Do you consider the United States to be the pinnacle of human freedom, so far?
Do you accept the narrative that the founders were driven by an inherently ancap impulse, and did their level best to restrain the leviathan?
Obviously, the system isn't perfect, people have been undermining restraints on government since before the ink was dry on the bill of rights.
If the US Constitution is the best attempt so far at curbing tyranny, should we undermine that system before we have an operational, viable alternative that provides more liberty?
If the US government were to collapse right now (more plausible than I thought it would be in my lifetime), do you believe that your neighbors are ready to institute something more moral, or are their authoritarian impulses running hot?
I don't believe Donald Trump can coherently articulate a principled line between moral and immoral use of force (or government). However, he was willing to stand up and call out the unbelievable manipulation and dishonesty of the political and media classes, and in so doing, revealed that our traditional safeguards on what liberty we have are crumbling.
Should an ancap work to shore up what we have here until we have a viable plan to create something better?
I'm familiar with the "let it burn" impulse, but I have children. We are currently living in the greatest period of peace and prosperity in human history. Must of us cannot even fathom what life would be like if we collapse the institutions that allow that. There will be blood. And it won't all come leaking out of people you don't like.
Discuss.
Addressing your final paragraph regarding us living in the greatest period of peace and prosperity in human history: we are not in peacetime. There is a covert war that has been raging for awhile now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
Here is a Wikipedia article talking about "unrestricted warfare", a new type of warfare developed by China that utilizes unconventional methods instead of the traditional boots on the ground approach. We are slowly starting to see the fruits of their labor.
A man who does a great job at explaining unrestricted warfare and what is likely happening today within that context is a man named Jeffrey Prather. His website is jeffreyprather.com. Check out some of his podcasts some time if you're interested!
Thanks!
My libertarian tendencies blinded me for a long time to the danger of China. You know, economic studies showing that free trade, even with a trade partner "cheating" is the best policy.
That's true, if the trade is solely about economic exchange...
But that's not how China conducts trade. It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand that.
I hate almost everything about you people. Your presence on .win is oddly comforting though. Speech you dont agree with is the speech that needs to be protected, and i am glad you have a space to do that not subject to corporate overlords who can uproot you without justification. No im not gonna lurk your threads, i just saw the new community and was wondering what it was. Ill be off now.
This is the best answer I've heard or thought of so far...
But I'm left wishing there was more we could do to help our society move in a more moral and sustainable direction.
It's somewhat unsatisfying to think that there are dark days ahead for people I respect and care about, but the best I can do is prepare to protect my family. I guess I'm just a human, and should accept my limitations realistically.
Failure to accept that we can't control everything is one of the primary causes of the statist disease.
Also, you're right, the articles of confederation do seem to have been better. I haven't studied the subject much beyond what I read in my public school textbooks (I was the nerd who would have actually read and thought a little about what they said).
That's something I should learn more about, as a lesson about how people react to newfound freedom, and how they might react to a new society founded on such principles, if nothing else.
Not the pinnacle, but as close as modern society has ever gotten to true freedom.
The founders were driven by the will to create retaliatory tariffs, but knew that such governments could easily become tyrannical, so put in a constitution to try and protect against that.
Well, the constitution has had a good run, but it's pretty obvious that it is failing now.
Neighbors probably won't be a problem. Part of the issue is that Washington DC is so isolated from the real world and real people.
Trump can't fix it, the problem wasn't leadership, it is structural.
I don't think we have a choice either way. The system is failing rapidly, with or without our help.
I am glad too; the damn coding on reddit is trash and my reddit reader apps either crash or don’t work properly. I’ll be here more often now.
I do think the founders were a lot closer to ancaps than to the liberals or even moderates of today who constantly like to say “well if the founding fathers were alive today” before they say something about how guns should be crazily restricted.
I agree that we Americans are living in a time of peace and prosperity but that is only here. Meanwhile we are at war in many other places all the time and we don’t even have to declare war in Congress anymore. Wars move more quickly today and perhaps that wouldn’t even be possible so I don’t really have a solution for that outside isolationism.
I personally do not think that any of our mega institutions of government are going to fall, fail, or be torn down anytime soon. I’m not saying it’s impossible but it does not seem likely. Personally I always vote libertarian and I will always vote against propositions that expand the government and increase taxes or decrease liberty. That’s all I can do.
i honestly think the US sucks at freedom nowadays. The US is a corporation owned by foreign interests like china, the vatican & so on. Has been since Grant, gotten worse under Wilson & FDR, then under Johnson.
join the Libertarian Party Mises Caucus group on Facebook or MeWe
The reddit page isn't ancap anymore its just republican2
That is an old thread...
I believe that.
I also haven't been hanging out here lately.
In fact, when I tried to view that post, it failed to load for me, 3 times, before I gave up and just replied directly from my inbox...
I can't seem to pull up the ancap .win...
Is there anything going on there these days?
Not much, everything's getting worse for those who want to be left alone, online and offline, what is life if you can't speak your mind? Nothing, which I plan to leave earth soon if shit doesn't change
It's been a rough stretch.
That's for sure.
I speak my mind on patriots.win pretty freely.
While I am occasionally ridiculed as a silly, naive libertarian, I've found that a well reasoned response based on the principles of Liberty is usually pretty well received. More frequently than not, authoritarian anti liberty bullshit loses the comment voting battle when I lay out fundamental principles for people.
I don't get into the notion of fully abolishing the modern concept of state monopoly of force very often, though.
I occasionally bump into folks there who smell like ancaps...
It felt a little "dirty" at first to cooperate with people who's goal isn't true freedom in the way that I understand it.
But the goal that MAGA pedes are pursuing seems way closer to freedom than we are now. And the MAGA movement is the first I've seen during my adult life that appears to have the strength and fortitude to actually turn around the direction we've been headed.
It feels good to join in the fight with a team that is actually positively affecting the status of our fundamental rights, even if we don't agree 100% on exactly which rights are the end goal.
Or, maybe that makes me a duplicitous pussy who doesn't adequately defend his beliefs...
It's just the best thing I've been able to figure out to do to advance the cause of fundamental human rights and dignity.
Anything you want to talk about?