Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Taxation is theft Message-ID: <744@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Wed, 11-Sep-85 17:38:03 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.744 Posted: Wed Sep 11 17:38:03 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 13-Sep-85 00:38:41 EDT References: <3551@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Distribution: na Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 133 In article <3551@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes: > > to refute Josh's fallacious claims that taxation is theft. > > Mike's long long reply to my long reply to his original letter consists > mostly of repeating what he said the first time, so I'll spare everyone > of re-repeating the carefully documented and outrageously witty refutations > I made then. If I repeated myself, it's only because your so-called "refutations" showed your attention span to be fewer than 5 lines. In addition I made counter arguments, which you seem to hope will go away if you ignore them. > Instead, this opening note pretty well sums up Mike's > position and methodology, so let's examine it more carefully: Oh yes. Let's look at yours too. > He adopts his own "interpretation" of libertarianism. Oh, and of course your interpretation is the one, true, writ in stone, correct interpretation. Sorry, oh great arbiter of libertarianism, but your opinion does not designate true libertarianism. If you wish to say that something isn't libertarianism, then you will need to convince us of that by argument, not fiat. > This makes it > fairly easy to refute; he could, for example, adopt the interpretation > that "libertarianism really means Marxism" and go on to prove that it > was a very bad thing. And this is just about what he does. Is your interpretation "libertarianism is nirvana"? That would make it very easy to "prove" that it is a very good thing. Neither of us believes either extreme: my major interest is how big are the warts on libertarianism. We already can see the warts on democracy, capitalism, etc., because they are extant systems. > No matter > what a libertarian says, or proves, or shows, Mike replies "What you > really meant was thus-and-so." If we say no, he misunderstood, > he replies, > > I understand the libertarian point of view well enough > >to recognize that they quote their "principles" where convenient but forget > >about them where inconvenient to their self-serving goals. Shameless citation out of context here. I was answering your accusation that I had no interest in understanding libertarianism. You complain in the first paragraph or two that my responses are long: it's because I include the context, in the order written. > All that you understand, Mike, are your own fantastic interpretations. > I think the part about forgetting principles and self-serving goals > are projection on your part. Think what you like. If you expect us to believe you, you need to make an argument, not an ad-hominem attack. I followed my accusation with the example of taxes as a contract, which you had rejected without a libertarian rationale. > The rest of the opening note is Mike's "interpretation": > > > I claim that a "social contract" is a valid libertarian-style contract.] > > Let me put it to you as simply as possible: If you think the relationship > between citizen and State is the same as a the libertarian concept of a > contract, you do not understand libertarianism at all. Attacking a straw > man constructed of your own "interpretations" is merely time wasted. Do you seriously expect us all to take this on your mere authority? Where is your argument? > If you want to make valid, cogent criticisms of libertarian thought > (and mistake me not, such criticisms are possible), you first have to > build an exegesis of libertarianism WITH WHICH A LIBERTARIAN WOULD > AGREE; and only then, when you have demonstrated that you are talking > about the same thing, show the problems, the inconsistencies, and > whatever else is wrong with it. Pompous twaddle. First, I need say nothing that a libertarian would agree with to make a valid criticism of libertarian thought: I could simply go through some example of libertarian thought and pick out a fallacy of logic or argument. Second, how the hell do you know that no libertarian would agree with my interpretation? Or are you going to cry "heretic" and excommunicate him from the ranks of libertarians and thus retain ideological purity? You'll quickly enter a "are Catholics Christian" argument. > >> > You are free to remain within or > >> >leave the social contract agreed to by you by your residency in the US. > > >> Please note the implicit assumption that some condition into which > >> you were born is considered equivalent to your signing a contract. > > >... You can come and go as you will. So why isn't the social > >contract entirely voluntary? > > Suppose I begin spitting on you. You are free to walk away at will. > Does that mean that the relationship of spitter-spittee was therefore > a valid contract? Your "interpretation" not only has nothing to do > with libertarian thought, but is nonsensical. Your analogy is incomplete. What is the exchange of services that is comparable to taxes for defense, social work, law enforcement, etc? With an incomplete and thus incorrect analogy, I'm not surprised that you perceive nonsense: but it's in your own rhetoric. > >> I *dare* you to consider--just exercise your imagination, and think > >> of a world where changing your government were as easy as changing > >> your grocer. > > > >Guess what: we already have most of that. I've seen quite a number of > >reports from many sources evaluating the relative merits of the 50 states > >(and numerous nations) in all the categories above. Moving between > >states is as effortless as you wish. > > The point is *exactly* that it is *not* as effortless as I wish. Can't > you even *conceive* of the idea of changing providers of government > services without being forced to change all of the other arrangements > of your life? You already have that opportunity: there isn't a single government service that you cannot buy on the market today. Private defense, police, schools, medicine, insurance, arbitrartion, anything you want. All it costs is more money, like private schools. > I really wish you would quit holding up these inane ideas of the > "social contract" and calling them libertarianism. But even more I > wish you could understand the real thing. A gross misrepresentation. Social contracts aren't libertarianism: they are consistent within it. But even more, I'm glad the "real thing" doesn't exist. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh