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.
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.