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Republican

5 (6%)

Democrat

8 (9.5%)

Libertarian

11 (13.1%)

Undecided/Independent

38 (45.2%)

Other (Anarchist, Communist, Green, ect.)

22 (26.2%)

Total Members Voted: 84

[Bohandas]

I'm thinking of moving to Belgium...

[Montague]

A minarchist government would basically just exist to protect property and basic human rights.

I think one of the major benefits of a situation like this would be the fact that their couldn't be any corporations, either, with this sort of limited government role system. That sort of government meddling in the private sector is exactly the sort of shit that leads to the problems.

This is true, although for some reason I can't quite imagine how businesses would form and function without a legal framework giving them legitimacy within government courts. I suppose they could be managed, ran and made into any model they felt like but I'm really not sure how their legal status could be determined when it came time to sue, file patents, make copyrights, pay bills, create enforceable contracts or anything else.

They'd have to be held accountable by government courts or you'd have nothing but fake businesses doing nothing but fraud.

[Aqizzar]

I'm thinking of moving to Belgium...

Reminds me of that weird poll thing from a few days ago.  Some ad company asked 30,000 people around the world to rank countries from most to least cool, America is the coolest, Belgium the least.  Go fig.

Radical, Utopian, crazy-people political philosophy is supposed to be inviolably logically consistent, its why its oddly convincing if you don't scrutinize the realities or underlying ideas of it too much.

I don't know why this seems like such an amazing statement to me, but that's a succinct way of putting it.  The more fine detail you add to your governance, the less logically consistent it becomes, which I've been trying to point out to people for years, but never really knew how to put it.

[GlyphGryph]

They'd have to be held accountable by government courts or you'd have nothing but fake businesses doing nothing but fraud.

Well, the standard alternative to incorporation is proprietorship/partnership. The obvious legal solution is everyone involved with the company is liable in proportion to their involvement with whatever went wrong.

Suddenly, crime looks a lot less appealing.

I assume most contracts would be made between, you know, two actual people involved with the company, rather than a pretend person who can disappear and bail on all their contracts with no repercussions.

when it came time to sue, file patents, make copyrights, pay bills, create enforceable contracts or anything else.

Woah, woah, hey now. Where does a "minarchist" government get off pulling most of that shit, anyway? I thought we wanted a free market here, and handing out government enforced monopolies like candy doesn't sound like a free market at all. I mean, you can probably pull out contracts as obviously supportable, and lawsuits as questionably supportable, but getting involved in patents/copyrights/bill payments? That's not the government's job in any minarchist system I've ever heard of, as government enforced monopolies seem rather contrary to the entire point.

[Andrew425]

I think generally I am a libertarian, or socially liberal, fiscally conservative

[Montague]

Radical, Utopian, crazy-people political philosophy is supposed to be inviolably logically consistent, its why its oddly convincing if you don't scrutinize the realities or underlying ideas of it too much.

I don't know why this seems like such an amazing statement to me, but that's a succinct way of putting it.  The more fine detail you add to your governance, the less logically consistent it becomes, which I've been trying to point out to people for years, but never really knew how to put it.

Our current system certainly produces some bizarre inconsistency. The federal government bailed out several huge banks by loaning out billions of dollars, which many have repaid and now the gov't is suing these same firms for starting the financial crisis it bailed them out of in the first place.

Well, the standard alternative to incorporation is proprietorship/partnership. The obvious legal solution is everyone involved with the company is liable in proportion to their involvement with whatever went wrong.

Suddenly, crime looks a lot less appealing.

I assume most contracts would be made between, you know, two actual people involved with the company, rather than a pretend person who can disappear and bail on all their contracts with no repercussions.

As for legal framework setting liability and all, the "corporations are people too" law is really just there to simplify the legal proceedings and to make trials and civil suits shorter. Otherwise imagine trying to track down and drag in 5000 defendants from the CEO down to the warehouse clerk to determine their degree of responsibility if their crappy firm was sued for selling poison dog food to people or whatever. The government would take forever to settle claims without a good legal framework.

when it came time to sue, file patents, make copyrights, pay bills, create enforceable contracts or anything else.

Woah, woah, hey now. Where does a "minarchist" government get off pulling most of that shit, anyway? I thought we wanted a free market here, and handing out government enforced monopolies like candy doesn't sound like a free market at all. I mean, you can probably pull out contracts as obviously supportable, and lawsuits as questionably supportable, but getting involved in patents/copyrights/bill payments? That's not the government's job in any minarchist system I've ever heard of, as government enforced monopolies seem rather contrary to the entire point.

The government's job is to protect property! Intellectual property included, which is where patents and copyrights must be enforced to maintain a free market. Intellectual property has to be protected from theft too. Can't just have innovative firms have their ideas stolen by crappy firms, otherwise there would be no market incentive to develop anything new and every firm would just copy off each other like they do in China.

[ECrownofFire]

They'd have to be held accountable by government courts or you'd have nothing but fake businesses doing nothing but fraud.

Well, the standard alternative to incorporation is proprietorship/partnership. The obvious legal solution is everyone involved with the company is liable in proportion to their involvement with whatever went wrong.

Suddenly, crime looks a lot less appealing.

I assume most contracts would be made between, you know, two actual people involved with the company, rather than a pretend person who can disappear and bail on all their contracts with no repercussions.

when it came time to sue, file patents, make copyrights, pay bills, create enforceable contracts or anything else.

Woah, woah, hey now. Where does a "minarchist" government get off pulling most of that shit, anyway? I thought we wanted a free market here, and handing out government enforced monopolies like candy doesn't sound like a free market at all. I mean, you can probably pull out contracts as obviously supportable, and lawsuits as questionably supportable, but getting involved in patents/copyrights/bill payments? That's not the government's job in any minarchist system I've ever heard of, as government enforced monopolies seem rather contrary to the entire point.

The government's job is to protect property! Intellectual property included, which is where patents and copyrights must be enforced to maintain a free market. Intellectual property has to be protected from theft too. Can't just have innovative firms have their ideas stolen by crappy firms, otherwise there would be no market incentive to develop anything new and every firm would just copy off each other like they do in China.

Never heard of a trade secret, have you?

Corporations get alone perfectly fine without patents. And because the way that patents are accessible to everyone means that a patent can actually cause MORE rip-offs of your product.

[GlyphGryph]

The government's job is to protect property! Intellectual property included, which is where patents and copyrights must be enforced to maintain a free market. Intellectual property has to be protected from theft too. Can't just have innovative firms have their ideas stolen by crappy firms, otherwise there would be no market incentive to develop anything new and every firm would just copy off each other like they do in China.

Look, its simple. Everybody starts with the right to make whatever they want. You're proposing thorough, heavy government regulation of the industry so that the vast bulk of companies and individuals can NOT make things. That's a violation of minarchist ideals at every conceivable level, and a jarring blow against every principle of the free market. Heck, it's not even one of those situations where the government is stepping in to deal with some sort of major negative externality that the market can't handle. If people want research and innovation, people will support them them with their dollars.

"Protecting Property" is fine, but throwing people in jail for making something people want, WITHOUT taking something from someone else or violating anyone else's rights? That's absurd. That's not protecting property, that's delibrately distorting the market to benefit certain players for tasks you personally agree with. Saying "You are legally bound not to create, with your own sweat and effort, something that you want, know you want, and know something else wants, under threat of violence" just... doesn't work with minarchist principles. Everyone is entitled to property and the products of their work - but if you give those away, for free or with the sale of another object, without any contract governing it's use, that's your own problem, not the governments. No one is going to take away your right to make the product, or your right to make copies - as such, your property rights are protected. But you don't get to own things that exist in other people's heads unless you've got an explicit agreement with them saying so.

[Pistolero]

Why do you think anyone would invest money into development knowing that everyone who wanted could then use their idea? Why do you imagine patent law was developed? Did it occur to you that for each law, someone saw a problem and sat down to resolve it? You can disagree with the solutions they developed, but you can't argue that providing no solution is a solution and handwave the problems away by saying they will fix themselves automagically.

Why are you ignoring the issues with taking power away from citizens by making their vote have less impact? Essentially you're arguing against democracy.

[GlyphGryph]

Sure, that's all true. But say "this law doesn't really involve even one of the government's limited duties, but makes society function a lot better...", well, you've just thrown the barn doors wide open. You're not a minarchist anymore. You've justified pretty much everything the government could end up doing as acceptable providing there's sufficient benefit to be gained from it for society.

You've become an "essentially-what-we-have-right-now-ist" who disagrees not on the role of government, but only on the implementation.

[Pistolero]

Sure, that's all true. But say "this law doesn't really involve even one of the government's limited duties, but makes society function a lot better...", well, you've just thrown the barn doors wide open. You're not a minarchist anymore. You've justified pretty much everything the government could end up doing as acceptable providing there's sufficient benefit to be gained from it for society.

You've become an "essentially-what-we-have-right-now-ist" who disagrees not on the role of government, but only on the implementation.

You pretty much nailed it, except I never was a minarchist. If I understand right, your argument is that we should avoid government doing anything even if it benefits us and makes society function a lot better? I'd love to hear your rationale.

[Eagle_eye]

EDIT: missed, pistolero's post somehow 

[Bauglir]

Sure, that's all true. But say "this law doesn't really involve even one of the government's limited duties, but makes society function a lot better...", well, you've just thrown the barn doors wide open. You're not a minarchist anymore. You've justified pretty much everything the government could end up doing as acceptable providing there's sufficient benefit to be gained from it for society.

You've become an "essentially-what-we-have-right-now-ist" who disagrees not on the role of government, but only on the implementation.

You pretty much nailed it, except I never was a minarchist. If I understand right, your argument is that we should avoid government doing anything even if it benefits us and makes society function a lot better? I'd love to hear your rationale.

If you are a minarchist who actually holds to principle.

[Pistolero]

If you are a minarchist who actually holds to principle.

So a minarchist is a minarchist because he is a minarchist? I understand that a minarchist thinks it is a good idea for government to do nothing, even if it would benefit us and make society function much better, I'm just wondering why anyone would subscribe to that principle.

[Bauglir]

No, a minarchist is a minarchist if they believe an ideal government does nothing, and only absolute necessities for maintaining a functioning one should be allowed to cause deviation from that ideal. Basically, if you're allowing stuff that violates your principles just because it helps people, you've endorsed the principles that allow people who like freedom to be socialists.