Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Brilliant move from Occupy Denver

Liberals worship the part of the state that steals from people (tax collectors and the politicians who drive them and the laws by which they are driven) and conservatives worship the part of the state that kills people (soldiers, policemen, military contractors, etc.).

Of the two, liberals are the more honest, because they admit that they want bigger government. Conservatives claim to want smaller government, but they only want part of the government to be smaller; they still want it to be big enough to impose their mores on their neighbors and the rest of the world. (To be fair, most conservatives seem to think that they really do want smaller government, and have not stopped to consider that a small government would not be able to invade two foreign countries at once or control what people put into their own bodies. Liberals are stupider than conservatives about economics, but conservatives appear to be stupider than liberals about reality.)

True enough. But you could just as easily have been talking about the Tea Party. Before they got co-opted and diluted into irrelevance by the political machine, they were pretty angry too, but they had no clear solution to any of the problems politicians had imposed on them other than electing more politicians.

Lots of people are angry at the government for a whole lot of conflicting reasons, but they seem unified in their conviction that the government isn't doing enough. Tea Party people want to see one set of laws passed, Occupy people want to see a different set passed, but both agree that more law-passing politicians would solve everything.

The upshot is that the government is still winning, for now. When we get a sizeable movement of people who just want government to go away, and couldn't care less who gets elected and who doesn't, as long as the people largely ignore whatever they say or do or decree, then we might have something.


Seriously? You've adopted the practice of calling government dissidents terrorists, regardless of what they do or don't do, as long as you disagree with them? You may be too far gone to save, then.

Kill them, you mean? Using police and/or soldiers, right?

In some areas, those LEOs are the only thing saving the OWS folks from severe azz kickings.....

George

If the majority can't use force to dispel the squatters what are their options? How would people in Barakistan deal with this? Just ignoring them would be a costly method if the merchants are depending on buyers to survive and the buyers refuse to shop due to the squatters?

I'm seriously asking what the solution is from a anarcho-capitalist's point of view. In my mind there's nothing wrong with martyrdom. I can't imagine these people would make good martyrs for a responsible society, though.

It's November 12th... Lets see how the winter of sub zero temps and OWS do... They will be back in the spring and push it until the cites are on fire... Then they will make the rounds on the late night talk shows... After that the fawning news media will cover each time one of the ows people run for office with trumpets blaring if one wins coupled with defining silence when they lose...

What you say would be true if you substituted neoconservative for conservative. Just because most neocons insist on identifying themselves as conservatives doesn't make them that. Conservative has a meaning. Liberty is its priority, but with the understanding that liberty is only lastingly achieved within the context of its traditional pillars, the most fundamental of which being the rule of law. Therefore, the goal of the authentic conservative is to conserve (and, where necessary, restore) said pillars.

You understand that Barak is an opponent of minarchism, right?

Hawk... I can't believe you actually used the words "understand" and "Barak" in the same sentence...

Barak has many of the fundamentals correct, so he understands quite a lot. His problem is that he misses the larger picture, i.e., that liberty, absent its network of traditional supporting structures, is unsustainable.

Kiddin' ya, dood!!

I have no quarrel with Barak. He has his well-reasoned (to a point) views, and I have mine. We have long ago agreed to disagree, no harm, no foul.

In other words, Conservatives want the government to do what it is constitutionally mandated to do (protect the nation and insure domestic tranquility),and Leftists want the government to do, what it was never intended to do(act as a vehicle for redistributive economic policies,and respond to every insane politically correct notion that crosses anyone's mind).

I find it ironic that the real enemies of personal freedoms in this country today, come from the Left Wing, not the Conservatives.

I think you'd better do a serious "reality check",and take a hard look around.I haven't encountered a single Left Wing notion or policy that is grounded in "reality".

What kind of anarchism does he favor? I need to replace the word.

He's an anarcho-capitalist. A minarchist is just how anarcho-capitalists refer to old school libertarians. Minarchists are not anarchists of any sort. What is called minarchism is close to old school conservatism, Barry Goldwater style.

I could be wrong (heaven knows it happens a lot) but I think that those of you who think Barak is defending the movement itself are missing the point. I don't believe he is justifying their stupidity, but rather pointing out their effectiveness at causing serious trouble for the gov't without, as yet anyway, organized violence.

The OWS movement obviously is way off track (if you can even say they have a "direction," which I don't think they do) but the lesson is there nonetheless. In the face of an occupying movement the gov't won't have any choice but to foreably remove them at some point. Then, will the Conservatives who say they're in favor of smaller gov't cheer or jeer? When that gov't we theoretically want smaller rises up in force to remove those with whom we disagree do we say "I may not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it" or set aside our small government sensibilities and turn a blind eye to tyranny?

(I'll give y'all the answer: now is when you tell me that the definition of tyranny changes depending upon who is being oppressed and whether "we" agree with "them"...)

ps- just to be clear, this isn't directed at Mr. Coleman per se, though I did reply to his post

I have always maintained that Barak fails to factor into his "utopia" the problem of human nature. Barakistan would become a nation of warlords operating under the rule "might makes right".

Agreed.

lol No surprises.

Thanks, Hawkeye. I don't understand all the meanings of those terms and appreciate the help. (I still don't understand the differences but don't tell anybody)

If it starts with "anarcho," it refers to the conviction that government, no matter how constituted, is an evil with no redeeming value.