@VoodooV: "where he attacked the other guy"

Wasn't like the other guy wasn't on the attack. That being said, I don't personally agree with how he handled this, but I did find it amusing. Also, it's not like he was wrong in any of his points. Attack the substance of his argument.

@newtboy: "I WAS libertarian before the Teabaggers insanity infected them and they became the party of NO government."

Hmmmmmm. Seems specious. Are you talking about the Libertarian Party? Or the Republican Party, which is where the Tea Party's political affiliations are aligned? Because you do realize there's a different between small "l" libertarians, which is the political philosophy, and big "L" Libertarians, which is the party... and Tea Partiers, which are Republicans.


"The owners of corporations may derive some legal shielding thanks to their relationship with government and/or the law regarding who/what is legally responsible for who/what's actions, they are not creations of it in the way he insists."

Some legal shielding? Which of these corporate protections offered and legitimized by the government is "some" of the shielding? Is it the limited liability, wherein BP was able to cause billions of dollars in damage, but because US law protects corporate liability, they only had to pay in the hundred of millions? Or the corporate tax loopholes? Or the corporate welfare they receive in taxpayer subsidies? Or how too-big-to-fail corps have their loses socialized by us, and their wins privatized?

Because that seems more than just "some legal shielding."

Also, mail is a government monopoly. One of many, like roads. It's illegal to offer privately delivered first class mail in the States. Man, statists just keep setting them up and I keep knocking them down. Tell me more about these wonderful perks in statist land.

You don't think the roads we have now aren't toll roads? Every gallon of gas you buy has an excise tax on it that pays into the highway trust fund.

Also, the reason why we don't have roads without government is because it's illegal.

And is it leaching off YOU if I'm forced to pay for those services. Hmmm. That's not very sound logic.

@newtboy: He's just plain idiotic. I'll bet many of his "points" come straight from Faux News...I'm pretty sure I've heard some of this insanity before.

Fox News? Really? You don't understand libertarianism at all, do you? Also, you and Voodoo should spend some time making substantive points instead of emotional arguments.

I always wonder how these people ignore the fact that, if their theory about 'self regulating business' was true, it would work that way now. It's because industries repeatedly and consistently DIDN'T regulate themselves and thrived on the public ignorance of their actions that regulations were enacted in the first place. DUH.

Again, more appeals to emotion. That aside, I've heard this argument often from statists. The truth is they tend to forget things like regulatory capture and the sheer number of regulations on the books that create barriers to industry for those without significant capital to compete. These are all unfair advantages the government gives the rich and connected.

Also, I'm not sure if the two of you were asleep when he mentioned that corporations are fictitious entities given legitimacy by the government, and shields the rich from liability? That didn't happen because of unregulated markets.

@VoodooV: "Every one of these youtube crusaders are comfortably enjoying the perks of a system they despise."

What perks? Like roads and firemen? You know, it's not like we couldn't have those things without government. And those kinds of services are only a small portion of the federal budget. In fact, from all the excise taxes collected on gasoline, tobacco and alcohol, they'd cover the roads completely, which costs around $60 billion annually. In fact, things like the EPA, Dept. of Trans, NASA, Dept. of Edu, all cost less than the revenue the federal government categorizes as "other." Look it up: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals

So what about all the wars and militarism? Is that, too, a perk? And the prison industrial complex that locks up 1% of our population? What are these perks you speak of?

Even Ayn Rand took gov't assistance.

I love it when statists bring this up. I personally am not an Objectivist, and find lots of flaws with their ideology, but this is a cheap blow. Obviously it shows the economic illiteracy of most statists. For one, she's forced to pay into social security, so therefore why shouldn't she receive some of it back? And second, if you spend more than a couple seconds reading about U.S. monetary policy, you'd know that the purchasing power of the dollar is reduced over time due to inflation, and hence savings are always impacted. This should alarm you instead of excite you.

The whole thing is infested with logical fallacies: false equivalencies, ad homs, strawmen, and even a no true scotsman thrown in for shits and giggles.

By all means don't take any time to point out which things he said were these things. No, that'd be helpful, and we wouldn't want to cloudy any appeals to emotion with pesky things like fact and well thought out rebuttals.

they spend all this time criticizing the problems of gov't and NEVER ONCE demonstrate how it would work without these systems.

I think there are plenty who do. It's just that statists don't accept those answers, or any answers that don't emulate the current status quo systems they're accustomed to. I'm not interested in replacing public schools with another bureaucracy.

I am so envious.

NSFW for naughty language.

So decrees the Crown! No secession for anyone except within a monarchy!

What was that about hubris?

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Sure. But it makes it hard to take you seriously when you cite monarchical governments as examples of ways to do things better in the States, is all. And further sillier to claim somehow Scotland has a right to secession while, say, Texas does not.

Just making sure we shine a light on intellectual dishonesty, is all.

So Monarchies are oppressive? Hmmm. Interesting. Got it.

But doesn't Norway also have a Monarchy? And in this comment, didn't you extoll the values of their nationalized and socialized industries? Would you not then also give a pass to Norway's people who might reject that form of government and feel the need to secede? Same for Denmark, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, the UK, and most of the civilized Western world for that matter?

I love how my Democratic friends are for secession in Europe, but against it at home.

Terrible President. Terrible. Awful. But we all knew this, didn't we? Oh no, that's right, some of us didn't, and the rest of us tried to warn you, but you didn't believe us. In other news, crow is fucking delicious.