Quote from Teysa_Karlov »
No?
Ljoss was saying people were calling Thomas an "Uncle Tom" for siding with Republicans against minorities. I have no issue with his race. I take issue with him not having an opinion of his own, and constantly parroting whatever Scalia did or said.
I'd reconsider this characterization of Thomas. In my opinion he's the worst justice on the court, but that's not the same as being a puppet or lapdog. Clarence Thomas is an incredibly accomplished legal mind, and I say that even though I disagree with the great majority of his rulings. Just because he famously doesn't ask questions doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's doing.
I used to also think Thomas was just Scalia's puppet - it's been a common trope in liberal circles. But it's a bit of a pernicious trope - why do we find ourselves explaining away the conservatism of a black justice with incompetence? Why do we imagine that he must be merely repeating someone else's ideas?
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That's how the sausage is made.
Sufficiently intelligent rational actors aren't part of the problem or the solution. They're a philosophical fiction used to illustrate that the solution objectively exists. The solution for x2 - 2x + 1 = 0 is x = 1. Any sufficiently intelligent rational actor is going to come to that solution. But the take-home point is that, even if there are no sufficiently intelligent rational actors around, that's still the solution. If that problem comes up when you're trying to build a bridge or fly a plane or whatever, and you use a different value of x, you're not going to do very well. Reality -- nature -- is going to disagree with you. Hence "natural law".
If you're skeptical about whether this concept applies to human society, fine. We can talk about that. But you're the one who first brought out the term "social contract", so it's important that you understand what that theory actually entails.
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Common misunderstanding of social contract theory. Give Hobbes and Locke another look -- especially Hobbes. Rights aren't just any old social contract; they are the optimizing contract. Think of human society as a math problem and rights as the solution. Now, whether or not you want to say that solutions to math problems "naturally exist" is a bit of a semantic question. Certainly they don't possess material existence in the same way you and I do. But whatever you call it, they do have some sort of real and objective status beyond the arbitrary. As with other truths about nature, they are something to be discovered, rather than invented: you can't just guess an answer and expect it to be correct. It is for this reason that Hobbes calls his system "natural law". It is the social contract that a sufficiently intelligent rational actor would agree to, not necessarily the social contract that we do agree to -- just as the solution to a math problem is the one that a sufficiently intelligent rational actor would find, not necessarily what you scribble down in your homework.
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If they're actually teaching you that events in 1788 occurred before events in 1776, then yes, they absolutely should. But I'm going to give these people the benefit of the doubt. They're not here to defend themselves, and even the craziest profs I know understand how chronology works. So I think it's more likely that the mistake is yours than theirs.
And I was actually trying to teach you something here. You asked what was up with libertarianism in America, and I answered. But you apparently didn't like those answers and decided to argue with them, as though redefining "freedom" were going to change the reality of American culture. And when you launched into a muddled condemnation of libertarianism and the Constitution which was misinformed on not just random historical facts, but the specific historical facts of which you had already been informed in this thread, I decided it was time for some tough love. If you want to know how libertarians think or what Americans think about libertarianism, ask and I'll be happy to answer. But if you want to say that the Constitution is "outdated", that is not a question but a thesis statement, and I'm going to challenge you to defend it with real, specific, and accurate argument that demonstrates an understanding of the subject.
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And that's kind of the problem. Even before we go into the specific ways this policy might anger other countries, you're resting the security of your country on the assumption that it definitely won't, that everything will always go right. Your planning is based on a best-case scenario, not a worst-case scenario. You're making an investment while ignoring the risk. You're engaging in wishful thinking.
Now, as for those specific ways other countries might find reason to wage war against you, the first and most obvious is that if everything does go right for you and you get rich off of trade, then you're rich. Attacking rich lands and taking their wealth is one of the oldest reasons for warfare there is. Your invader might just want to plunder you and leave, they might make you a tributary, or they might try to conquer you so they can control and tax this wonderful trade hub directly. That's one reason. Reason two is that your invader is another trading power and wants to shut down your trade, rendering theirs more valuable. States can engage in monopolistic practices just as easily as companies can. Reason three is that in your neutrality you're trading with both sides in a war, and one side decides that your trade is benefiting the other side too much to be allowed to continue unabated. Reason four is that your land is strategically valuable. Reason five is that you're just plain the wrong religion. Reason six... reason seven... I can go on and on. Human beings don't exactly need a lot of excuse to go to war.
And before you dismiss these scenarios as not likely, remember that, between the two of us, I'm the one drawing his arguments from the historical record, and you're the one repeatedly face-planting into that same record. Not only can I provide examples of all these things actually happening, I can provide examples of all these things actually happening without leaving the freaking Netherlands.
Washing your hands of moral responsibility for the consequences of your actions is not a good way to convince us that libertarianism is the morally superior system.
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So the government is more efficient than a private industry now?
The military is not an area in which you want to spend just a bit more than potential rivals. If the best boxer in the world is only a bit stronger than the second-best boxer in the world, then the second-best boxer in the world wants to challenge him for the title. And even if the best boxer in the world wins that fight, he still leaves the ring bloodied. If he doesn't want to have to fight, he needs to invest in overwhelming superiority.
"Isolationist" and "universal free trade" are oxymoronic. Either you've got foreign entanglements through free trade agreements, or you don't.
If you think trading doesn't upset anyone... argh. England. The Netherlands. Venice. Byzantium. History. Read it.
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Can you give a historical example of this happening?
It's called comparative advantage. If someone overseas can do my job more efficiently than I can, that frees me up to to another job. More work gets done overall, the economy grows, and everyone benefits. With or without a government, this is a good thing. Failing to recognize that fact is why protectionist policies can hamstring economies. You will note that the biggest protectionist voice in the world right now is that of notorious ignoramus Donald J. Trump.
Wait, are you saying that you think an advantage of a state is that it can impede technological progress? (a) No, it can't; and (b) why would we want it to?
Do you think the state runs the free press? Do you not know how the free press works?
This is just flatly untrue. Private hospitals are a thing and historically have been for far longer than state-run hospitals.
Actually, again, private orphanages predate state-run orphanages. They were horrible, but if your argument is that they didn't exist, you're still wrong.
See, now it seems like you're just not paying attention, because you're directly contradicting two basic historical facts that have already been pointed out in this thread:
(1) The American Revolution predates the French Revolution by over a decade.
(2) The American Revolution predates the libertarian movement by over a century.
You're also ignoring the fact, not yet stated on this thread but nevertheless well known and easily verified, that the U.S. Constitution is updated with some regularity.
And of course, you provide precisely zero concrete examples of ways in which the Constitution is outdated. It's four pages of plain English. If you know what you're talking about, it shouldn't be hard for you to quote a few choice passages which you think illustrate your point.
That's pretty manifestly not true. Just ask Lin-Manuel Miranda.
"Freedom isn't free" is a reference to the necessity of a military to protect the country and its institutions from hostile forces. As a NATO member, Norway's freedom is overwhelmingly subsidized by American defense spending. Even as a percentage of GDP, Norway (like twenty-two other NATO states out of twenty-eight) is spending less than its treaty obligation requires. In short: you're not paying for your freedom; I'm paying for your freedom. You're welcome, by the way.
So come on, man. If you're going to do snappy, first do your homework.