So, let me get this straight: Those of us who think LWM is a fake socialist talking out of his ass are to be dismissed with long discourses on libertarianism, regardless of whether we are, in fact, libertarians? That's pure genius, in an obsessive, retarded sort of way.

You are officially the dumbest person on this thread.

Dr. No!

Nice dissertation on libertarianism.

As if you'd know.

That has what to do with me?

Nothing. You are irrelevant. Even if you were a propertarian that would only make you more irrelevant than you already are.

My new definition of utopia: A world without annoying utopians.

Why shouldn't we adopt libertarian government now?

Because there are no working examples of libertarian cities, states, or nations.

Innumerable other ideologies have put their money where their mouths are, if not their lives. Examples include most nations that have had Marxist revolutions, Israel, many of the American colonies, a huge number of religious and utopian communities, etc.

Yet libertarians want us to risk what many of them consider the best nation in the world with their untested beliefs. It's not even sensible to convert here first for the claimed economic benefits of libertarianism: there would be less marginal benefit to converting the USA to a libertarian system than most other nations. Let libertarians bear the risk and cost of their own experiment.

Let libertarians point to successful libertarian programs to seek our endorsement. For example, narcotic decriminalization in the Netherlands has been a success. So has legalized prostitution in Nevada and Germany (and probably other places.) Privatization of some municipal services has been successful in some communities. But these are extremely small scale compared to the total libertarian agenda, and do not rule out emergent problems and instabilities of a full scale libertarian system.

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html#1800s

You clowns can't even get your act together "voluntarily" for this neoconfederate, crypto-secessionist Free State Project:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project

Maybe you should try some "intial coercion".

If you want to live in a functioning and thriving libertarian COMMUNITY, Try Fairhope, Alabama, or The Ardens, Delaware. But you might not like it. They are Georgists (collectivists to you).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairhope,_Alabama

Just please shut the hell up. You are driving us all crazy. Take no for an answer because the answer will always be no.

William, you have lived as long as I. Have you not seen both parties force their will upon the other side? -- bucky1

I have, and I don't approve. My disagreement with your position is its relentless hammering of history into a vast architecture of doom, with but one purpose, and one outcome. This requires a tremendous amount of intellectual energy better devoted, I think, to some more uplifting enterprise. It's also, as I say, reductionist, and leads to you to overlook the effect of mixed motives in human affairs; to withhold praise where it is due, and to assign blame without regard to circumstance.

Thus you stubbornly mistranslate a Chinese phrase, and in doing so, reduce Mao to a monstrosity without regard to what else he was, or what caused him to be that way. In the process, you abandon any possibility of understanding what happened in China, or what we might learn from it.

You've performed very similar magical -- and unjust -- operations on FDR, and LBJ, and as a matter of fact, on me as well. To what end, except to increase your own isolation? As I've said, I have no idea why, but I'm nevertheless convinced that the reasons aren't what you believe they are.

I'm actually sorry that this is so; I have no interest in challenging you in particular, but since I believe that what you refuse to consider is important, I think that it's legitimate, in a forum like this, to challenge your certainty about it.

You are so far off the mark you must be a Ron Paul supporter

Nice dissertation on libertarianism. That has what to do with me?

In Mao's case, he saw that there was government only, so political power equals government.

How do you know this? My guess is that you would like the quote to be "Government comes from the barrel of a gun" and will argue to try to make it the case. Why not just use it that way, and if people correct it, say you are taking literary license to make a point? Mao did not equate political power with government. So what? This also isn't China, where thoughts are somehow better if someone in the distant past said them.

not just for the poem, but for responding to that anon... I still don't think of myself as a geezer, but didn't like it anyway.

Your response was perfect.

Besides, political power == government. -- bucky1

Not so, bucky, manifestly not so. This is your fundamental error. We find ourselves on the same side in opposing American imperialism, which is a good thing. On the other hand, the monomania embodied in the above quote isn't widely shared for a good reason; it's reductionist, and virtually everyone recognizes it as such. You're not a bad guy, I think, but quite apart from your misreading of me, you seem determined, for reasons I can only guess at, to demand of history conclusions which it cannot support.

I suppose you'd feel more comfortable if I didn't guess at your reasons, but you've left me little choice.

Sorry, you are just plain wrong.

Governments many start as a brutal dictatorship after a military overthrow, and we would both agree that political power is government in that case.

In Mao's case, he saw that there was government only, so political power equals government.

But what about our own system? It started as a weak central government that lasted a mere nine years. The Articles of Confederation gave way to our Constitution. Then over time the central government has accumulated vast powers never given to it by the Constitution. We now stand on the edge on a neo-con totalitarian nightmare and you can not see that governments always abuse citizens when given enough power; and they always get enough to do so.

Consider democracy. It is the act of one group using raw force to coerce the rest to do as the first group desires. This is why federal elections are so important.

William, you have lived as long as I. Have you not seen both parties force their will upon the other side?