Fav quotes

[MrBogosity]

It's actually my one problem with setting up a libertarian community: I have no reason to believe anything different would happen.

Just make sure everyone's armed.

[Travis Retriever]

Just make sure everyone's armed.

That and a few dozen nukes would be more than enough to deter invasion.

[nilecroc]

[yt]kkbQVTo45jI[/yt]
Bitch at 14:30. My reaction was saying what for 10 seconds straight. What?

[tnu]

[Travis Retriever]

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/the-4-worst-recent-police-fails-in-america/
Dang.  Another one that got past their radar.

[FSBlueApocalypse]

Money quote from The Skeptical Libertarian about the media

Fox news doesn't make Republicans . MSNBC doesn't make Democrats. People flock to these media sources for the very same reason that libertarians flock to Lew Rockwell and truthers flock to Infowars: because they confirm what people already believe

[Travis Retriever]

Money quote from The Skeptical Libertarian about the media

No, because I don't like being bukkaked with stupid.

[MrBogosity]

Money quote from The Skeptical Libertarian about the media

Fox news doesn't make Republicans . MSNBC doesn't make Democrats. People flock to these media sources for the very same reason that libertarians flock to Lew Rockwell and truthers flock to Infowars: because they confirm what people already believe

I don't know if this is strictly true. First off, Mises.org isn't as easy to casually run across as MSNBC and Fox News; second, a lot of us ran into those sites before we were libertarian, and they helped "turn" us.

[AnCap Dave]

[MrBogosity]

Politics is the Mind-Killer by Eliezer Yudkowsky http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/

Turns out (as I sorta expected) Yudkowski is a "very small-'l' libertarian" (in his words):

What would it take to get you to change your mind about libertarianism? What are the arguments such that, if they were decisively refuted, you would actually change your mind?

When I ask myself this question, I think my actual political views would change primarily with my beliefs about how likely government interventions are in practice to do more harm than good. I think my libertarianism rests chiefly on the empirical proposition—a factual belief which is either false or true, depending on how the universe actually works—that 90% of the time you have a bright idea like "offer government mortgage guarantees so that more people can own houses," someone will somehow manage to screw it up, or there'll be side effects you didn't think about, and most of the time you'll end up doing more harm than good, and the next time won't be much different from the last time.

I think if you sent me to an alternate universe where politicians were honest, bureaucrats cared, and voters weren't so irrational—a world where good-idea policy initiatives tended to actually accomplish their stated goals without unexpected negative side effects—a world where the clear and visible end result of getting governments to do more and more was that economies grew faster and faster and people became happier and happier—then, in that world, I wouldn't be a libertarian.

And I think it would genuinely rip the heart out of my libertarianism, if you showed me that I already live in that world today. I just find that proposition hard to square with Google News and history books.

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2011/09/07/eliezer-yudkowsky/true-rejection

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Additionally, I think it can be reasonably argued that we have not chosen the state throughout history; more often than not there was some individual or group of individuals that were stronger (in one way or the other) than everyone else in the community, and imposed their will on everyone else. In time, this evolved into a government-which in turn evolved into a state.

It's actually my one problem with setting up a libertarian community: I have no reason to believe anything different would happen.

Fear for.  Stef's here to ease your worries

[yt]uPiU69WX30M[/yt]


Short version.

1. That wouldn't be a good argument against statelessness even if it were true.

2. Any attempt to violently seize power and take over a society is thwarted by one question: How are you going to pay for it?  War needs taxes.  There's no other way.  Nobody would ever voluntarily invest in war knowing they'll eat the losses if it doesn't work out.

[Travis Retriever]

Fear for.  Stef's here to ease your worries

[yt]uPiU69WX30M[/yt]


Short version.

1. That wouldn't be a good argument against statelessness even if it were true.

2. Any attempt to violently seize power and take over a society is thwarted by one question: How are you going to pay for it?  War needs taxes.  There's no other way.  Nobody would ever voluntarily invest in war knowing they'll eat the losses if it doesn't work out.

Shit, I almost forgot about that.  Thanks!  Someone just earned his 43rd cluon.

[Travis Retriever]

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-recent-trends-that-make-it-hard-to-trust-police/
The only fail here is the word "recent"...Well, that I saw.  Didn't read it, but I suspect it will be win.

[AnCap Dave]

[yt]pQTD_D1dZFI[/yt]

This will only make sense if you've ever watched Mike Francesa, but it's still pretty a funny parody of sports radio anyway.

[ArtemisVale]

http://reason.com/archives/2013/11/24/property-and-force-a-reply-to-matt-bruen