Message from @halfthink
Discord ID: 522748675533963274
So far Murphy lost me at the very beginning given we can't even agree as a society on science. 😕
I'm still listening, though. I'm at weights and measures.
So far I'm 0/3 accepting his arguments...but still listening. 😃
Here's Hoppe's argument for ancapistan, if you want the edgy take. No audiobook for this.
https://mises.org/library/private-production-defense
My biggest issue with "private armies" has been made stark in France. Do you want soldiers caring only about the Dollar (or Euro), possibly not even being your own countrymen? Or do you want soldiers who are your countrymen and just may reject illegal orders and stand with the people when smelly stuff hits spinning blades?
Bit hard to make that decision if you don't have a free market. As if anyone would pay for security from a firm that didn't hire locally.
As far as what Murphy is talking about, I want power with the people not the Dollar. Government is run on the principle of human beings each with one vote. Privatization gives those with money more power. Right now that only happens when people allow their votes to be swayed by money, but each person still has that vote.
Mercenaries have existed throughout history
I'm not fond of them
I don't exactly disagree with him about how we currently criminalize people through laws and radicalize them in prisions
*>I want power with the people not the Dollar.*
Is it now? Is it people's votes that get swayed by money or is it the politicians who get swayed?
That said, we've seen a lot of abuse with private prisons. I like his vision but I don't like the practice I've seen
People choose to vote for bought politicians. That's their choice.
Mr Murphy has a lot more faith in humanity than I do
I look to government to protect me from humanity's baser instincts
Government is humanity's basest instinct.
There is where we disagree
Do you agree with the principle that government should have a monopoly on violence?
The voters have a monopoly on violence. The voters deputize the government to act to maintain their will. We as voters collectively accept restrictions on our monopoly through a Constitution which exists to limit our power.
Collective action is a spook
Has the constitution done a good job limiting the power of government?
It's works for well over two centuries insofar as collectively accepting Constitutional government
We're flawed humans and or government is flawed as we are. But overall, yes.
There have been a lot of failings along the way, and even currently
But yes, we still have a Constitutional government
The fact we (more or less) calmly handed power from Obama to Trump is proof of the beauty of our system.
And the fact two or six years from now we will (more or less) calmly hand power to someone else, possibly as antithetical to Trump as Obama is amazing.
The swamp is undrainable, there was no danger there.
We are well past the possibility of top down reform
You call it a swamp. I call it the greatest achievement of mankind.
Warts and all
And God knows there are a LOT of warts
The administrative state is what is meant by the swamp
I disagree
Or if it is, then we agree we have problems
The Administrative State as it exists now is almost antithetical to Constitutional Government
Constitutional Government is about limits - diffusion of authority. The administrative state is about aggregation of authority.
```"Nothing is more misleading, then, than the conventional formulae of historians who represent the achievement of a powerful state as the culmination of cultural evolution: it as often marked its end. In this respect students of early history were overly impressed and greatly misled by monuments and documents left by the holders of political power, whereas the true builders of the extended order, who as often as not created the wealth that made the monuments possible, left less tangible and ostentatious testimonies to their achievement."
-Hayek.```
I agree with Hayek.
Monarchies were more accountable to the people, because you only needed to chop off one head.