"The Permission Society"

[Starchild]

Beyond the most odious and morally repellent things that governments do – genocide, democide, torture, war, police murder, prison slavery, systemic corruption, etc. – there is a whole level of routine outrages that normally fly under the radar or get taken for granted. The book “The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-permission-society-how-the-ruling-class-turns-our-freedoms-into-privileges-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/”, by Timothy Sandefur, does a good job shining a light on some of this layer and how it operates.

An excerpt:

"A politician runs for office on a platform promising, say, to stop pollution. Once in office, he writes a bill that forbids anyone from emitting pollutants without a permit—and also establishes a new bureaucratic agency charged with determining what qualifies as a “pollutant” and how one goes about getting a permit.

Once the bill is passed, the politician can tell his constituents that he has taken bold action to solve the problem and move on to the next issue. While voters are applauding his achievement, the new agency begins writing regulations, often with little public attention. These regulations are intricately complex, are backed up by severe penalties, and sometimes have nasty unintended consequences.

The unelected officials employed by the agency have every incentive to interpret their mandate as broadly as possible because, after all, they act ‘in the public interest.’ Within a few years, the agency has implemented thousands of petty and complicated rules, which are in effect a code of laws that no elected official ever approved and which neither they nor the voters can realistically control.

If the agency ever takes a step that causes a controversy in the media—for instance, declaring a July 4 fireworks display to be illegal “pollution”—the politician who wrote the law can shake his head, claim that was not his intention, and chide bureaucrats for going too far—again winning the applause of voters. But since nothing short of a new law is likely to rein the bureaucracy in, he can probably do nothing meaningful about it, even if he wants to."

I suspect this is erroneous only in suggesting that politicians do much of the actual law-writing themselves.

More insights at https://wng.org/roundups/the-out-of-control-bureaucratic-branch-of-government-1617230148

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

[FRNP]

Does Sandefur omit that well heeled unelected corporate staff or ceos themselves often pack or lead these agencies in order to create monopolies for their own corporate interests & then use the revolving door of #USgovt to enrich themselves to the tune of Billions of Taxpayers’ Earnings & Savings?

The “FREE MARKET” is made up of The Entire Citizenry individually making choices & VOTING with each purchase on which products & services & industries are useful & worthwhile — without any #USgovt meddling tipping the scales.

@Starchild

Sandefur

[Paul_R_Cavanaugh]

The vast majority of people for the vast majority of history lived as slaves or serfs or indentured servants to an extremely small aristocracy that were immune to consequences of any kind.

If there’s one single societal trait one can point to that differentiates this dire hopeless existence from any semblance of fulfillment and happiness, it’s the existence of a strong central government. A dictatorship in Chile is far superior to anarchy in Haiti. The oppressive communist government of China is far superior to anarchy in Somalia. Ancient Rome was legendary for improving the lives of every territory it conquered. When Rome left Britannia for example, their “freedom” resulted in decay, collapse, and hundreds of years of being raided and pillaged.

Most people understand that government is a necessary evil to stave off a far more horrible and destructive evil. Virtually every human that has ever lived, billions of souls throughout all of history, would gladly trade places with your version of an oppressive society.

~ Paul

···

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 09:11:58 AM PDT, Starchild sfdreamer@earthlink.net wrote:

Beyond the most odious and morally repellent things that governments do – genocide, democide, torture, war, police murder, prison slavery, systemic corruption, etc. – there is a whole level of routine outrages that normally fly under the radar or get taken for granted. The book “The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It”, by Timothy Sandefur, does a good job shining a light on some of this layer and how it operates.
An excerpt:
“A politician runs for office on a platform promising, say, to stop pollution. Once in office, he writes a bill that forbids anyone from emitting pollutants without a permit—and also establishes a new bureaucratic agency charged with determining what qualifies as a “pollutant” and how one goes about getting a permit.
Once the bill is passed, the politician can tell his constituents that he has taken bold action to solve the problem and move on to the next issue. While voters are applauding his achievement, the new agency begins writing regulations, often with little public attention. These regulations are intricately complex, are backed up by severe penalties, and sometimes have nasty unintended consequences.
The unelected officials employed by the agency have every incentive to interpret their mandate as broadly as possible because, after all, they act ‘in the public interest.’ Within a few years, the agency has implemented thousands of petty and complicated rules, which are in effect a code of laws that no elected official ever approved and which neither they nor the voters can realistically control.
If the agency ever takes a step that causes a controversy in the media—for instance, declaring a July 4 fireworks display to be illegal “pollution”—the politician who wrote the law can shake his head, claim that was not his intention, and chide bureaucrats for going too far—again winning the applause of voters. But since nothing short of a new law is likely to rein the bureaucracy in, he can probably do nothing meaningful about it, even if he wants to.”
I suspect this is erroneous only in suggesting that politicians do much of the actual law-writing themselves.
More insights at https://wng.org/roundups/the-out-of-control-bureaucratic-branch-of-government-1617230148
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))

[dennz]

Excellent article. Thank you Starchild.

Yes FRNP, it does mention “In places where corruption is common or where permits are distributed only to influential insiders, the process is even bleaker. Permit requirements encourage corruption because the costs and delays lead people to seek extralegal alternatives.”

Michael Denny
Libertarian Party of San Francisco www.LPSF.orghttp://www.lpsf.org/
No On Prop A www.badsfbonds.blogspot.comhttp://www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com/
www.DennyForMayor.comhttp://www.dennyformayor.com/ - 2002-2003
(415) 608-0269
mike@Dennz.commailto:mike@Dennz.com

···

From: iMRMosLV! via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2023 9:33 AM
To: mike@dennz.com
Subject: Re: [LPSF Forum] [Discussion] “The Permission Society”

[https://forum.lpsf.org/user_avatar/forum.lpsf.org/frnp/45/908_2.png]
FRNPhttps://forum.lpsf.org/u/frnp
July 7

Does Sandefur omit that well heeled unelected corporate staff or ceos themselves often pack or lead these agencies in order to create monopolies for their own corporate interests & then use the revolving door of #USgovt to enrich themselves to the tune of Billions of Taxpayers’ Earnings & Savings?

The “FREE MARKET” is made up of The Entire Citizenry individually making choices & VOTING with each purchase on which products & services & industries are useful & worthwhile — without any #USgovt meddling tipping the scales.
[https://forum.lpsf.org/user_avatar/forum.lpsf.org/starchild/40/533_2.png]Starchild:

Sandefur

---

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[FRNP]

#USgovt, the largest govt Earth has ever witnessed, larger ( state & fed ) than India’s or China’s, commands the Largest Prison Colonies Earth has ever seen ( at least 50% non violent offenders ) AND is larger than China’s & India’s “COMBINED” despite the latter Nations each being more than 3 times larger than the #USgovt peasantry. India does not imprison minors for even violent offenses ( their scofflaw youth are sent home to Parents, Families, or Ashrams — which have a much better success rate than #USgovt’s astronomically priced revolving door industrial prison complex.

It’s also grossly misogynistic given that WOMEN dominate ever jurisdiction on Earth. ONLY illiterate innumerate elitist moles think & perpetuate the preposterous notion that such a tyranny is good for WOMankind*; if there were even a semblance of proper “representation” We wouldn’t even use such farcical terms as “mankind” since only WOMEN CAN nurture fetuses & infants & We are ALL born of the WOMb.

As a real politician, I’ve proven it’s child’s play to convert most Humane & or Economical folks to the Reality that Liberty is better than the bloodsucking satanic beast some Folks like Paul seem to WORSHIP obsequiously.

[Jeffrey_Flint]

I always find it interesting that people often differentiate
between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of
nature.

Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and
“government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the
government was not made of humans. The ills and promise of governments are
all very human. Governments are organized humans.

Governments are not a lost cause; the Constitution of the USA shows that to
be the case. It is possible to create a “governmental technology” that
protects humans from themselves.

Jeff

···

On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 9:12 AM Starchild sfdreamer@earthlink.net wrote:

Beyond the most odious and morally repellent things that governments do –
genocide, democide, torture, war, police murder, prison slavery, systemic
corruption, etc. – there is a whole level of routine outrages that normally
fly under the radar or get taken for granted. The book “The Permission
Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What
We Can Do About It
http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-permission-society-how-the-ruling-class-turns-our-freedoms-into-privileges-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/”,
by Timothy Sandefur, does a good job shining a light on some of this layer
and how it operates.

An excerpt:

*"A politician runs for office on a platform promising, say, to stop
pollution. Once in office, he writes a bill that forbids anyone from
emitting pollutants without a permit—and also establishes a new
bureaucratic agency charged with determining what qualifies as a
“pollutant” and how one goes about getting a permit. *

*Once the bill is passed, the politician can tell his constituents that he
has taken bold action to solve the problem and move on to the next issue.
While voters are applauding his achievement, the new agency begins writing
regulations, often with little public attention. These regulations are
intricately complex, are backed up by severe penalties, and sometimes have
nasty unintended consequences. *

*The unelected officials employed by the agency have every incentive to
interpret their mandate as broadly as possible because, after all, they act
‘in the public interest.’ Within a few years, the agency has implemented
thousands of petty and complicated rules, which are in effect a code of
laws that no elected official ever approved and which neither they nor the
voters can realistically control. *

If the agency ever takes a step that causes a controversy in the
media—for instance, declaring a July 4 fireworks display to be illegal
“pollution”—the politician who wrote the law can shake his head, claim that
was not his intention, and chide bureaucrats for going too far—again
winning the applause of voters. But since nothing short of a new law is
likely to rein the bureaucracy in, he can probably do nothing meaningful
about it, even if he wants to."

I suspect this is erroneous only in suggesting that politicians do much of
the actual law-writing themselves.

More insights at https://wng.org/roundups/the-out-of-control-bureaucratic-branch-of-government-1617230148
https://wng.org/roundups/the-out-of-control-bureaucratic-branch-of-government-1617230148

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

[Paul_R_Cavanaugh]

1. Who are you?
2. Why was I added to this email group?
3. That’s some nice nonsense strawman ad hominem you got there but you might want to actually address something I said instead of just hyperbolically accusing me of “worshiping” the state? Did I or did not say explicitly it’s a necessary evil? That’s worship in your anarchist-perverted view of reality??

Anyway I’ll state my main point one more time. The societies containing the most “liberty” (as you define it) are the most horrid and dangerous and very quickly conquered societies that exist and have ever existed. THAT is what you need to counter, not some unrelated insanity about feminism, to which I’m the strongest anti-feminist you are ever likely to meet.

~ Paul

···

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 10:57:23 AM PDT, iMRMosLV! via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

FRNP
July 7 |

#USgovt, the largest govt Earth has ever witnessed, larger ( state & fed ) than India’s or China’s, commands the Largest Prison Colonies Earth has ever seen ( at least 50% non violent offenders ) AND is larger than China’s & India’s “COMBINED” despite the latter Nations each being more than 3 times larger than the #USgovt peasantry. India does not imprison minors for even violent offenses ( their scofflaw youth are sent home to Parents, Families, or Ashrams — which have a much better success rate than #USgovt’s astronomically priced revolving door industrial prison complex.

It’s also grossly misogynistic given that WOMEN dominate ever jurisdiction on Earth. ONLY illiterate innumerate elitist moles think & perpetuate the preposterous notion that such a tyranny is good for WOMankind*; if there were even a semblance of proper “representation” We wouldn’t even use such farcical terms as “mankind” since only WOMEN CAN nurture fetuses & infants & We are ALL born of the WOMb.

As a real politician, it’s child’s play to convert most folks to the reality that Liberty is better than the bloodsucking satanic beast some Folks like Paul seem to WORSHIP obsequiously.

[Roy_Ferreira]

Very good points, Jeff. Libertarians frame “government” as this evil, monolithic external force to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, governments are just organizations of individuals. Governments are capable of both great evil and great good because they are comprised of humans with this dual nature. When organized collaboratively, the effect of human efforts can increase exponentially. This is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, but also how the worst human atrocities are committed.
By packaging “government” as this alien force responsible for the greatest evils, Libertarians are essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater, also rejecting the great good that government’s organizational power can bring. We need that power to solve the many great problems that humanity faces, overpopulation, and environmental degradation.
Roy

On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 12:33 PM, Jeffrey Flintjeffrey.flint@gmail.com wrote: I always find it interesting that people often differentiate between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of nature.
Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and “government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the government was not made of humans. The ills and promise of governments are all very human. Governments are organized humans.
Governments are not a lost cause; the Constitution of the USA shows that to be the case. It is possible to create a “governmental technology” that protects humans from themselves.
Jeff

···

On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 9:12 AM Starchild sfdreamer@earthlink.net wrote:

Beyond the most odious and morally repellent things that governments do – genocide, democide, torture, war, police murder, prison slavery, systemic corruption, etc. – there is a whole level of routine outrages that normally fly under the radar or get taken for granted. The book “The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It”, by Timothy Sandefur, does a good job shining a light on some of this layer and how it operates.
An excerpt:
“A politician runs for office on a platform promising, say, to stop pollution. Once in office, he writes a bill that forbids anyone from emitting pollutants without a permit—and also establishes a new bureaucratic agency charged with determining what qualifies as a “pollutant” and how one goes about getting a permit.
Once the bill is passed, the politician can tell his constituents that he has taken bold action to solve the problem and move on to the next issue. While voters are applauding his achievement, the new agency begins writing regulations, often with little public attention. These regulations are intricately complex, are backed up by severe penalties, and sometimes have nasty unintended consequences.
The unelected officials employed by the agency have every incentive to interpret their mandate as broadly as possible because, after all, they act ‘in the public interest.’ Within a few years, the agency has implemented thousands of petty and complicated rules, which are in effect a code of laws that no elected official ever approved and which neither they nor the voters can realistically control.
If the agency ever takes a step that causes a controversy in the media—for instance, declaring a July 4 fireworks display to be illegal “pollution”—the politician who wrote the law can shake his head, claim that was not his intention, and chide bureaucrats for going too far—again winning the applause of voters. But since nothing short of a new law is likely to rein the bureaucracy in, he can probably do nothing meaningful about it, even if he wants to.”
I suspect this is erroneous only in suggesting that politicians do much of the actual law-writing themselves.
More insights at https://wng.org/roundups/the-out-of-control-bureaucratic-branch-of-government-1617230148
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))

[Starchild]

Roy,

Statists frame anarchy as this scary external “chaos” to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, life is naturally chaotic and anarchies are just the spontaneous ordering of individuals. This can include great evil and great good because society is comprised of humans with this dual nature.

When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially. This freedom is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, and is how all life progressed to its current levels of evolution before government.

By packaging “anarchy” as this alien force that undermines human society, statists are essentially refusing to allow the baby to have a bath, rejecting the great good that freedom can bring. We need that freedom to solve the many great problems society faces.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

···

On Jul 7, 2023, at 3:12 PM, Roy Ferreira via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

Roy_Ferreira https://forum.lpsf.org/u/roy_ferreira
July 7
Very good points, Jeff. Libertarians frame “government” as this evil, monolithic external force to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, governments are just organizations of individuals. Governments are capable of both great evil and great good because they are comprised of humans with this dual nature. When organized collaboratively, the effect of human efforts can increase exponentially. This is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, but also how the worst human atrocities are committed.
By packaging “government” as this alien force responsible for the greatest evils, Libertarians are essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater, also rejecting the great good that government’s organizational power can bring. We need that power to solve the many great problems that humanity faces, overpopulation, and environmental degradation.
Roy

On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 12:33 PM, Jeffrey Flintjeffrey.flint@gmail.com mailto:jeffrey.flint@gmail.com wrote: I always find it interesting that people often differentiate between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of nature.
Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and “government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the government was not made of humans. The ills and promise of governments are all very human. Governments are organized humans.
Governments are not a lost cause; the Constitution of the USA shows that to be the case. It is possible to create a “governmental technology” that protects humans from themselves.
Jeff

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/8
Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/8 or reply to this email to respond.

In Reply To

Jeffrey_Flint https://forum.lpsf.org/u/jeffrey_flint
July 7
I always find it interesting that people often differentiate between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of nature. Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and “government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the government wa…
Previous Replies

Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 7
Who are you?
Why was I added to this email group?
That’s some nice nonsense strawman ad hominem you got there but you might want to actually address something I said instead of just hyperbolically accusing me of “worshiping” the state? Did I or did not say explicitly it’s a necessary evil? That’s worship in your anarchist-perverted view of reality??
Anyway I’ll state my main point one more time. The societies containing the most “liberty” (as you define it) are the most horrid and dangerous and very quickly conquered societies that exist and have ever existed. THAT is what you need to counter, not some unrelated insanity about feminism, to which I’m the strongest anti-feminist you are ever likely to meet.

~ Paul

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/7
Jeffrey_Flint https://forum.lpsf.org/u/jeffrey_flint
July 7
I always find it interesting that people often differentiate
between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of
nature.

Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and
“government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the
government was not made of humans. The ills and promise of governments are
all very human. Governments are organized humans.

Governments are not a lost cause; the Constitution of the USA shows that to
be the case. It is possible to create a “governmental technology” that
protects humans from themselves.

Jeff

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/6
FRNP https://forum.lpsf.org/u/frnp
July 7
#USgovt, the largest govt Earth has ever witnessed, larger ( state & fed ) than India’s or China’s, commands the Largest Prison Colonies Earth has ever seen ( at least 50% non violent offenders ) AND is larger than China’s & India’s “COMBINED” despite the latter Nations each being more than 3 times larger than the #USgovtpeasantry. India does not imprison minors for even violent offenses ( their scofflaw youth are sent home to Parents, Families, or Ashrams — which have a much better success rate than #USgovt’s astronomically priced revolving door industrial prison complex.

It’s also grossly misogynistic given that WOMEN dominate ever jurisdiction on Earth. ONLY illiterate innumerate elitist moles think & perpetuate the preposterous notion that such a tyranny is good for WOMankind*; if there were even a semblance of proper “representation” We wouldn’t even use such farcical terms as “mankind” since only WOMEN CAN nurture fetuses & infants & We are ALL born of the WOMb.

As a real politician, I’ve proven it’s child’s play to convert most Humane & or Economical folks to the Reality that Liberty is better than the bloodsucking satanic beast some Folks like Paul seem to WORSHIP obsequiously.

dennz https://forum.lpsf.org/u/dennz
July 7
Excellent article. Thank you Starchild.

Yes FRNP, it does mention “In places where corruption is common or where permits are distributed only to influential insiders, the process is even bleaker. Permit requirements encourage corruption because the costs and delays lead people to seek extralegal alternatives.”

Michael Denny
Libertarian Party of San Francisco www.LPSF.org http://www.lpsf.org/http://www.lpsf.org/ http://www.lpsf.org/
No On Prop A www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com http://www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com/http://www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com/ http://www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com/
www.DennyForMayor.com http://www.dennyformayor.com/http://www.dennyformayor.com/ http://www.dennyformayor.com/ - 2002-2003
(415) 608-0269
mike@Dennz.com mailto:mike@Dennz.commailto:mike@Dennz.com mailto:mike@Dennz.com··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/4
Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 7
The vast majority of people for the vast majority of history lived as slaves or serfs or indentured servants to an extremely small aristocracy that were immune to consequences of any kind.

If there’s one single societal trait one can point to that differentiates this dire hopeless existence from any semblance of fulfillment and happiness, it’s the existence of a strong central government. A dictatorship in Chile is far superior to anarchy in Haiti. The oppressive communist government of China is far superior to anarchy in Somalia. Ancient Rome was legendary for improving the lives of every territory it conquered. When Rome left Britannia for example, their “freedom” resulted in decay, collapse, and hundreds of years of being raided and pillaged.

Most people understand that government is a necessary evil to stave off a far more horrible and destructive evil. Virtually every human that has ever lived, billions of souls throughout all of history, would gladly trade places with your version of an oppressive society.

~ Paul

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/3
Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/8 or reply to this email to respond.

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[Starchild]

Paul,

You weren’t added to any email group. You were simply copied on an email that I also copied to the LPSF discussion list as well as to the SF Debate folks with whom you’re accustomed to arguing.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

···

On Jul 7, 2023, at 12:48 PM, Paul R Cavanaugh via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 7
Who are you?
Why was I added to this email group?
That’s some nice nonsense strawman ad hominem you got there but you might want to actually address something I said instead of just hyperbolically accusing me of “worshiping” the state? Did I or did not say explicitly it’s a necessary evil? That’s worship in your anarchist-perverted view of reality??
Anyway I’ll state my main point one more time. The societies containing the most “liberty” (as you define it) are the most horrid and dangerous and very quickly conquered societies that exist and have ever existed. THAT is what you need to counter, not some unrelated insanity about feminism, to which I’m the strongest anti-feminist you are ever likely to meet.

~ Paul

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/7
Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/7 or reply to this email to respond.

In Reply To

Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 7
Beyond the most odious and morally repellent things that governments do – genocide, democide, torture, war, police murder, prison slavery, systemic corruption, etc. – there is a whole level of routine outrages that normally fly under the radar or get taken for granted. The book “The Permission Socie…
Previous Replies

Jeffrey_Flint https://forum.lpsf.org/u/jeffrey_flint
July 7
I always find it interesting that people often differentiate
between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of
nature.

Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and
“government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the
government was not made of humans. The ills and promise of governments are
all very human. Governments are organized humans.

Governments are not a lost cause; the Constitution of the USA shows that to
be the case. It is possible to create a “governmental technology” that
protects humans from themselves.

Jeff

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/6
FRNP https://forum.lpsf.org/u/frnp
July 7
#USgovt, the largest govt Earth has ever witnessed, larger ( state & fed ) than India’s or China’s, commands the Largest Prison Colonies Earth has ever seen ( at least 50% non violent offenders ) AND is larger than China’s & India’s “COMBINED” despite the latter Nations each being more than 3 times larger than the #USgovt peasantry. India does not imprison minors for even violent offenses ( their scofflaw youth are sent home to Parents, Families, or Ashrams — which have a much better success rate than #USgovt’s astronomically priced revolving door industrial prison complex.

It’s also grossly misogynistic given that WOMEN dominate ever jurisdiction on Earth. ONLY illiterate innumerate elitist moles think & perpetuate the preposterous notion that such a tyranny is good for WOMankind*; if there were even a semblance of proper “representation” We wouldn’t even use such farcical terms as “mankind” since only WOMEN CAN nurture fetuses & infants & We are ALL born of the WOMb.

As a real politician, I’ve proven it’s child’s play to convert most Humane & or Economical folks to the Reality that Liberty is better than the bloodsucking satanic beast some Folks like Paul seem to WORSHIP obsequiously.

dennz https://forum.lpsf.org/u/dennz
July 7
Excellent article. Thank you Starchild.

Yes FRNP, it does mention “In places where corruption is common or where permits are distributed only to influential insiders, the process is even bleaker. Permit requirements encourage corruption because the costs and delays lead people to seek extralegal alternatives.”

Michael Denny
Libertarian Party of San Francisco www.LPSF.org http://www.lpsf.org/http://www.lpsf.org/ http://www.lpsf.org/
No On Prop A www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com http://www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com/http://www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com/ http://www.badsfbonds.blogspot.com/
www.DennyForMayor.com http://www.dennyformayor.com/http://www.dennyformayor.com/ http://www.dennyformayor.com/ - 2002-2003
(415) 608-0269
mike@Dennz.com mailto:mike@Dennz.commailto:mike@Dennz.com mailto:mike@Dennz.com··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/4
Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 7
The vast majority of people for the vast majority of history lived as slaves or serfs or indentured servants to an extremely small aristocracy that were immune to consequences of any kind.

If there’s one single societal trait one can point to that differentiates this dire hopeless existence from any semblance of fulfillment and happiness, it’s the existence of a strong central government. A dictatorship in Chile is far superior to anarchy in Haiti. The oppressive communist government of China is far superior to anarchy in Somalia. Ancient Rome was legendary for improving the lives of every territory it conquered. When Rome left Britannia for example, their “freedom” resulted in decay, collapse, and hundreds of years of being raided and pillaged.

Most people understand that government is a necessary evil to stave off a far more horrible and destructive evil. Virtually every human that has ever lived, billions of souls throughout all of history, would gladly trade places with your version of an oppressive society.

~ Paul

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/3
FRNP https://forum.lpsf.org/u/frnp
July 7
Does Sandefur omit that well heeled unelected corporate staff or ceos themselves often pack or lead these agencies in order to create monopolies for their own corporate interests & then use the revolving door of #USgovt to enrich themselves to the tune of Billions of Taxpayers’ Earnings & Savings?

The “FREE MARKET” is made up of The Entire Citizenry individually making choices & VOTING with each purchase on which products & services & industries are useful & worthwhile — without any #USgovt meddling tipping the scales.

Starchild:
Sandefur

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[dennz]

Excellent point Starchild. Anarchy means “without rulers”. But even Libertarian anarchists follow various forms of personal morality that govern our behavior aside from government. I’m a Catholic. Many I know follow the “Non-Aggression principle”. And there is the Live and Let Live movement too. The pastor of my church says “You can’t be pro-government and preach the gospel”.

Mike

···

From: Starchild via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2023 6:07 PM
To: mike@dennz.com
Subject: Re: [LPSF Forum] [Discussion] “The Permission Society”

[https://forum.lpsf.org/user_avatar/forum.lpsf.org/starchild/45/533_2.png]
Starchildhttps://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 8

Roy,

Statists frame anarchy as this scary external “chaos” to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, life is naturally chaotic and anarchies are just the spontaneous ordering of individuals. This can include great evil and great good because society is comprised of humans with this dual nature.

When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially. This freedom is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, and is how all life progressed to its current levels of evolution before government.

By packaging “anarchy” as this alien force that undermines human society, statists are essentially refusing to allow the baby to have a bath, rejecting the great good that freedom can bring. We need that freedom to solve the many great problems society faces.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))
··· (click for more details)https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/9

---

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[Starchild]

I don’t know, Marty. I haven’t read the whole book, just the excerpts at the link. (As well as numerous articles by the author in libertarian publications over the years, from which I assume he is well acquainted with the phenomena of government corruption and the revolving door.) It is on my reading list now though.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

···

On Jul 7, 2023, at 9:32 AM, iMRMosLV! via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

FRNP https://forum.lpsf.org/u/frnp
July 7
Does Sandefur omit that well heeled unelected corporate staff or ceos themselves often pack or lead these agencies in order to create monopolies for their own corporate interests & then use the revolving door of #USgovt to enrich themselves to the tune of Billions of Taxpayers’ Earnings & Savings?

The “FREE MARKET” is made up of The Entire Citizenry individually making choices & VOTING with each purchase on which products & services & industries are useful & worthwhile — without any #USgovt meddling tipping the scales.

Starchild:
Sandefur

Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/2 or reply to this email to respond.

Previous Replies

Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 7
Beyond the most odious and morally repellent things that governments do – genocide, democide, torture, war, police murder, prison slavery, systemic corruption, etc. – there is a whole level of routine outrages that normally fly under the radar or get taken for granted. The book “The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It The Permission Society - Encounter Books http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-permission-society-how-the-ruling-class-turns-our-freedoms-into-privileges-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/”, by Timothy Sandefur, does a good job shining a light on some of this layer and how it operates.

An excerpt:

"A politician runs for office on a platform promising, say, to stop pollution. Once in office, he writes a bill that forbids anyone from emitting pollutants without a permit—and also establishes a new bureaucratic agency charged with determining what qualifies as a “pollutant” and how one goes about getting a permit.

Once the bill is passed, the politician can tell his constituents that he has taken bold action to solve the problem and move on to the next issue. While voters are applauding his achievement, the new agency begins writing regulations, often with little public attention. These regulations are intricately complex, are backed up by severe penalties, and sometimes have nasty unintended consequences.

The unelected officials employed by the agency have every incentive to interpret their mandate as broadly as possible because, after all, they act ‘in the public interest.’ Within a few years, the agency has implemented thousands of petty and complicated rules, which are in effect a code of laws that no elected official ever approved and which neither they nor the voters can realistically control.

If the agency ever takes a step that causes a controversy in the media—for instance, declaring a July 4 fireworks display to be illegal “pollution”—the politician who wrote the law can shake his head, claim that was not his intention, and chide bureaucrats for going too far—again winning the applause of voters. But since nothing short of a new law is likely to rein the bureaucracy in, he can probably do nothing meaningful about it, even if he wants to."

I suspect this is erroneous only in suggesting that politicians do much of the actual law-writing themselves.

More insights at https://wng.org/roundups/the-out-of-control-bureaucratic-branch-of-government-1617230148 https://wng.org/roundups/the-out-of-control-bureaucratic-branch-of-government-1617230148
Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

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[Paul_R_Cavanaugh]

The spontaneous ordering of individuals is always a hierarchy with the strongest oppressing the rest to the largest extent possible in any society.

“When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially.”

This is never true in any civilization where there isn’t a strong central government protecting those individuals from having the fruits of their efforts immediately stolen. That’s why the vast majority of technological achievements have occurred under the umbrella of a strong government, usually either a world power or in the shadow of a world power. It’s one of the reasons that Africa and the New World were virtually devoid of technological progress since their kings lacked the technological ability to control (you would call oppress) the population to the extent necessary to make it safe to innovate.

I don’t know why this is always lost on you. The Renaissance didn’t happen until governments became powerful enough. The industrial revolution didn’t happen until governments became strong enough. Rome didn’t invent virtually everything we have in civil engineering until they became powerful enough. What you consider oppressive power is the only thing that made the modern age possible yet you constantly attack it.

~ Paul

Starchild
July 8 |

Roy,

Statists frame anarchy as this scary external “chaos” to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, life is naturally chaotic and anarchies are just the spontaneous ordering of individuals. This can include great evil and great good because society is comprised of humans with this dual nature.

When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially. This freedom is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, and is how all life progressed to its current levels of evolution before government.

By packaging “anarchy” as this alien force that undermines human society, statists are essentially refusing to allow the baby to have a bath, rejecting the great good that freedom can bring. We need that freedom to solve the many great problems society faces.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))
··· (click for more details)

···

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 06:06:40 PM PDT, Starchild via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

[FRNP]

When anyone else takes The Fruits of Your Labor & Your Earnings & Savings, under threat of FORCE, & uses them for their own aggrandizement & stuff You would never ever in a million years voluntarily support financially — Libertarian/libertarian or not in My extensive first hand personal public engagement Experience — :
• The #USgovt #militaryindustrialcomplex ( 80+ illegal unConstitutional criminal immoral violent bloody invasions occupations & crimes against humanity & millions of innocent strangers — per @WatsonInstitute );
• The #USgovt #industrialprisoncomplex ( putting violent felons & peaceful drug offenders in private single occupancy luxury rooms would cost Taxpayers less by almost half as much );
• The #USgovt #govtschools ( the most expensive & least productive in modern western civilization );
• The #USgovt IRS DEA …alphabet soup cesspool;
• The #USgovt corporate cronies Phizer LockheedMartin BigPharma ( & actually paying full market price up front for ) BigSugar BigAlcohol BigCorporateSports BigInsurance;
• etc etc
… — You Are A SLAVE.

Sober Libertarians ( blissfully ignorant Greens Reds Blues CommiePinkoSocialists et al drunk & pacified on #USgovt fumes get a slight pass for being hopelessly intoxicated & blind ) under the unfounded delusion that they have any semblance of “Freedom” under the #USgovt should just try to BOYCOTT funding even one of the above categories to verify how quickly “Mas’sa Sam” locks Your illiterate innumerate tail in prison for at least 10 years.

This Lady in Safeway Today had the right idea ( I couldn’t read the tag line/url of the org She is representing, but it should be merch for the @LPofCCC or SFLP ).

— mARTy

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[Paul_R_Cavanaugh]

These are all dogmatic assertions devoid of context. With such an oppressive evil government, one might wonder why there are far more people trying to get into this country than get out.

In fact while getting out is trivial and nothing more than a declaration of non-citizenship, getting in takes years or decades if it’s even possible at all.

The facts simply don’t match any of your rhetoric.

~ Paul

FRNP
July 8 |

When anyone else takes The Fruits of Your Labor & Your Earnings & Savings, under threat of FORCE, & uses them for their own aggrandizement & stuff You would never ever in a million years voluntarily support financially — Libertarian/libertarian or not in My extensive first hand personal public engagement Experience — :
• The #USgovt #militaryindustrialcomplex ( 80+ illegal unConstitutional criminal immoral violent bloody invasions occupations & crimes against humanity & millions of innocent strangers — per @WatsonInstitute );
• The #USgovt #industrialprisoncomplex ( putting violent felons & peaceful drug offenders in private single occupancy luxury rooms would cost Taxpayers less by almost half as much );
• The #USgovt #govtschools ( the most expensive & least productive in modern western civilization );
• The #USgovt IRS DEA …alphabet soup cesspool;
• The #USgovt corporate cronies Phizer LockheedMartin BigPharma ( & actually paying full market price up front for ) BigSugar BigAlcohol BigCorporateSports BigInsurance;
• etc etc
… — You Are A SLAVE.

Sober Libertarians ( blissfully ignorant Greens Reds Blues CommiePinkoSocialists et al drunk & pacified on #USgovt fumes get a slight pass for being hopelessly intoxicated & blind ) under the unfounded delusion that they have any semblance of “Freedom” under the #USgovt should just try to BOYCOTT funding even one of the above categories to verify how quickly “Mas’sa Sam” locks Your illiterate innumerate tail in prison for at least 10 years.

This Lady in Safeway Today had the right idea ( I couldn’t read the tag line/url of the org She is representing, but it should be merch for the @LPofCCC or SFLP ).

— mARTy

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

···

On Friday, July 7, 2023 at 08:01:31 PM PDT, iMRMosLV! via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

[Starchild]

Paul,

Please see my further replies interspersed below…

Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 8
The spontaneous ordering of individuals is always a hierarchy with the strongest oppressing the rest to the largest extent possible in any society.

Not true. When people queue for a line, do the strongest always wind up at the front? No – at least in this society, lines usually form in order of arrival.

“When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially.”

This is never true in any civilization where there isn’t a strong central government protecting those individuals from having the fruits of their efforts immediately stolen.

Sure it is. The most government typically does in regards to theft – in cases where government personnel are not themselves the thieves, as is frequently the case – is respond to it after the fact, often with as much or more emphasis on punishing the offenders as in getting the stolen property returned to those from whom it was taken. State power offers little to no protection against the fruits of their efforts being “ mmediately" (or later) stolen.

In regards to theft, see also the story at this link, which reports on how government in the United States has stolen more money through forfeiture – not even counting “ordinary” coercive taxation! – than non-State thieves over the past couple decades:

That’s why the vast majority of technological achievements have occurred under the umbrella of a strong government, usually either a world power or in the shadow of a world power. It’s one of the reasons that Africa and the New World were virtually devoid of technological progress since their kings lacked the technological ability to control (you would call oppress) the population to the extent necessary to make it safe to innovate.

I think you have it exactly backwards. The degree of oppression or control exerted by rulers over ordinary people in Africa and the New World was often just as great as in the so-called “world powers”. Think of the African/Middle Eastern slave trade, or the human sacrifices of the Aztecs and other mesa-american empires. Technological innovation is the fruit of liberty, not of state control!

I don’t know why this is always lost on you. The Renaissance didn’t happen until governments became powerful enough.

The Renaissance occurred first not under a strong empire, but in the commercial Italian city-state of Florence, spreading from there to other decentralized Italian city states like Venice, Rome, and Genoa, which crucially enjoyed high levels of international trade, something that occurs despite – not because of – government controls. Renaissance values centered not around State power, but around a spirit of rationalism and humanism that developed through art, culture, and science. See e.g. Where Did the Renaissance Begin?.

The industrial revolution didn’t happen until governments became strong enough.

I don’t find that credible either. What evidence do you have that the Industrial Revolution was the result of government becoming stronger? There is a fairly balanced and detailed analysis at https://jenni.uchicago.edu/WJP/papers/Harris_govt_and_econ.pdf which does not come to any such conclusion:

"The ever-important question, what was the contribution of the state to
the first industrial revolution, has not been satisfactorily answered in this
chapter…

The British way seems to have been the middle road: not an entrenched
constitution but not royal despotism, not super-rational and organised
Roman law but not total identity of law with politics, not completely
centralised but not overly decentralised, not a state taken over by big
business and robber barons but not a planned-from-above economy. Hind-
sight shows us that something in this mix did the trick, since Britain
experienced unprecedented economic growth, by both comparative and
inter-temporal standards, during the 150 years discussed here. But which
elements of the mix contributed more to growth, which contributed less
and which hindered it? More research by economic, political and legal his-
torians, pragmatically employing the theoretical tools of the various dis-
ciplines and better utilising some of the less-explored historical sources,
will be needed before a new synthesis can emerge.”

Rome didn’t invent virtually everything we have in civil engineering until they became powerful enough.

And what evidence do you have that these inventions were the result of State power? More to the point, how do you believe the growth of government helped the Mediterranean civilization under Roman domination? A 1987 essay by Nicholas Davidson published online at https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/ traces the opposite effect – how that civilization slowly declined and eventually collapsed due to statism. This section offers a broad synopsis:

"The Free Market of the Ancient Mediterranean
Classical civilization was a middle class civilization. It stood at the pinnacle of a long process of democratization that had begun hundreds of years earlier. Broadly speaking, the aristocrats first overthrew the kings. The oligopolies they established were in turn overthrown by the upper middle class.

A vast development of trade between the ninth and the fifth centuries B.C. underlay this development. The central importance of commerce was self-evident to the ancient Greeks. As Plato has Socrates say in the Republic, “To find a place where nothing need be imported is well- nigh impossible,” to which Socrates’ interlocutor rejoins, “Impossible.”[3 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#3]

The expansion of trade gave rise to a large and affluent middle class. Two of the criteria of aristocratic worth—wealth and military value—simultaneously passed to the middle class. Building on these assets, the middle class sought and in many cases achieved cultural and political influence commensurate with its economic power. By the peak moment of Greek civilization in fifth century Athens, the upper middle class occupied a position roughly analogous to that of the upper middle class in Britain after 1688 or France after 1789, as the cultural center of society.

If the Greeks, along with the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian descendants, were a thorough success as merchants, they were less successful in their political efforts. They experimented with every form of government without ever transcending the specter of political instability. But the political turbulence of the Greek world may have held unsuspected economic benefits.

The disunited world of the ancient Mediterranean constituted a de facto free market. States, each one seeking its own interest, competed against each other, with none able to gain a lasting advantage. In this setting, commerce flourished. The population and prosperity of the Mediterranean basin increased dramatically.[4 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#4]

Little by little Rome swallowed up the states of the ancient Mediterranean, such as Mar-seille, Syracuse, Carthage, Athens, and Egypt. At first the benefit seemed enormous. The chronic war and piracy which had plagued the Greek world were suppressed. Briefly the world knew peace and order and was able to expand its infrastructure. The ancient world reached yet a new peak of population and prosperity.[5 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#5] But the state which made this possible carried within itself the principle of its own destruction."

– From https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/

What you consider oppressive power is the only thing that made the modern age possible yet you constantly attack it.

Innovations like the flush toilet and the modern arrangement of homes designed for comfort rather than majesty (e.g. with specialized rooms and spaces for separate purposes like bathing, dining, dressing, and storage) didn’t become widespread until a stock market developed that allowed enough wealth to be created independent of the ruling aristocracy for demand to spur innovation. (An insight I gained from a book I’m currently reading, “The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual – and the Modern Home Began” by Joan DeJean, published 2009.)

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

···

On Jul 7, 2023, at 7:26 PM, Paul R Cavanaugh via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

~ Paul

Starchild
July 8 |
Roy,

Statists frame anarchy as this scary external “chaos” to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, life is naturally chaotic and anarchies are just the spontaneous ordering of individuals. This can include great evil and great good because society is comprised of humans with this dual nature.

When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially. This freedom is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, and is how all life progressed to its current levels of evolution before government.

By packaging “anarchy” as this alien force that undermines human society, statists are essentially refusing to allow the baby to have a bath, rejecting the great good that freedom can bring. We need that freedom to solve the many great problems society faces.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))
··· (click for more details)

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Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/13 or reply to this email to respond.

In Reply To

Jeffrey_Flint https://forum.lpsf.org/u/jeffrey_flint
July 7
I always find it interesting that people often differentiate between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of nature. Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and “government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the government wa…
Previous Replies

Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 8
I don’t know, Marty. I haven’t read the whole book, just the excerpts at the link. (As well as numerous articles by the author in libertarian publications over the years, from which I assume he is well acquainted with the phenomena of government corruption and the revolving door.) It is on my reading list now though.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/12
dennz https://forum.lpsf.org/u/dennz
July 8
Excellent point Starchild. Anarchy means “without rulers”. But even Libertarian anarchists follow various forms of personal morality that govern our behavior aside from government. I’m a Catholic. Many I know follow the “Non-Aggression principle”. And there is the Live and Let Live movement too. The pastor of my church says “You can’t be pro-government and preach the gospel”.

Mike

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/11
Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 8
Paul,

You weren’t added to any email group. You were simply copied on an email that I also copied to the LPSF discussion list as well as to the SF Debate folks with whom you’re accustomed to arguing.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/10
Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 8
Roy,

Statists frame anarchy as this scary external “chaos” to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, life is naturally chaotic and anarchies are just the spontaneous ordering of individuals. This can include great evil and great good because society is comprised of humans with this dual nature.

When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially. This freedom is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, and is how all life progressed to its current levels of evolution before government.

By packaging “anarchy” as this alien force that undermines human society, statists are essentially refusing to allow the baby to have a bath, rejecting the great good that freedom can bring. We need that freedom to solve the many great problems society faces.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/9
Roy_Ferreira https://forum.lpsf.org/u/roy_ferreira
July 7
Very good points, Jeff. Libertarians frame “government” as this evil, monolithic external force to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, governments are just organizations of individuals. Governments are capable of both great evil and great good because they are comprised of humans with this dual nature. When organized collaboratively, the effect of human efforts can increase exponentially. This is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, but also how the worst human atrocities are committed.
By packaging “government” as this alien force responsible for the greatest evils, Libertarians are essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater, also rejecting the great good that government’s organizational power can bring. We need that power to solve the many great problems that humanity faces, overpopulation, and environmental degradation.
Roy

On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 12:33 PM, Jeffrey Flintjeffrey.flint@gmail.com mailto:jeffrey.flint@gmail.com wrote: I always find it interesting that people often differentiate between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of nature.
Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and “government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the government was not made of humans. The ills and promise of governments are all very human. Governments are organized humans.
Governments are not a lost cause; the Constitution of the USA shows that to be the case. It is possible to create a “governmental technology” that protects humans from themselves.
Jeff

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[Starchild]

P.S. – I forgot to include the link to the eye-opening statistics about government theft in the U.S. exceeding “private” theft:

“The nonprofit Institute for Justice https://ij.org/about-us/ has just released the 3rd edition of its Policing For Profit https://ij.org/wp-content/themes/ijorg/images/pfp3/policing-for-profit-3-web.pdf report, examining the abuses of civil asset forfeiture by local police across the United States. According to their data, local police departments have seized more than $68 billion dollars worth of personal property without due process over the last 20 years. In fact, since 2014, police have been stealing more than actual burglars—and most of that came from people who hadn’t been convicted of a crime.”

US Police have stolen $68 billion in the past 20 years from American citizens...

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

···

On Jul 7, 2023, at 10:35 PM, Starchild via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 8
Paul,

Please see my further replies interspersed below…

Paul_R_Cavanaugh Libertarian Party of San Francisco https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 8
The spontaneous ordering of individuals is always a hierarchy with the strongest oppressing the rest to the largest extent possible in any society.
Not true. When people queue for a line, do the strongest always wind up at the front? No – at least in this society, lines usually form in order of arrival.

“When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially.”

This is never true in any civilization where there isn’t a strong central government protecting those individuals from having the fruits of their efforts immediately stolen.
Sure it is. The most government typically does in regards to theft – in cases where government personnel are not themselves the thieves, as is frequently the case – is respond to it after the fact, often with as much or more emphasis on punishing the offenders as in getting the stolen property returned to those from whom it was taken. State power offers little to no protection against the fruits of their efforts being “ mmediately" (or later) stolen.

In regards to theft, see also the story at this link, which reports on how government in the United States has stolen more money through forfeiture – not even counting “ordinary” coercive taxation! – than non-State thieves over the past couple decades:

That’s why the vast majority of technological achievements have occurred under the umbrella of a strong government, usually either a world power or in the shadow of a world power. It’s one of the reasons that Africa and the New World were virtually devoid of technological progress since their kings lacked the technological ability to control (you would call oppress) the population to the extent necessary to make it safe to innovate.
I think you have it exactly backwards. The degree of oppression or control exerted by rulers over ordinary people in Africa and the New World was often just as great as in the so-called “world powers”. Think of the African/Middle Eastern slave trade, or the human sacrifices of the Aztecs and other mesa-american empires. Technological innovation is the fruit of liberty, not of state control!

I don’t know why this is always lost on you. The Renaissance didn’t happen until governments became powerful enough.
The Renaissance occurred first not under a strong empire, but in the commercial Italian city-state of Florence, spreading from there to other decentralized Italian city states like Venice, Rome, and Genoa, which crucially enjoyed high levels of international trade, something that occurs despite – not because of – government controls. Renaissance values centered not around State power, but around a spirit of rationalism and humanism that developed through art, culture, and science. See e.g. Where Did the Renaissance Begin? https://www.thecollector.com/where-did-the-renaissance-begin/.

The industrial revolution didn’t happen until governments became strong enough.
I don’t find that credible either. What evidence do you have that the Industrial Revolution was the result of government becoming stronger? There is a fairly balanced and detailed analysis at https://jenni.uchicago.edu/WJP/papers/Harris_govt_and_econ.pdf https://jenni.uchicago.edu/WJP/papers/Harris_govt_and_econ.pdf which does not come to any such conclusion:

"The ever-important question, what was the contribution of the state to
the first industrial revolution, has not been satisfactorily answered in this
chapter…

The British way seems to have been the middle road: not an entrenched
constitution but not royal despotism, not super-rational and organised
Roman law but not total identity of law with politics, not completely
centralised but not overly decentralised, not a state taken over by big
business and robber barons but not a planned-from-above economy. Hind-
sight shows us that something in this mix did the trick, since Britain
experienced unprecedented economic growth, by both comparative and
inter-temporal standards, during the 150 years discussed here. But which
elements of the mix contributed more to growth, which contributed less
and which hindered it? More research by economic, political and legal his-
torians, pragmatically employing the theoretical tools of the various dis-
ciplines and better utilising some of the less-explored historical sources,
will be needed before a new synthesis can emerge.”

Rome didn’t invent virtually everything we have in civil engineering until they became powerful enough.
And what evidence do you have that these inventions were the result of State power? More to the point, how do you believe the growth of government helped the Mediterranean civilization under Roman domination? A 1987 essay by Nicholas Davidson published online at https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/ https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/ traces the opposite effect – how that civilization slowly declined and eventually collapsed due to statism. This section offers a broad synopsis:

"The Free Market of the Ancient Mediterranean
Classical civilization was a middle class civilization. It stood at the pinnacle of a long process of democratization that had begun hundreds of years earlier. Broadly speaking, the aristocrats first overthrew the kings. The oligopolies they established were in turn overthrown by the upper middle class.

A vast development of trade between the ninth and the fifth centuries B.C. underlay this development. The central importance of commerce was self-evident to the ancient Greeks. As Plato has Socrates say in the Republic, “To find a place where nothing need be imported is well- nigh impossible,” to which Socrates’ interlocutor rejoins, “Impossible.”[3 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#3 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#3]

The expansion of trade gave rise to a large and affluent middle class. Two of the criteria of aristocratic worth—wealth and military value—simultaneously passed to the middle class. Building on these assets, the middle class sought and in many cases achieved cultural and political influence commensurate with its economic power. By the peak moment of Greek civilization in fifth century Athens, the upper middle class occupied a position roughly analogous to that of the upper middle class in Britain after 1688 or France after 1789, as the cultural center of society.

If the Greeks, along with the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian descendants, were a thorough success as merchants, they were less successful in their political efforts. They experimented with every form of government without ever transcending the specter of political instability. But the political turbulence of the Greek world may have held unsuspected economic benefits.

The disunited world of the ancient Mediterranean constituted a de facto free market. States, each one seeking its own interest, competed against each other, with none able to gain a lasting advantage. In this setting, commerce flourished. The population and prosperity of the Mediterranean basin increased dramatically.[4 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#4 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#4]

Little by little Rome swallowed up the states of the ancient Mediterranean, such as Mar-seille, Syracuse, Carthage, Athens, and Egypt. At first the benefit seemed enormous. The chronic war and piracy which had plagued the Greek world were suppressed. Briefly the world knew peace and order and was able to expand its infrastructure. The ancient world reached yet a new peak of population and prosperity.[5 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#5 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#5] But the state which made this possible carried within itself the principle of its own destruction."

– From https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/ https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/
What you consider oppressive power is the only thing that made the modern age possible yet you constantly attack it.
Innovations like the flush toilet and the modern arrangement of homes designed for comfort rather than majesty (e.g. with specialized rooms and spaces for separate purposes like bathing, dining, dressing, and storage) didn’t become widespread until a stock market developed that allowed enough wealth to be created independent of the ruling aristocracy for demand to spur innovation. (An insight I gained from a book I’m currently reading, “The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual – and the Modern Home Began” by Joan DeJean, published 2009.)

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

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In Reply To

Jeffrey_Flint https://forum.lpsf.org/u/jeffrey_flint
July 7
I always find it interesting that people often differentiate between, segregate, “humans” and “nature” as if humans are not a part of nature. Similarly, people often differentiate and segregate “humans” and “government” as if humans were not a part of government, as if in fact the government wa…
Previous Replies

Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 8
These are all dogmatic assertions devoid of context. With such an oppressive evil government, one might wonder why there are far more people trying to get into this country than get out.

In fact while getting out is trivial and nothing more than a declaration of non-citizenship, getting in takes years or decades if it’s even possible at all.

The facts simply don’t match any of your rhetoric.

~ Paul

FRNP
July 8 |
When anyone else takes The Fruits of Your Labor & Your Earnings & Savings, under threat of FORCE, & uses them for their own aggrandizement & stuff You would never ever in a million years voluntarily support financially — Libertarian/libertarian or not in My extensive first hand personal public engagement Experience — :
• The #USgovt #militaryindustrialcomplex ( 80+ illegal unConstitutional criminal immoral violent bloody invasions occupations & crimes against humanity & millions of innocent strangers — per @WatsonInstitute );
• The #USgovt #industrialprisoncomplex ( putting violent felons & peaceful drug offenders in private single occupancy luxury rooms would cost Taxpayers less by almost half as much );
• The #USgovt #govtschools ( the most expensive & least productive in modern western civilization );
• The #USgovt IRS DEA …alphabet soup cesspool;
• The #USgovt corporate cronies Phizer LockheedMartin BigPharma ( & actually paying full market price up front for ) BigSugar BigAlcohol BigCorporateSports BigInsurance;
• etc etc
… — You Are A SLAVE.

Sober Libertarians ( blissfully ignorant Greens Reds Blues CommiePinkoSocialists et al drunk & pacified on #USgovt fumes get a slight pass for being hopelessly intoxicated & blind ) under the unfounded delusion that they have any semblance of “Freedom” under the #USgovt should just try to BOYCOTT funding even one of the above categories to verify how quickly “Mas’sa Sam” locks Your illiterate innumerate tail in prison for at least 10 years.

This Lady in Safeway Today had the right idea ( I couldn’t read the tag line/url of the org She is representing, but it should be merch for the @LPofCCC or SFLP ).

— mARTy

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/15
FRNP https://forum.lpsf.org/u/frnp
July 8
When anyone else takes The Fruits of Your Labor & Your Earnings & Savings, under threat of FORCE, & uses them for their own aggrandizement & stuff You would never ever in a million years voluntarily support financially — Libertarian/libertarian or not in My extensive first hand personal public engagement Experience — :
• The #USgovt #militaryindustrialcomplex ( 80+ illegal unConstitutional criminal immoral violent bloody invasions occupations & crimes against humanity & millions of innocent strangers — per @WatsonInstitute https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2023/IndirectDeaths );
• The #USgovt #industrialprisoncomplex ( putting violent felons & peaceful drug offenders in private single occupancy luxury rooms would cost Taxpayers less by almost half as much );
• The #USgovt #govtschools ( the most expensive & least productive in modern western civilization );
• The #USgovt IRS DEA …alphabet soup cesspool;
• The #USgovt corporate cronies Phizer LockheedMartin BigPharma ( & actually paying full market price up front for ) BigSugar BigAlcohol BigCorporateSports BigInsurance;
• etc etc
… — You Are A SLAVE.

Sober Libertarians ( blissfully ignorant Greens Reds Blues CommiePinkoSocialists et al drunk & pacified on #USgovt fumes get a slight pass for being hopelessly intoxicated & blind ) under the unfounded delusion that they have any semblance of “Freedom” under the #USgovt should just try to BOYCOTT funding even one of the above categories to verify how quickly “Mas’sa Sam” locks Your illiterate innumerate tail in prison for at least 10 years.

This Lady in Safeway Today had the right idea ( I couldn’t read the tag line/url of the org She is representing, but it should be merch for the @LPofCCC https://twitter.com/LPofCCC or SFLP https://twitter.com/SanFranciscoLP ).

— mARTy

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/default/original/2X/f/f137ad57560604690991795614c257c325a31802.jpeg

https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/default/original/2X/d/d3c204c3231e0266e7fae76edeb0917ffa705a7c.jpeg

https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/default/original/2X/f/fcf69566bf50e54a1075d0fb887de3fa73946a25.jpeg

Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 8
The spontaneous ordering of individuals is always a hierarchy with the strongest oppressing the rest to the largest extent possible in any society.

“When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially.”

This is never true in any civilization where there isn’t a strong central government protecting those individuals from having the fruits of their efforts immediately stolen. That’s why the vast majority of technological achievements have occurred under the umbrella of a strong government, usually either a world power or in the shadow of a world power. It’s one of the reasons that Africa and the New World were virtually devoid of technological progress since their kings lacked the technological ability to control (you would call oppress) the population to the extent necessary to make it safe to innovate.

I don’t know why this is always lost on you. The Renaissance didn’t happen until governments became powerful enough. The industrial revolution didn’t happen until governments became strong enough. Rome didn’t invent virtually everything we have in civil engineering until they became powerful enough. What you consider oppressive power is the only thing that made the modern age possible yet you constantly attack it.

~ Paul

Starchild
July 8 |
Roy,

Statists frame anarchy as this scary external “chaos” to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, life is naturally chaotic and anarchies are just the spontaneous ordering of individuals. This can include great evil and great good because society is comprised of humans with this dual nature.

When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially. This freedom is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, and is how all life progressed to its current levels of evolution before government.

By packaging “anarchy” as this alien force that undermines human society, statists are essentially refusing to allow the baby to have a bath, rejecting the great good that freedom can bring. We need that freedom to solve the many great problems society faces.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))
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Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 8
I don’t know, Marty. I haven’t read the whole book, just the excerpts at the link. (As well as numerous articles by the author in libertarian publications over the years, from which I assume he is well acquainted with the phenomena of government corruption and the revolving door.) It is on my reading list now though.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

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dennz https://forum.lpsf.org/u/dennz
July 8
Excellent point Starchild. Anarchy means “without rulers”. But even Libertarian anarchists follow various forms of personal morality that govern our behavior aside from government. I’m a Catholic. Many I know follow the “Non-Aggression principle”. And there is the Live and Let Live movement too. The pastor of my church says “You can’t be pro-government and preach the gospel”.

Mike

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[FRNP]

“Theft” is some rare unforeseen offense that catches the victim by surprise; when the thief has Your dumb @$$ on a schedule like a milk cow, You Are A Slave.
— mARTy

“Remember, your govt — wherever you are — considers you as a milk cow. And history has shown that if they need to, they’ll use you as a beef cow as well. Make sure you’re the one who controls your life, not some politician or bureaucrat.”
— Government Treats You Like a Milk Cow… Doug Casey Shows How to Avoid It
By Doug Casey, International Man
April 15, 2021, @LewRockwell, Government Treats You Like a Milk Cow…How To Avoid It - LewRockwell

https://twitter.com/Shawington/status/1468978079376633858/

[Starchild]

Yes. I often note that taxation is theft and a form of slavery (not the worst form, but a form), and this is true precisely because of its scheduled/ongoing/systemized nature. But it being slavery doesn’t stop it from also being theft. In this case I just mentioned theft for comparison purposes – apples to apples.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

···

On Jul 8, 2023, at 1:29 AM, iMRMosLV! via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:

FRNP https://forum.lpsf.org/u/frnp
July 8
“Theft” is some rare unforeseen offense that catches the victim by surprise; when the thief has Your dumb @$$ on a schedule like a milk cow, You Are A Slave.
— mARTy

“Remember, your govt — wherever you are — considers you as a milk cow. And history has shown that if they need to, they’ll use you as a beef cow as well. Make sure you’re the one who controls your life, not some politician or bureaucrat.”
— Government Treats You Like a Milk Cow… Doug Casey Shows How to Avoid It https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/doug-casey/government-treats-you-like-a-milk-cow-doug-casey-shows-how-to-avoid-it/
By Doug Casey, https://www.lewrockwell.com/author/doug-casey/?ptype=article International Man https://internationalman.com/
April 15, 2021, @LewRockwell, Government Treats You Like a Milk Cow…How To Avoid It - LewRockwell https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/doug-casey/government-treats-you-like-a-milk-cow-doug-casey-shows-how-to-avoid-it/

https://twitter.com/Shawington/status/1468978079376633858/ https://twitter.com/Shawington/status/1468978079376633858/
Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/18 or reply to this email to respond.

Previous Replies

Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 8
P.S. – I forgot to include the link to the eye-opening statistics about government theft in the U.S. exceeding “private” theft:

“The nonprofit Institute for Justice About Us - Institute for Justice https://ij.org/about-us/ has just released the 3rd edition of its Policing For Profit https://ij.org/wp-content/themes/ijorg/images/pfp3/policing-for-profit-3-web.pdf https://ij.org/wp-content/themes/ijorg/images/pfp3/policing-for-profit-3-web.pdf report, examining the abuses of civil asset forfeiture by local police across the United States. According to their data, local police departments have seized more than $68 billion dollars worth of personal property without due process over the last 20 years. In fact, since 2014, police have been stealing more than actual burglars—and most of that came from people who hadn’t been convicted of a crime.”

Boing Boing – 21 Dec 20 https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/us-police-have-stolen-68-billion-in-the-past-20-years-from-american-citizens-without-due-process.html

US Police have stolen $68 billion in the past 20 years from American citizens… https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/us-police-have-stolen-68-billion-in-the-past-20-years-from-american-citizens-without-due-process.html
The nonprofit Institute for Justice has just released the 3rd edition of its Policing For Profit report, examining the abuses of civil asset forfeiture by local police across the United States. Acc…

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/17
Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 8
Paul,

Please see my further replies interspersed below…

Paul_R_Cavanaugh Libertarian Party of San Francisco https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 8
The spontaneous ordering of individuals is always a hierarchy with the strongest oppressing the rest to the largest extent possible in any society.
Not true. When people queue for a line, do the strongest always wind up at the front? No – at least in this society, lines usually form in order of arrival.

“When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially.”

This is never true in any civilization where there isn’t a strong central government protecting those individuals from having the fruits of their efforts immediately stolen.
Sure it is. The most government typically does in regards to theft – in cases where government personnel are not themselves the thieves, as is frequently the case – is respond to it after the fact, often with as much or more emphasis on punishing the offenders as in getting the stolen property returned to those from whom it was taken. State power offers little to no protection against the fruits of their efforts being “ mmediately" (or later) stolen.

In regards to theft, see also the story at this link, which reports on how government in the United States has stolen more money through forfeiture – not even counting “ordinary” coercive taxation! – than non-State thieves over the past couple decades:

That’s why the vast majority of technological achievements have occurred under the umbrella of a strong government, usually either a world power or in the shadow of a world power. It’s one of the reasons that Africa and the New World were virtually devoid of technological progress since their kings lacked the technological ability to control (you would call oppress) the population to the extent necessary to make it safe to innovate.
I think you have it exactly backwards. The degree of oppression or control exerted by rulers over ordinary people in Africa and the New World was often just as great as in the so-called “world powers”. Think of the African/Middle Eastern slave trade, or the human sacrifices of the Aztecs and other mesa-american empires. Technological innovation is the fruit of liberty, not of state control!

I don’t know why this is always lost on you. The Renaissance didn’t happen until governments became powerful enough.
The Renaissance occurred first not under a strong empire, but in the commercial Italian city-state of Florence, spreading from there to other decentralized Italian city states like Venice, Rome, and Genoa, which crucially enjoyed high levels of international trade, something that occurs despite – not because of – government controls. Renaissance values centered not around State power, but around a spirit of rationalism and humanism that developed through art, culture, and science. See e.g. Where Did the Renaissance Begin? https://www.thecollector.com/where-did-the-renaissance-begin/.

The industrial revolution didn’t happen until governments became strong enough.
I don’t find that credible either. What evidence do you have that the Industrial Revolution was the result of government becoming stronger? There is a fairly balanced and detailed analysis at https://jenni.uchicago.edu/WJP/papers/Harris_govt_and_econ.pdf https://jenni.uchicago.edu/WJP/papers/Harris_govt_and_econ.pdf which does not come to any such conclusion:

"The ever-important question, what was the contribution of the state to
the first industrial revolution, has not been satisfactorily answered in this
chapter…

The British way seems to have been the middle road: not an entrenched
constitution but not royal despotism, not super-rational and organised
Roman law but not total identity of law with politics, not completely
centralised but not overly decentralised, not a state taken over by big
business and robber barons but not a planned-from-above economy. Hind-
sight shows us that something in this mix did the trick, since Britain
experienced unprecedented economic growth, by both comparative and
inter-temporal standards, during the 150 years discussed here. But which
elements of the mix contributed more to growth, which contributed less
and which hindered it? More research by economic, political and legal his-
torians, pragmatically employing the theoretical tools of the various dis-
ciplines and better utilising some of the less-explored historical sources,
will be needed before a new synthesis can emerge.”

Rome didn’t invent virtually everything we have in civil engineering until they became powerful enough.
And what evidence do you have that these inventions were the result of State power? More to the point, how do you believe the growth of government helped the Mediterranean civilization under Roman domination? A 1987 essay by Nicholas Davidson published online at https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/ https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/ traces the opposite effect – how that civilization slowly declined and eventually collapsed due to statism. This section offers a broad synopsis:

"The Free Market of the Ancient Mediterranean
Classical civilization was a middle class civilization. It stood at the pinnacle of a long process of democratization that had begun hundreds of years earlier. Broadly speaking, the aristocrats first overthrew the kings. The oligopolies they established were in turn overthrown by the upper middle class.

A vast development of trade between the ninth and the fifth centuries B.C. underlay this development. The central importance of commerce was self-evident to the ancient Greeks. As Plato has Socrates say in the Republic, “To find a place where nothing need be imported is well- nigh impossible,” to which Socrates’ interlocutor rejoins, “Impossible.”[3 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#3 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#3]

The expansion of trade gave rise to a large and affluent middle class. Two of the criteria of aristocratic worth—wealth and military value—simultaneously passed to the middle class. Building on these assets, the middle class sought and in many cases achieved cultural and political influence commensurate with its economic power. By the peak moment of Greek civilization in fifth century Athens, the upper middle class occupied a position roughly analogous to that of the upper middle class in Britain after 1688 or France after 1789, as the cultural center of society.

If the Greeks, along with the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian descendants, were a thorough success as merchants, they were less successful in their political efforts. They experimented with every form of government without ever transcending the specter of political instability. But the political turbulence of the Greek world may have held unsuspected economic benefits.

The disunited world of the ancient Mediterranean constituted a de facto free market. States, each one seeking its own interest, competed against each other, with none able to gain a lasting advantage. In this setting, commerce flourished. The population and prosperity of the Mediterranean basin increased dramatically.[4 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#4 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#4]

Little by little Rome swallowed up the states of the ancient Mediterranean, such as Mar-seille, Syracuse, Carthage, Athens, and Egypt. At first the benefit seemed enormous. The chronic war and piracy which had plagued the Greek world were suppressed. Briefly the world knew peace and order and was able to expand its infrastructure. The ancient world reached yet a new peak of population and prosperity.[5 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#5 https://fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1841#5] But the state which made this possible carried within itself the principle of its own destruction."

– From https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/ https://fee.org/articles/the-ancient-suicide-of-the-west/
What you consider oppressive power is the only thing that made the modern age possible yet you constantly attack it.
Innovations like the flush toilet and the modern arrangement of homes designed for comfort rather than majesty (e.g. with specialized rooms and spaces for separate purposes like bathing, dining, dressing, and storage) didn’t become widespread until a stock market developed that allowed enough wealth to be created independent of the ruling aristocracy for demand to spur innovation. (An insight I gained from a book I’m currently reading, “The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual – and the Modern Home Began” by Joan DeJean, published 2009.)

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/16
Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 8
These are all dogmatic assertions devoid of context. With such an oppressive evil government, one might wonder why there are far more people trying to get into this country than get out.

In fact while getting out is trivial and nothing more than a declaration of non-citizenship, getting in takes years or decades if it’s even possible at all.

The facts simply don’t match any of your rhetoric.

~ Paul

FRNP
July 8 |
When anyone else takes The Fruits of Your Labor & Your Earnings & Savings, under threat of FORCE, & uses them for their own aggrandizement & stuff You would never ever in a million years voluntarily support financially — Libertarian/libertarian or not in My extensive first hand personal public engagement Experience — :
• The #USgovt #militaryindustrialcomplex ( 80+ illegal unConstitutional criminal immoral violent bloody invasions occupations & crimes against humanity & millions of innocent strangers — per @WatsonInstitute );
• The #USgovt #industrialprisoncomplex ( putting violent felons & peaceful drug offenders in private single occupancy luxury rooms would cost Taxpayers less by almost half as much );
• The #USgovt #govtschools ( the most expensive & least productive in modern western civilization );
• The #USgovt IRS DEA …alphabet soup cesspool;
• The #USgovt corporate cronies Phizer LockheedMartin BigPharma ( & actually paying full market price up front for ) BigSugar BigAlcohol BigCorporateSports BigInsurance;
• etc etc
… — You Are A SLAVE.

Sober Libertarians ( blissfully ignorant Greens Reds Blues CommiePinkoSocialists et al drunk & pacified on #USgovt fumes get a slight pass for being hopelessly intoxicated & blind ) under the unfounded delusion that they have any semblance of “Freedom” under the #USgovt should just try to BOYCOTT funding even one of the above categories to verify how quickly “Mas’sa Sam” locks Your illiterate innumerate tail in prison for at least 10 years.

This Lady in Safeway Today had the right idea ( I couldn’t read the tag line/url of the org She is representing, but it should be merch for the @LPofCCC or SFLP ).

— mARTy

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/the-permission-society/21838/15
FRNP https://forum.lpsf.org/u/frnp
July 8
When anyone else takes The Fruits of Your Labor & Your Earnings & Savings, under threat of FORCE, & uses them for their own aggrandizement & stuff You would never ever in a million years voluntarily support financially — Libertarian/libertarian or not in My extensive first hand personal public engagement Experience — :
• The #USgovt #militaryindustrialcomplex ( 80+ illegal unConstitutional criminal immoral violent bloody invasions occupations & crimes against humanity & millions of innocent strangers — per @WatsonInstitute https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2023/IndirectDeaths );
• The #USgovt #industrialprisoncomplex ( putting violent felons & peaceful drug offenders in private single occupancy luxury rooms would cost Taxpayers less by almost half as much );
• The #USgovt #govtschools ( the most expensive & least productive in modern western civilization );
• The #USgovt IRS DEA …alphabet soup cesspool;
• The #USgovt corporate cronies Phizer LockheedMartin BigPharma ( & actually paying full market price up front for ) BigSugar BigAlcohol BigCorporateSports BigInsurance;
• etc etc
… — You Are A SLAVE.

Sober Libertarians ( blissfully ignorant Greens Reds Blues CommiePinkoSocialists et al drunk & pacified on #USgovt fumes get a slight pass for being hopelessly intoxicated & blind ) under the unfounded delusion that they have any semblance of “Freedom” under the #USgovt should just try to BOYCOTT funding even one of the above categories to verify how quickly “Mas’sa Sam” locks Your illiterate innumerate tail in prison for at least 10 years.

This Lady in Safeway Today had the right idea ( I couldn’t read the tag line/url of the org She is representing, but it should be merch for the @LPofCCC https://twitter.com/LPofCCC or SFLP https://twitter.com/SanFranciscoLP ).

— mARTy

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Paul_R_Cavanaugh https://forum.lpsf.org/u/paul_r_cavanaugh
July 8
The spontaneous ordering of individuals is always a hierarchy with the strongest oppressing the rest to the largest extent possible in any society.

“When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially.”

This is never true in any civilization where there isn’t a strong central government protecting those individuals from having the fruits of their efforts immediately stolen. That’s why the vast majority of technological achievements have occurred under the umbrella of a strong government, usually either a world power or in the shadow of a world power. It’s one of the reasons that Africa and the New World were virtually devoid of technological progress since their kings lacked the technological ability to control (you would call oppress) the population to the extent necessary to make it safe to innovate.

I don’t know why this is always lost on you. The Renaissance didn’t happen until governments became powerful enough. The industrial revolution didn’t happen until governments became strong enough. Rome didn’t invent virtually everything we have in civil engineering until they became powerful enough. What you consider oppressive power is the only thing that made the modern age possible yet you constantly attack it.

~ Paul

Starchild
July 8 |
Roy,

Statists frame anarchy as this scary external “chaos” to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, life is naturally chaotic and anarchies are just the spontaneous ordering of individuals. This can include great evil and great good because society is comprised of humans with this dual nature.

When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially. This freedom is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, and is how all life progressed to its current levels of evolution before government.

By packaging “anarchy” as this alien force that undermines human society, statists are essentially refusing to allow the baby to have a bath, rejecting the great good that freedom can bring. We need that freedom to solve the many great problems society faces.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))
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[Roy_Ferreira]

PStarchild,
You have not contradicted anything I wrote. In fact, by paralleling government with anarchy, you seem to agree with me that it’s human nature rather than political structures that are responsible for both good and evil in the world.
As for the “spontaneous ordering of individuals”. Waiting for that to happen is like playing Russian roulette with human nature. If it happens, hopefully the motivations of the individuals are good and people benefit. Much more likely that selfish motivations are at work, and that great harm is the result.
Also, “freedom” of itself does not bring good or bad. It’s what people do with it that counts. Freedom only works within constraints: you cannot use your own freedom to limit that of others. How do you stop “spontaneous ordering” from doing just that?
Roy

Starchild
July 8 |

Roy,

Statists frame anarchy as this scary external “chaos” to be opposed at all costs. But in reality, life is naturally chaotic and anarchies are just the spontaneous ordering of individuals. This can include great evil and great good because society is comprised of humans with this dual nature.

When left to their own devices rather than being managed by some centralized planning agency, the effect of people’s efforts can increase exponentially. This freedom is how the greatest human accomplishments are achieved, and is how all life progressed to its current levels of evolution before government.

By packaging “anarchy” as this alien force that undermines human society, statists are essentially refusing to allow the baby to have a bath, rejecting the great good that freedom can bring. We need that freedom to solve the many great problems society faces.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))
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On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 6:06 PM, Starchild via LPSF Forumnoreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote: