities compared to other races? What the fuck kind of poll is this? Good parents sometimes have to spank their children? How is that political? Am I taking the right poll?

When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things? What?

Mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers? Again who wrote this shit?

Astrology accurately explains many things? Someone's fucking with me, right? edit: Oh and I would also like to add I am pro death penalty for anyone who truly strongly agrees with this statement. That is the truth.

Pornography, depicting consenting adults, should be legal for the adult population? Why stop at the adult population? ...

Anyways...

I'm roughly in the vicinity of Gandhi and the Dalai Lama. I keep good company. Also if I recall that's roughly where I was when I took something like this back in my Junior year of high school, as I remember noticing I was near Gandhi then, too. Maybe a bit further left than I was then, which does surprise me a bit.

Questions aren't great but result is somewhat accurate, moderately left/up but with extremist views on both sides (hate capitalism, love dictatorships, hate abortion, love death penalty, hate deconstruction of morality in society, love free healthcare, indifferent to immigrants and gays). In short I have no conscionable way to justify voting for either party in the US and I guess I'm slowly making my way toward Stalin (was almost dead center last time). Once I gain a position of power I'll no doubt become increasingly paranoid and homicidal.

@plaintomato: Ok, I'll try to respond to the whole of the post this time, not dissect it.

First of all, I still disagree that corporations are totalitarian.

A corporation president/CEO, however bad, always has prior consent from his employees, because they agreed to be bound by his rules when they signed the job contract. Can they regret it later? Sure. But they still had a choice, and if the head of corporation doesn't break any of the terms stated in the contract (such as work conditions,wage), we're still dealing with a situation between two consenting adults.

A totalitarian rule takes place when the leader/authority has the final word on the most important decisions with or without the consent of the people he's in charge. You don't sign a contract with the government and agree to be bound by its rules, they're forced upon you.

Second of all, I'm in no way saying that we'll ever have a situation with businesses not threatening each other to compete. What I am saying, however, is that using government to keep them from doing so has the opposite effects of the desired: it increases the opportunity of big businesses to use their resources to gain power drastically.

But I did enjoy your post nonetheless and will try to take your advice to heart.

A side question though: you agree that monopolies are bad, and yet from what I understand you endorse the government to solve the problem? But isn't the government a monopoly itself: a monopoly on force/resolving disputes?

Economic Left/Right: 0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.03

Get on my level.

@imsh_pl said:

@plaintomato: Ok, I'll try to respond to the whole of the post this time, not dissect it.

First of all, I still disagree that corporations are totalitarian.

A corporation president/CEO, however bad, always has prior consent from his employees, because they agreed to be bound by his rules when they signed the job contract. Can they regret it later? Sure. But they still had a choice, and if the head of corporation doesn't break any of the terms stated in the contract (such as work conditions,wage), we're still dealing with a situation between two consenting adults.

A totalitarian rule takes place when the leader/authority has the final word on the most important decisions with or without the consent of the people he's in charge. You don't sign a contract with the government and agree to be bound by its rules, they're forced upon you.

We're agreeing on more than at first thought. I've enjoyed the conversation - not something I expected to find in a video game site forum, and I regret being a bit dickish...but you know, way of the internets and all that.

I'll make a last comment on corporations being totalitarian - they are, and that is a good thing. Imagine making business decisions democratically - you have to have someone at the top with the authority to make the call. There's that common saying that if you want to kill an idea, send it to committee. Businesses almost have to have a totalitarian structure to successfully coordinate a large group of people toward a common goal.

@imsh_pl said:

Second of all, I'm in no way saying that we'll ever have a situation with businesses not threatening each other to compete. What I am saying, however, is that using government to keep them from doing so has the opposite effects of the desired: it increases the opportunity of big businesses to use their resources to gain power drastically.

A side question though: you agree that monopolies are bad, and yet from what I understand you endorse the government to solve the problem? But isn't the government a monopoly itself: a monopoly on force/resolving disputes?

Wherever there is not a monopoly on force, you have war to establish a monopoly on force. The executive branch can't be successfully privatized.

I can't argue that the government is actually competent at what it is supposed to do, which is why a narrower focus is better, but it's a necessary thing. It's a monopoly yeah, which is why most of their "services" are mediocre, but checks and balances and all that - regulation is necessary and who does that if not gov't? You just can't argue that unchecked power anywhere can stay a good thing for long. It's like our political system, it doesn't exactly work super duper great, it certainly looks broken a lot of the time, but it's better than anything else we've come up with - it impedes progress sometimes, but it also impedes fools ruining things.

Being that individuals can involve themselves more directly, a publicly controlled entity is the only place any kind of monopoly is somewhat manageable. IMO, this includes natural monopolies, which are mostly infrastructure (water, power, roads) where redundancy (competition) isn't really feasible. That doesn't mean they do a great job, just that a public monopoly is better than a private monopoly. And nearly any authority that can be distributed to the states, rather than the fed, should be.

The system has had nearly 250 years for special interests (including big business) to infiltrate it and manipulate it for their benefit. Maybe it is diseased and infested with parasites of all kinds that might eventually kill it. But it's still standing - the longest continuous government in the history of the world.

I'll be the first to say I'm not the smartest person on these subjects, but at least I try to think about it beyond what special interests serve me best in the moment.

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman said:

@imsh_pl said:

@Inkerman said:

Then by that logic every single possible policy is either libertarian or authoritarian, which is a gross overstatement, and still leaves us with a survey that labels socially conscious fascists as 'libertarian'.

It is. Give me one that is not.

Assuming that every policy has some miniscule libertarian or authoritarian policy viewpoint misses the point entirely. When the Government is deciding how much it should fund garbage men, it is not usually making the assessment based on whether to be more authoritarian or not. My point is the survey links the two when they may in fact not be linked, whereby you end up with a situation where socially conscious fascists and left-leaning democrats are treated as the same and its absurd.

I'm not really trying to justify the survey in any way right now, I'm sorry if it wasn't clear.

But I'm sticking to my argument that any single governmental policy X has only 2 stances: libertarian and authoritarian (that is, of course, to every 'yes' or 'no' issue, like marijuana legalisation, not to a 'how much' or 'in what way' issue).

And my point is that on most issues, assessing policies on whether or not they're authoritarian is at best useless or even misleading, like for example, with this survey, which is why you can't assess many policies that way.

@plaintomato said:

Wherever there is not a monopoly on force, you have war to establish a monopoly on force. The executive branch can't be successfully privatized.

I can't argue that the government is actually competent at what it is supposed to do, which is why a narrower focus is better, but it's a necessary thing.

I respectfully disagree and challenge you to consider alternative solutions!

As expected.

I never thought I was that leftist in the economic sense .... but yeah I lean towards some authoritarian thingies as well :P

@imsh_pl said:

@plaintomato said:

Wherever there is not a monopoly on force, you have war to establish a monopoly on force. The executive branch can't be successfully privatized.

I can't argue that the government is actually competent at what it is supposed to do, which is why a narrower focus is better, but it's a necessary thing.

I respectfully disagree and challenge you to consider alternative solutions!

My opinions aren't fixed in stone...but that video looks like a perfect example of taking free markets way too far. It's out there enough to be crazy interesting as an idea, and fun to watch, but besides being unproven is there really any historical context in which it has worked or even could work?

The American cotton industry in the 1800s is a good challenge on this one I think. This describes a world where the enforcement agencies are driven by profits - so what of the rights of those that don't possess enough wealth to influence the decisions of the agencies. The vid focuses on crime at 20.38 to 21.34 - but what happens when cash loaded corporations are the criminals, and/or groups of individuals without the means to secure an enforcement agency experience reduced rights?

The concept consolidates all power with money, i.e. business, which was my first far right libertarian concern in the first place - consolidation of power without adequate checks and balances. Just imagine if SuperPACs actually could buy direct control over the worlds most powerful country instead of just buying elections. (Corporatocracy)

Also, the question at the beginning - "why would you contract with someone if you couldn't trust them?" Good question, but the fact is we do it all the time for products and services we want from providers to big to care about negotiating with individuals, and providers supplying necessities we can't turn down. We can do this because we have a little more faith in contract regulation than we have in the contract writers. Imagine if you had to choose between contract terms you didn't like and your water or power supply.

Fun video...but insane crazy. There's a reason this has never been seen and has to be imagined to be discussed; and a reason the system of checks and balances we have now, while imperfect (perfect doesn't exist anyway), has lasted longer than any other system and maintained a relatively prosperous and complacent society for nearly 250 years. The only serious historical internal threat event to this country's continuous existence, the Civil War, might have a lot to imply about disputes between enforcement agencies with different ideas on individual rights.

Most right leaning libertarians also tend to revere the Founding Fathers, who had a reason for putting the fed over interstate commerce, and even Bastiat would have recognized this concept as a fail - acknowledging that the privileged support legalized plunder every bit as much as the poor...just directing the legalized plunder into different coffers. Left leaning libertarians don't even believe there is such a thing as a far right "libertarian" because they can't see any way to preserve individual liberties under this kind of system.

@plaintomato: Many of the points you bring up are interesting. I'm in no way saying that the free market is perfect, but you just have to ask yourself one question: how does introducing a violence monopoly solve the problem.

Okay, I'll try a different approach now.

Do you think that the people have the right to take another's legitimate property without their permission? And if they are, under what conditions?

I don't think I'm that extreme, but whatever. Surprised I'm that far down on the libertarian part.

@imsh_pl: can't you see your free market without gouvernance suffers the same fatal flaw as communism?

Stick with me for 2 seconds:

Who are the people holding the most power?

Free market: The ones with the most money

Communism: Dictators

Our system: High ranking politicians

Who are those people accountable to?

Free market: no one

Communism: no one

Our system: the population

What ensures the system doesn't fall appart or screw over the people who don't have the most power?

Free market: the principles of the free market

Communism: the principles of communism

Our system: Politicians better do what's best or they will be replaced.

What do the people with the most power do with that power?

Communism: They rape the principles of communism for greater personal gain

Free market: I'll let you guess since there's no historical exemple

Our system: Politicians do what they think is best which is great if we chose good people for those positions.

@pyrodactyl said:

@imsh_pl: can't you see your free market without gouvernance suffers the same fatal flaw as communism?

Stick with me for 2 seconds:

Who are the people holding the most power?

Free market: The ones with the most money

Communism: Dictators

Our system: High ranking politicians

First of all, communism was supposed to be a representative democracy too. I like how you completely ignored it though.

Free market: Yes, and the people with most money got their money voluntarily, by providing services people want. You can't just assume that because we have heartless businesses with this much power in this current corporatocracy they'll exist in the free market.

Our system: Politicians who promise to regulate, restrict, subsidize and create law by the bidding of their corporate sponsors .

Communism: Politicians willing to obey every wish of the totalitarian regime and the head of the state.

Who are those people accountable to?
Free market: no one
Communism: no one
Our system: the population

Free market: Shareholders, investors who want to have every dollar in the budget justified, customers whom you have to convince to pay you

Our system and communism: Politicians are not accountable to voters.

Do you have a contract with your friendly government bureaucrat?

Is he bound by law to fulfill the promises he gave you?

I mean, the exact same thing was said about communism, that it was reflecting the will of the people, blah blah blah. But the reality is: politicians have their own agendas: the first two are to be elected and reelected. What comes after is far behind.

What ensures the system doesn't fall appart or screw over the people who don't have the most power?
Free market: the principles of the free market
Communism: the principles of communism
Our system: Politicians better do what's best or they will be replaced.

Free market: Investors whom you have to explain every dollar in your budget to, shareholders who determine the value of your company, customers who have to VOLUNTARILY give you their money for your servicesOur system/communism: Pre-election promises which - if convincing enough - give you at least 4 years of the control over the taxpayers' money after the election. You vote for maybe 5% tops of the people in various unions, sentes, councils, states, etc., you're not choosing your masters nearly as much as they'd like you to think.

What do the people with the most power do with that power?
Communism: They rape the principles of communism for greater personal gain
Free market: I'll let you guess since there's no historical exemple
Our system: Politicians do what they think is best which is great if we chose good people for those positions.

Free market: They tend to try to increase their profit which, again, means competing for customers.

Our system/communism: You got this one right: They rape the principles of acting for the benefit of 'the people' for greater personal gain.

I like how you see communism for what it is: a corrupt system, yet refuse that our system's only difference is that it has less power at the beginning. But nothing prevents it from overusing it.

@imsh_pl: you missed the whole point of my post. What I was trying to say was, the free market and communism ideal are both great on paper but completly implode when faced with the chalenges of the real world. They benefit the most powerfull and forget about everyone else.

When you say that the people with the money are accountable to share holders and customers, what you really mean is, the people with the money are accountable to make more money. As I stated previously, the best way to make money is to fuck the little guy over. Without regulation and over time, the most powerfull buisness will be the one who can abuse your free market system and crush every rule to stay on top.

@imsh_pl

Free market: Shareholders, investors who want to have every dollar in the budget justified, customers whom you have to convince to pay you

More like Free market: Shareholders, investors who don't give a fuck where the money came from as long as there is more than last quarter and customers who are forced to buy your product no matter the contract or cost that comes with it because it's their only option.

@pyrodactyl said:

@imsh_pl: you missed the whole point of my post. What I was trying to say was, the free market and communism ideal are both great on paper but completly implode when faced with the chalenges of the real world. They benefit the most powerfull and forget about everyone else.

Oh, yeah. The good old 'well free market is great on paper but doesn't work in practice, just like communism'.

First of all, communism doesn't work great on paper, as well as democracy. The both rely on the incorruptibility of the leaders and their desire to keep promises rather than make profit.

When you say that the people with the money are accountable to share holders and customers, what you really mean is, the people with the money are accountable to make more money. As I stated previously, the best way to make money is to fuck the little guy over. Without regulation and over time, the most powerfull buisness will be the one who can abuse your free market system and crush every rule to stay on top.

1.How do you 'fuck the little guy over' in a free market. Because all historical cases of a company 'fucking the little guy over' occured when the 'fucking' was achieved through government regulation. Give me a historical example.

2.How do you 'crush every rule to stay on top'? Be specific. You forget that a company receives money VOLUNTARILY, so if they do something the customers don't want it's not like they're forced with a gun to buy from them.

3.Give me a specifi example of an 'abuse of the free market system'.

Be specific. Give historical examples. I'm kinda tired of the 'this will always happen' talk with you showing me no proof.

@imsh_pl
Free market: Shareholders, investors who want to have every dollar in the budget justified, customers whom you have to convince to pay you
More like Free market: Shareholders, investors who don't give a fuck where the money came from as long as there is more than last quarter and customers who are forced to buy your product no matter the contract or cost that comes with it because it's their only option.

Consumers are 'forced' to by my product? How exactly?

Define 'force someone to do something' please. Because I define it as 'threaten to use physical violence in order to influence a decision'.

And if they do that, sure, you can use force to stop them, be it government or a handgun.

But if a company threatens their consumers with violence if they do not pay then that's simply extortion. It's not a critique of a free market.

Saying that people being forced to pay is the fault of the free market is like saying that people being raped is the fault of dating. These are the complete opposites: one is voluntary, the other not.

(Not saying they can't exist in the world at the same time but they are not caused by one another, it's a complete misunderstanding of the terms).

Oh, and investors don't give a fuck where the money came from? Really? Ever heard of profit loss which comes from customers finding out about a company's shady income sources?

@imsh_pl said:

@pyrodactyl said:

Ever heard "if you aren't cheating you aren't trying"? A true free market can't exist because as soon as it does the members of that free market will violate the free market principles, exert authority (legitimate or otherwise, by force or otherwise) to expand their power. Luckily the men who established this country didn't do so strictly for short term personal gain - GW even turned down the proposal to make him king, even though things might have been nice for awhile under a benevolent dictatorship, no dictatorship stays benevolent and even if he trusted himself with that much power he knew he couldn't trust his successors with it. So they created a system that would support as free a market as possible, while implementing a government to both check the free market and be checked by it. They could have tried the absolutely free market you've been describing, but it wouldn't have lasted 250 years, if even 5.

250 years later the system is bloated with abuse and we aren't as free as we should be...but still being here and still fat enough to be complacent about it is pretty impressive.

@imsh_pl said:

@plaintomato: Many of the points you bring up are interesting. I'm in no way saying that the free market is perfect, but you just have to ask yourself one question: how does introducing a violence monopoly solve the problem.

Okay, I'll try a different approach now.

Do you think that the people have the right to take another's legitimate property without their permission? And if they are, under what conditions?

Violence happens until their is a monopoly on it. It introduces itself until it is resolved. That's true from the market place to the animal kingdom.

Your real question is more loaded - when is legalized plunder okay? I can only give you my opinion: when it isn't plunder. You stick pretty strongly to the idea that free markets consist entirely of voluntary interactions, but I guess I've already said why I think that situation has either never existed on a large scale or never sustained itself long enough to be a historical reference. So, going down to the micro-scale that you have to use to pretend an absolutely free market would work, consider a Home Owner's Association - I mean, who doesn't hate those right? (A: most people who actually get involved with their HOA). So anyway, this pretend HOA maintains everybody's front yards and maintains the roads to make sure the community looks nice regardless of what lazy d-bags move in. Maybe they even have gate and guard to reduce crime.

A group of people VOLUNTARILY (see what I did there?) got together, agreed to chip in to make it happen, established their CC&R's, and everybody paid their dues to receive the benefit offered. (This HOA's dues aren't the same for everybody, they're calculated at prorated $X per acre, assuming the bigger your lot, the more you benefit from the advantages offered by this stable community). Then Joe moved in and refused to pay his dues - to make him a good guy we'll say that instead of putting a broken down car in his front yard he actually maintained his own yard to justify his refusal to pay the HOA dues. The HOA takes Joe's HOA dues by whatever force options are available to them - they sanction Joe, they cripple his business by dinging his credit score so he has to pay higher interest rates or something, for good measure they stick their tongues out at him and give him the silent treatment. If the HOA doesn't take these measures of force, the next guy who refuses to pay his dues also decides not to maintain his yard and the whole community loses value. And just to close the loop, some other dude is born into the community (not his choice); he doesn't want to pay for the benefit of the common group, so they tell him that's fine, you just have to GTFO.

The point is, the HOA didn't legalize plunder, they provided a service that stabilized the community and benefited the group. Now take that last sentence and replace "HOA" with "Government". That's when it's okay. You are buying a product that is the opportunity to enjoy this particular community's benefits. You have a choice to not pay for those benefits, but you have to buy this product or GTFO.

The problem with a big federal government offering too many services and, um, a plan for redistributing our HOA dues in order to buy votes for certain board members, is that GTFO isn't a real viable option for most people. That's why I'm a fan of states rights in the U.S. - the more the "dues", "CC&Rs" and "benefits" are controlled at more and more local levels, the more accountability, and the more viable "GTFO-and-choose-another-community-you-like-better" really becomes for those that don't want to buy the benefits of living in a particular community, but think the option to move to another planet is maybe a little unrealistic. I just don't get California telling South Carolina how to live to the extent that it's avoidable.

Dude...you really get me going...I feel like I'm a puppet and if you pull my string I'll sing a song. But I happen to like the topic so...whatever. As always preface everything with "IMO" and take it with a grain of salt. It's called the social contract, sadly you may not like some of the terms, not unlike that employment contract to which you'd gladly make a few changes - but some would say you signed it when you planted your arse in that community, by choice or by having the audacity to be born to a mother that didn't kill you.

@imsh_pl said:

When you say that the people with the money are accountable to share holders and customers, what you really mean is, the people with the money are accountable to make more money. As I stated previously, the best way to make money is to fuck the little guy over. Without regulation and over time, the most powerfull buisness will be the one who can abuse your free market system and crush every rule to stay on top.

1.How do you 'fuck the little guy over' in a free market. Because all historical cases of a company 'fucking the little guy over' occured when the 'fucking' was achieved through government regulation. Give me a historical example.

Stop twisting the facts. Company fucking the little guy over is in spite of gouvernment regulation. Stop asking for historical exemples. There is none because the free market as never been a thing. All we have to go on is common sense. I don't need an historical exemple to know that the best way to make money is to throw all rules out the window. Just see the exemple below.

@imsh_pl said:

Consumers are 'forced' to by my product? How exactly?

Define 'force someone to do something' please. Because I define it as 'threaten to use physical violence in order to influence a decision'.

And if they do that, sure, you can use force to stop them, be it government or a handgun.

But if a company threatens their consumers with violence if they do not pay then that's simply extortion. It's not a critique of a free market.

Saying that people being forced to pay is the fault of the free market is like saying that people being raped is the fault of dating. These are the complete opposites: one is voluntary, the other not.

(Not saying they can't exist in the world at the same time but they are not caused by one another, it's a complete misunderstanding of the terms).

Let me give you an hypothetical scenario since, again, there is NO HISTORICAL EXEMPLE.

Let's say big corporation A is the only provider of power in your region and has a lot of spare change lying around because they offer the best service at the lowest price. Corporation A is now the biggest in the market. The share holders of that company want a jump in profit for next quarter because that's what share holders do. So corporation A gives you a 10 000$ bill for your power this month. Oh of course corporation B could step in and offer you a better deal but coporation A as agreed to give 1000$ of your payment to coporation B each month. Corporation C could step in but their CEO has his brain all over the wall at the moment. Corporation D also took 1000$ of your bill so they won't help. Mmmmmh, it seems corporation E, F, G, etc. are to far to provide power to your house. Guess you have to pay 10 000$ every month for power huh. Wait until they bring you a 20 000 or 50 000$ bill...

When you realize that the share holders of corporation A, B and D are extatic and that the private police recieves 500$ of your bill each month what do you do?

Option A: Pay larger and larger bills until they come and cease your home because you can no longer pay.

Option B: Go fetch corporation Z that has even more money than corporation A. Mmmmm, it seems corporation Z is also screwing its customers over and can't give any lessons to corporation A.

Option C: Live with no power. That sounds cool.

Option D: Form a revolution agains the injustice, tear down corporation A,B, etc. and put in place REGULATIONS and SOMETHING MORE POWERFULL THAN CORPORATIONS i.e. a GOUVERNMENT so that kind of thing never happens again.

Now you tell me, in which part of the process could someone have stopped corporation A in a free market?

@imsh_pl

did you post your politicalcompass chart result? I'm not seeing it...

Some of these questions are pretty stupid, and the lack of a "neutral" vote is even more so.

Not too surprising.

Economic Left/Right: -0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.13

Yea that's close enough. I would of thought myself to be a little further into Libertarian territory.

Economic Left/Right: -7.75

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.92

I was actually surprised that this was right (I am right leaning Libertarian). Some of the questions kind of back you into a corner with no neutral answers though.

@pyrodactyl:

Let me give you an hypothetical scenario since, again, there is NO HISTORICAL EXEMPLE.
Let's say big corporation A is the only provider of power in your region and has a lot of spare change lying around because they offer the best service at the lowest price. Corporation A is now the biggest in the market. The share holders of that company want a jump in profit for next quarter because that's what share holders do. So corporation A gives you a 10 000$ bill for your power this month. Oh of course corporation B could step in and offer you a better deal but coporation A as agreed to give 1000$ of your payment to coporation B each month. Corporation C could step in but their CEO has his brain all over the wall at the moment. Corporation D also took 1000$ of your bill so they won't help. Mmmmmh, it seems corporation E, F, G, etc. are to far to provide power to your house. Guess you have to pay 10 000$ every month for power huh. Wait until they bring you a 20 000 or 50 000$ bill...
When you realize that the share holders of corporation A, B and D are extatic and that the private police recieves 500$ of your bill each month what do you do?
Option A: Pay larger and larger bills until they come and cease your home because you can no longer pay.
Option B: Go fetch corporation Z that has even more money than corporation A. Mmmmm, it seems corporation Z is also screwing its customers over and can't give any lessons to corporation A.
Option C: Live with no power. That sounds cool.
Option D: Form a revolution agains the injustice, tear down corporation A,B, etc. and put in place REGULATIONS and SOMETHING MORE POWERFULL THAN CORPORATIONS i.e. a GOUVERNMENT so that kind of thing never happens again.
Now you tell me, in which part of the process could someone have stopped corporation A in a free market?sss

Ok. If I understand it correctly, the whole argument is as following:

1.Three corporations A, B and C, are responsible for providing electricity services in my region. I use company A and pay them $1000

2.Corporation A has excess money and increases my bill to $10000. It then gives $1000 to corporations B and D so they don't provide me with electricity

3.I'm fucked because my bills are too high and therefore we need a government!

This one's stupid easy.

Corporations B and C are receiving $1000 each to not sell me their service correct?

The obvious thing for them to do is to sell me the electricity for, say, $1600 (let's assume it costs an electric company $500 to provide electricity). They're still making more money providing me with electricity than they would be if they accepted the bribe.

But let's consider than company A then increases the bribe so it won't be so boring: they're now charging me $10000, bribing each company with $3000.

So company A is making profit of 10000-3000-3000-500(service cost)=$3500, and companies B and C are cashing in $3000 in this endeavour.

But what do companies B and C think?

'Huh. A is charging Bob(me) $10000 and I get $3000 to not give him my service. You know what? If I offered Bob my services for $4000, I would be making $3500: that's a much better deal than agreeing to the bribe!"

So companies B and C come to me and offer me their services for $4000. I want to buy a service from one of them.

They bring the prices down between each other so I'll choose them and not the other guy: they offer to charge me $3600 ($100 more profit than the bribe).

That's still a lot, you say.

Well, not really. Let's not forget why the price is so high: the companies were offered a bribe to not sell me power. But the bribes were paid for from my bill, which I no longer pay!

Company A has no more money flow to keep paying the bribe! We agreed that they are wealthy, sure, but why pay? The whole point of the bribe was to compel me to pay more, but I'm no longer their customer! The bribe is now useless because A is losing $6000 each month and not receiving a dime from me - in other words the bribe costs them money and brings no profit!

To put things short: It will always be more profitable to companies B and C to not accept the bribe and instead offer me their service for a smaller price than A BUT for a bigger price than the bribe. And then of course B and C will start naturally competing again, lowering prices so I will buy from them not their competitor, to the point of the market price of the product (which was ~$1000).

And there you go! The free market solution to companies jacking up prices.

No government involved.

Who owns the power lines to the house? Whose land do the power lines pass through to get the house? Are the power lines just sort of laying on the surface of the road third world style, or are they buried/elevated for the sake of the first world kiddos? Is the house an island unto itself or are there three sets of power lines through three different privately owned long narrow stretches of land to every house?

Just curious.

@plaintomato said:

A group of people VOLUNTARILY (see what I did there?) got together, agreed to chip in to make it happen, established their CC&R's, and everybody paid their dues to receive the benefit offered. (This HOA's dues aren't the same for everybody, they're calculated at prorated $X per acre, assuming the bigger your lot, the more you benefit from the advantages offered by this stable community). Then Joe moved in and refused to pay his dues - to make him a good guy we'll say that instead of putting a broken down car in his front yard he actually maintained his own yard to justify his refusal to pay the HOA dues.

Ok, so we have a situation

-HOA owns the roads (or some other company, doesn't really matter. The point is that someone is the owner and he agrees to let people use the roads for a fee, which people pay to HOA)

-people pay to HOA to guard their house, mow their loans, provide other handy services

So far so good! This is a perfect example of people voluntarily living together with protection and all other handy stuff people want and need!

But then we have this pesky Joe who refuses to pay (let's assume that he actually bought some of the land and is not just trespassing).

Well, this is pretty obvious: the HOA just doesn't mow his lawn, protect him, let him use the roads, and provide services!

Since he's not paying, why should he enjoy those benefits? It's him who's missing out, after all! And since everyone in the neighborhood pays to HOA, isn't that an indication that they are reliable?

(of course if he didn't actually pay for the land HOA has every right to kick him out, if it's their land. But kicking someone out because of trespassing doesn't make HOA a government).

But okay, let's just assume he doesn't have the money, or is too poor. That happens. Anyway...

The HOA takes Joe's HOA dues by whatever force options are available to them - they sanction Joe, they cripple his business by dinging his credit score so he has to pay higher interest rates or something, for good measure they stick their tongues out at him and give him the silent treatment. If the HOA doesn't take these measures of force, the next guy who refuses to pay his dues also decides not to maintain his yard and the whole community loses value. And just to close the loop, some other dude is born into the community (not his choice); he doesn't want to pay for the benefit of the common group, so they tell him that's fine, you just have to GTFO.
The point is, the HOA didn't legalize plunder, they provided a service that stabilized the community and benefited the group. Now take that last sentence and replace "HOA" with "Government". That's when it's okay. You are buying a product that is the opportunity to enjoy this particular community's benefits. You have a choice to not pay for those benefits, but you have to buy this product or GTFO.

You see... that's when we part ways. HOA is only justified in using forced against Joe if he's trespassing, using their roads or other property.

But just because he's in the vicinity doesn't give HOA the authority to force him to pay!

It's called the social contract, sadly you may not like some of the terms, not unlike that employment contract to which you'd gladly make a few changes - but some would say you signed it when you planted your arse in that community, by choice or by having the audacity to be born to a mother that didn't kill you.

Oh yes, the good ol' social contract!

And if I got you interested, consider these questions:

:

I honestly didn't expect you to stay with me this far. I admire your critical thinking and think you could really be about to challenge your beliefs about the society if you'd like me to give you some interesting views on the subject.

The question that I loved was something to the effect: "everyone has their rights, but some people should just stick to their own kind."

WTF, that question is all sorts of vague. I certainly believe in tolerance, and that certain rights should be available to everyone. But that doesn't mean I have to be ACCEPTING of all people, or agree with their lifestyles. Nor should anyone be forced too.

People, naturally, divide themselves into sub-groups based on the most superficial crap. Its just the way we are.

Anyways, I'm center/left

@imsh_pl said:

A corporation president/CEO, however bad, always has prior consent from his employees, because they agreed to be bound by his rules when they signed the job contract.

Guess that whole Enron/Lehman Brothers thing worked out great then.