Ah yeah, I know the 3x5 reference is in his show intro, maybe I can track down a good explanation of that. Thanks for the suggestions.
I’ll hunt down some Schiff quotes as well.
Thanks for the feedback, and yeah I could see how this approach might be repulsive.
But if someone is totally convict the evil of free trade maybe this has some potential to shock them into thinking differently?
Idk, just felt like elevating the discourse.
I do have some Ron Paul quotes in my collection and one or two Woods quotes. No Schiff quotes though.
Any specific ones you’d like to share?
Irwin Schiff is a great example of the violence inherent in taxation.
Still up for me.
I am excited to see a more general platform committed to free speech.
Yeah there are some really offensive communities, but that's to be expected with a true commitment to free speech.
Oh wow thanks, didn't realize you were here.
It’s worse than this.
They don’t want the bottle caps, they want a cut of what what the bottle caps and bartered items are worth assessed and paid in Federal Reserve Notes.
This creates the base underlying demand for a currency that would otherwise be worthless and allows them to steal even more value from the people by printing as much as they deem necessary.
All ancaps are libertarian, but not all libertarians are ancaps.
Ancaps (also known as Voluntaryists) advocate for the total abolition of State coercion. In general they do not advocate for the specific form a replacement of State services will take, only that they be based on voluntary agreements and non-coercive.
Some have attempted to describe how markets would approach this problem though and it usually takes the form of competing insurance agencies. This concept is known as polycentric law.
These are good overviews of this idea:
https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Market%20for%20Liberty_2.pdf
https://mises.org/library/law-without-state
For a more complete vision of how a voluntary society could provide these services check out David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom"
https://archive.org/download/TheMachineryOfFreedom/untitled.pdf
Ancaps are generally only concerned with negative liberty.
The rothbardian tradition asserts that all rights are effectively property rights, and liberty can be achieved by eliminating intrusions into property rights.
The problem with the idea of positive liberty is that it almost if not always requires imposing upon some individual's rights (in terms of negative liberty and/or property rights)
Some highlights
The very goal of an all-voluntary society suggests its own means. The attempt to use governmental or political processes to reform or abolish the evils of coercion is not a voluntaryist means because it rests on coercion. The distinguishing marks of voluntaryism — that it is at once both nonviolent and non-electoral in its efforts to convince people to voluntarily abandon the State — set it apart from all other methods of social change. The voluntaryist insight into the nature of political power does not permit people to violently overthrow their government or even use the electoral process to change it, but rather points out that if they shall withdraw their cooperation from the system, it will no longer be able to function or enforce its will.
...
Voluntaryists have a clear understanding of the nature of power (what they call “the voluntaryist insight”) — that all governments and human institutions depend on the consent and cooperation of its victims. A person who harbors the voluntaryist spirit understands that he or she cannot be compelled to do anything against his or her will. Such a person may suffer the consequences of holding to his or her belief, but as Corbett Bishop, a World War II conscientious objector who fasted for over 400 days in government prisons and hospitals, pointed out: Governments know that they can terrorize individuals into submitting to tyranny by grabbing the body as hostage and thus hoping to destroy the spirit (of conscience and resistance within the individual). But if one repudiates the body and will have nothing to do with it, the spirit remains free. This is the essence of total non-cooperation with one’s oppressors. The voluntaryist spirit also reminds us of the stoics “who were different from others” in refusing to allow pain to disturb the equanimity of their minds and the exercise of their reason.
...
The truth is something to be done, not just something to be believed. The true secret of freedom is the courage to resist. “No one ever remains free who acquiesces in what they know to be wrong.” In the context of the voluntaryist critique of the State, disobedience to invasive laws is the greatest virtue.
It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and the voluntaryist realizes that only by beginning the long-term efforts to deligitimize the State can any progress be made toward his or her goal. As futile as a single step may seem, it is only by taking that very first step that the journey towards voluntaryism can be started. Those who are moved by the voluntaryist spirit realize that they must do everything humanly possible to move towards their goal. People may not feel they have done everything they can do until they have tried to do it.
I've not heard Hoppe speak specifically on crypto either way but I wouldn't be surprised.
The idea of hard money as gold/metals is hard to shake and I can't really blame people for having trouble believing in crypto as an alternative given the much longer track record of metals.
Coercion does not convince, nor is it any kind of argument. William Godwin pointed out that force “is contrary to the nature of the intellect, which cannot but be improved by conviction and persuasion,” and “if he who employs coercion against me could mold me to his purposes by argument, no doubt, he would.. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because he is weak.” Violence contains none of the energies that enhance a civilized human society. At best, it is only capable of expanding the material existence of a few individuals, while narrowing the opportunities of most others.
― Carl Watner
Our best bet is to do what we can to instill a quasi-religious fervor for freedom as the source of America’s greatness.
There is a lot of love and respect for Ron Paul here and that keeps the hope alive for me.
I'd argue it's still immoral, but likely to be to have less negative impact on economic incentives than other forms of taxation.
Also it has less potential to be abused as a means of controlling/directing people.
The State is an inherently illegitimate institution of organized aggression, of organized and regularized crime against the persons and properties of its subjects… a profoundly antisocial institution which lives parasitically off of the productive activities of private citizens.
― Murray N. Rothbard
The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods.
― H.L. Mencken
r/goldandblack is the only decent ancap sub left on reddit.
Let's assume that it isn't. (The arguments that it would are more complicated than I can get into in a comment, I recommend reading "Chaos Theory" by Lew Rockwell for a brief introduction to the concepts of polycentric law)
Will there be more or less slavery than exists now in America's prison system?
The market is quite adept at making inefficient or annoying things more efficient and less annoying.
EZ Pass tolls exist, as do in-car breathalyzer systems. It's pretty easy to imagine connecting the two to automate such checks.
You don't get there until enough people are convinced that the idea of rule by government is illegitimate, otherwise you only have a minority willing to fight hamstrung by the prisoner dilemma.
For the success of liberty, the most vital condition is the desanctification, the delegitimation of government in the eyes of the public.
― Murray N. Rothbard
I just realized I posted the wrong video for this title (still great as all her videos are)
This was the video I meant to post:
Would be up to the owners of the roads you're using.
Alot of stories end up having libertarian themes if you examine them through such a lens. Ghostbusters is another example.
Thanks for the link, heard they did an interview and had been meaning to watch it.