Authoritarianism is becoming trendy.

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I'm glad you agree.

You clearly don't understand, because I didn't agree. And what is there to understand? White hate groups like the KKK, and just lynch mobs composed of inbred whites, used to make it a regular habit of lynching African Americans. That only stopped because the federal government stepped in and used the force of law to prosecute and convict the offenders. Without government coercion, white racists would have had no reason to stop.

Taxation is not theft. Taxation is the price you pay for living in a society with a government which maximises well-being, including by giving people limited rights to property. Theft is the illegal seizure of assets.


Yes they are. We all benefit from an educated population. We have doctors to treat us when we are sick, police officers to keep us safe, and scientists to make discoveries. We have effective business leaders and politicians. We have people who can take all manner of skilled and unskilled jobs, rather than having to resort to crime.


What makes you say that?


People have a right to family life, including raising children, so there's an inherent good in allowing them to do so. As a society, we benefit from "poor people" having children (the economy benefits, there are more people to do jobs, more art is produced...), and we benefit from feeding, clothing, and educating the children of poor people (because they can excel, they don't have to resort to crime, and we can sleep at night knowing we're not monsters).

This is exactly what I'm talking about wrt. blind deontology. A moment's examination shows that a world ran by your deontological principle alone would be worse than this one. A considerable period of examination shows it would be much worse.

You can't have compulsory education unless you also have free education. And if you don't have compulsory education, it will be pretty hard to be a first world country.

It's easy to make jokes about how kids are illiterate and ignorant after their compulsory public school education but they aren't really. They just aren't educated up to whatever standards the person making the joke has. So much that we take for granted in the first world is made possible by compulsory education. Kids get jokingly called illiterate if they can't read above a very basic level, such as a simple magazine. But that isn't real illiteracy. Imagine a country where, if parents didn't or couldn't teach reading, kids wouldn't even be able to read signs, labels or simple instructions. You think this doesn't impact you but your first world life is utterly dependent on millions of compulsorily educated people being able to read these things. Many of them are making minimum wage or just above it. But even minimum wage work requires a certain level of literacy.

Surely some parents would take it upon themselves to teach their kids the necessities. Home schooling exists, after all. But "some" isn't enough to run a first world country. Without compulsory education which must necessarily be free in order to be compulsory, we slip into being third world.

Sure you did.



You can't have it both ways.



Relevant to the discussion because?



And this has to do with sh*tting on rights how?

Please, dear, try to stay on point.

Government is always more detrimental than beneficial contrary to the « popular/indoctrinated » beliefs...

...unfortunately, I have seen century after century of humanity always repeating the same mistakes, without fail...

I am staying on point. The only "right" being violated here is the right to hurt other people, which isn't a right at all. Please, do tell how the evil, evil government was suppressing anyone's legitimate rights by doing this. Keep in mind that I'm talking about ending white supremacy, and the violence associated with it, here.

I'm not interested in your boogieman narrative. You believe that an idea can be killed. You're just as bad as anything you're condemning.

So how is my support of ending homicidal white supremacy making me as bad as homicidal white supremacists? And as a matter of fact, some ideas should be killed. And no, I never said that people with those ideas should be killed, too.

Now I know why most libertarians are white.

Hard to imagine a black man defending lynchings and white supremacy.

It will get you a job on Fox News.

I think you're projecting and/or straw-manning here, it's not simply stubborn adherence to abstract principal that causes people like myself to be wary of expanded government programs, particularly massive and invasive ones like state healthcare, but experience and logic. Aside from the cost, which is substantial, I'm much more concerned with the state having yet another lever of control over peoples lives, one particularly likely to be used by meddlesome busybodies who now feel they have a right to dictate behavior now that they have a financial stake in peoples health. Add in the new layers of bureaucracy and the massive and ever expanding constituency of state dependent voters that would be created, and I don't think I need to invoke any particular principals to justify my skittishness.



We understand that just fine, we just prioritize personal liberty over attempts to make life "fair". If I hire someone for a job that requires sight and they go blind, why is it my responsibility to continue to pay them for a task they can no longer perform? I wouldn't have hired a blind person for that job in the first place, why am I stuck with them now? Do you think people open businesses, at great personal risk and with no guarantee of success, in order to provide jobs for the disabled? Entrepreneurship is difficult enough as it is, why burden it further with a role better performed by the state?



That's positive liberty vs negative liberty stuff, and could occupy its own thread by itself. Personally, I happen to support quite a bit of positive liberty positions because I think they're efficient, but I'm still uncomfortable with it, as I don't like bringing coercive power to bear on others, even for what I think are good causes. Contrast that with the progressive zeal to bring the guns of others to bear on their enemies, and tell me which is the more "moral" path.



I don't think it's the sole end of most libertarians, but once you accept how little you actually know about everything and everyone, it seems extremely arrogant to try and impose your will on them regarding what is best for them. At heart, libertarianism is a path of humility, letting people act in what they believe to be their best interest with minimal interference, after accepting that we don't actually know what is best.

How is this a logical progression of the discussion? I invite you to retrace the thread and try harder. Much harder.

My initial point was that federal intervention in defense of civil rights doesn't meaningfully take rights away from others, except if you're of the mind that people should have the right to sh*t on other citizens who belong to groups they don't like. How is that difficult to understand? How is that indefensible?

Hardly. You used a vague assertion that because government intervention can be good, attacks on free speech and property are justified in general, then proceeded to move the goalposts - as you're continuing to do.



Wherein you claim your redefined position to be insurmountable.

Seriously, you're only wasting your own time.