Debate with a libertarian in denial

By Zeus’ golden rain! Can anyone explain to me why I recently seem to attract all the crusaders of capitalism? It seems like every other post I make I’m battling with Objectivists, libertarians, anarcho-capitalists and the like. Did someone stick a “Ask me about Communism!” sticker on my back when I wasn’t looking? Fuck, I don’t even enjoy talking about this stuff.

So recently I’ve been having a lively discussion with a member of the Atheist Nexus who contated me via email and initiated a discussion by innocuously asking me some basic questions on freedoms (such as if I support ban on smoking or drugs). The nature of the questions was somehow suspicious as I’ve been very clear generally on my support for personal freedoms in the fora but I decided to answer anyway.

As I expected, soon enough the questions turned to accusations of me not allowing the same freedom for economy that I allow to persons and that somehow makes me a hypocrite and a “moral facist” ¹ and things only started getting downhill from there…

The main gist of Oolon’s “I’m not a libertarian” Colluphid was that absolutely unregulated freedom is the best thing that can ev4r happen. All my arguments were either equivocated or handwaved away as irrelevant or inconsequential.

• Positive Freedom? There’s no such thing. It’s “entitlement” and you’re stealing money to achieve it
• Wage Slavery? It’s not that. You always have a choice to switch jobs and just because you’re unhappy with your work it does not mean that you’re entitled to something better.
• Tragedy of the commons? It’s not really a problem and besides, Capitalism can deal with it…somehow.
• Hard working people being impoverished? Impossible! They’re just lazy. Prove it to me otherwise!
• Inequality? This will never change so we might as well look to ourselves.(why is this such a favorite response from capitalists?)

Generally the classic libertarian lollipop where the pertaining notion is that Free Market knows best and all concerns to the contrary are trivialized. I even had my example of one getting a work that exploits them because of desperation, compared to…taking out the garbage!

This is precisely the reason why I don’t enjoy these debates. Whenever I state my arguments, people seem to enjoy jumping on their high horse and calling me an authoritarian. I am accused of not understanding the “human nature” (which will of course, never-ever change) without them ever recognising that, without this “human nature” changing, their system is even worse.

For my part, I generally agree with Ebonmuse’s “Why I’m not a libertarian” series from which I often take many of the arguments whenever I’m faced with these discussions. I also have a few other arguments that Ebonmuse did not tackle, such as the possibility for monopolies to form in a libertarian environment (which another A|N member believes are only formed because of goverment intervention, as silly as that sounds).

In general this email debate covered all the bases: Poor people are lazy, I misunderstand economics, I am a moral fascist, capitalism is a natural as evolution etc.
It also touched on two issues I would like to tackle:

At some point in our discussion Oolon revealed his favorable future

Db0:
There’s no two ways about it. Either we follow the majority’s economic “ideals” or we follow the minority’s. I don’t see why it should be the later.

False dichotomy. We can let the government set back, enforce basic laws and let society for itself. Nothing it stopping you from forming a commune and living a socialist lifestyle in my capitalist country however in a socialist country I can’t own and operate a private business

Why is forming a commune perfectly fine but if that commune becomes large enough to include the whole nation that is not fine? If a capitalist does not want to live in a commune he does not have to get in it, but if the majority of people in a country want to form a commune, they somehow can’t? What if that commune I form grows so much as to include all other citizens of the country? Wouldn’t that be the same thing?
Oolon, is not about allowing freedom, he is all about getting his own way. If somehow all other humans on the planet wanted to live in a grand planet-wide commune, then Oolon would feel that he is being oppressed.

That is, unfortunately, a classic sentiment I’ve seen libertarian express (which I’m just certain, Oolon isn’t). It should be either their way or nothing at all - and this is why I am always left with the impression that they’re just spoiled brats…

However Oolon has another conflict that he may have perhaps not noticed. He is supporting enironmental protections (and government checks on corporations to that end) and he’s also for Government protection. However I could very well use the same arguments he does, in order to argue against these concepts too:
Why should I pay for you protection Oolon? Why can’t I use my hard earned money to buy my own protection that would better serve me? Why should you be entitled to protection? Why do you want to curtail my freedom to build and use whatever I want? A coal plant will save me more money than a wind pylon.

Of course the obvious conflicts of supporting some socialistic policies (environmental and protection) because of the good consequences they will have, while on the other hand opposing others (like universal heathcare) is the classic schizophrenic nature of the right-libertarian beast. They subconsciously realize that common goals have a net benefit for everyone but are utterly incapable of seeing that it’s the same exact concept for the rest.

Unfortunately, once again, I find out that there is little point in having a conversation like these. Sooner or later we reach some fundamental difference in concepts and it then becomes a shouting match. And I have neither the time nor the inclination to participate.

The Beginning of the end or the end of a beginning?

Apparently back in my homecountry, Greece, people have been finally waking up to the blogging phenomenon and as with anything new, the knee-jerk reaction is starting.

What is happening is that the anonymous blog Press-gr which has been publishing various inside stories for a while has finally drawn enough ire (and lawsuits) that the Greek goverment has mobilized to reveal who the anonymous bloggers behind it are. Apparently, they managed to track down an “author” of the blog by revealing ip addresses from his ISP. Nevermind that this is ridiculous as, without knowing from which IP addresses the authors used to connect to press-gr (which they can only get from Google) they might as well be catching any regular reader (Although without knowing the specifics of the investigation, I guess I could be wrong but I don’t see how unless they set up illegal packet sniffers).

In any case, I was reading Press-gr in the beggining, when the information seemed genuine, but when it started posting any BS that came to their hands, even things posted by anonymous commenters or obvious political propaganda, I decided to call it quits. It was just getting too unreliable (as well as being suspicious due to the amount of adverising) as far as accurate information ios concerned, not to mention annoying as the commentspam was ridiculous - A clear example that freedom of speech does not equal freedom to spam.

So what happened now is that various famous personalities of Greece are claiming that they were blackmailed from the authors of Press-gr and were threatened with defamation. Now, ignoring the fact that groundless defamation from an anonymous blog who’s quality is arguable by most sceptics, is not going to do much damage, the blackmailed people have gone public and are asking for goverment intervention. I’m actually wondering if those fighting back against an anonymous posting have ever heard of the Streisand effect

The most scary thing of all, of course, is that the goverment is now considering putting limits on free speech. This is exactly what the big media companies (and Televangelist/Telemarketers) want. Specifically, they are going to request people that blog about “informative issues” remain eponymous. If they still wish to remain anonymous then it will be much easier for the goverment to violate their rights and find out who they are.

Seeing how backwards the Greek goverment has been until now as regards to digital rights, then it’s fairly certain that things will move towards the worse case scenario. I just hope that more people will start using wikileaks which the Greek goverment cannot touch and also has a much higher standard

Generally speaking, after being sent a cease and desist myself for supposedly defaming my previous employer (although no details were given other than the scary lawyer email), I’m seeing a larger interest in the blogosphere from all the people that are set to have their skeletons drawn out of the closet.

Truly, there is nothing more that these slimy worms fear than the unedited light of truth. Blogs and the internet are the only thing they cannot control and all their secrets are finally slipping through their fingers. Don’t let them take it away from you people.

• Discuss
• Fight Back
• Anonymize yourselves
• Cooperate

Sometimes I’m really glad I escaped Greece…

Just doing my share

Wikileaks

Here’s why 

And you thought American privacy violations were bad…

According to a law passed by the German parties CDU, CSU and SPD, from 2008 on it will be possible to trace who has contacted whom via telephone, mobile phone or e-mail for a period of six months.

— Anonymising services will be prohibited. —

This is a really frightening prospect. However many organizations are already working on getting this up to the Supreme Court so hopefully it will receive a negative ruling.

Spread the word!

read more | digg story

Piratbyrån

Here is the main reason why people should know about and (hopefully) support the Pirate Party.

I’ve already set up a €5 donation per month just because this is a movement that deserves traction. Our personal freedoms are much more important than the bottom line of corporations who have a shady history of dealings (Payola, hacking etc).

Especially when we get to the point of pressuring the goverment to pass laws, only for the benefit of big corporations, to the detriment of the freedom and creativity of everyone else, then we really have an issue.

Now, can someone point me to the Greek and German Pirate parties?