The top ten mistakes statists make when debating

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Gonna work on this as the script to my next vid.  This is not about falsehoods or anything, just logical errors and inconsistencies statists make when debating.

Trying to make economical arguments without actually understanding economics.
This is just as bad as creationists who try to argue against science without understanding it.  You're not going to bluff your way through this folks.  Don't try to play poker without knowing the rules.  You're just going to look foolish.

Character assassination
Seriously, enough with the nonsense about how people who oppose public healthcare hate the sick.  Nobody unless they're deranged wants the sick to suffer.

Giving the government a free pass
Whatever statement you make about humanity in general, you must must MUST apply it equally if not moreso to the state.  If you don't do this, your argument is special pleading and has no credibility.  Principles and propositions must have consistency, if they don't, it's just you making @#$% up as you go along.

Refusing to respond to "the gun in the room" when it is brought up.
Our main objection to statism is the violence behind it.  If you refuse to address this, you have no hope of convincing us because you are not actually responding to us.  You're trying to change the subject.


Still need some more, any good ones?

edit: okay, we got some new ones...

Disregarding historical/emperical evidence

Confusing capitalism with corporatism

[MrBogosity]

How about, not looking at how their statist policies have never worked before, and are even responsible for the current mess?

[Travis Retriever]

How about making a false dichotomy between Corporatism and Socialism?
We get this all the time with the USA's health care vs. Canada's health care.

[MrBogosity]

Yes, and falsely equating corporatism with capitalism.

[Travis Retriever]

@Shane: Yup.  I mean, I know those technically fall under "Trying to make economical arguments without actually understanding economics." but we see those ones in particular so much, I contest that they deserve their own segment.

[Travis Retriever]

A rampant mistake I see is assuming anarchy is itself a system.
It is not.
It is a negative, an absence of the state.

[FSBlueApocalypse]

Not sure if this falls into this thread, but I got into an arguement with someone who stated

"The national deficit isn't the same thing as how much we owe"

[MrBogosity]

Right, because that would be the national DEBT. And that's what the GOVERNMENT owes, not us.

[Travis Retriever]

I thought of a very good one:
Not understanding what government is.
Most will just associate government with the goods/services it provides: police, clean water, medicine, etc.
And that if you're against government, you're against those goods/services.
If "Anarchy" is understood to mean "a society in the absent of government" or something like that, this one will definitely lead to confusions, such as thinking we are against laws, rules, health care, education, etc.

As I said in an AIM convo with you, political ideologies in a nutshell, based on the answer to the question, "What is government?":

Democrat/Liberal/Leftist: Mommy.
Republican/Conservative/Rightist: Daddy.
Minarchist Libertarian/Classical Liberal: Force.
Anarchist: The institutionalized initiation of force.

[Travis Retriever]

Another one that seems to crop up a lot in comments to your videos would be saying you want to argue the issues on moral grounds, then go into a utilitarian ECONOMIC argument of, "Without government x service wouldn't exist/would be done horribly/etc".
So basically flip flopping saying you want to argue morals, but then shifting to the utilitarian economic arguments, and just blowing off the rest of what we say.

Which leads to another big one related to the one about anarchy being a negative/not a system:
Not realizing that the burden of proof is on them.
Because anarchy is a negative, we don't have the burden of proof.
The people claiming to want a government ESPECIALLY because it involves the initiation of force (or at least the use of force, yes I'm aware of how you define government, Shane. )--a positive, they must provide evidence to back it up.  It's a shifting the burden fallacy to say that "you must provide proof for anarchy, otherwise you fail." for the same reason it's a fallacy to say "PROVE GAWD DOESN'T EXIST OR HE DOES!!!111"

[Gumba Masta]

Democrat/Liberal/Leftist: Mommy.
Republican/Conservative/Rightist: Daddy.
Minarchist Libertarian/Classical Liberal: Force.
Anarchist: The institutionalized initiation of force.

Evil Genius: Just another puppet who's strings I pull.

[AHPMB]

I think a major one is failing to address the underlying assumptions behind the belief.  When arguing with socialists or theists, the point they are trying to argue is essentially a mega-belief supported by numerous faulty assumptions.  An example of this in both cases:

1.  Objective morality comes from God, and therefore the godless are without morality
2.  Capitalism is inherently exploitative, therefore those who support it, support exploitation of workers

Often times, these arguments will put people on the defensive, which is what they are designed to do.  That shifts the burden of proof, and usually always ends in recrimination.  Rather, each time someone brings up an argument like this, it is an opportunity to kick out one of the support struts holding up the mega-belief.  Question the assumption.

[Lord T Hawkeye]

I'm finding I can put them on the defensive by calling them on their narcisism.

"So, all of humanity are mindless lambs who don't know the first thing about what's best for them but YOU somehow know better than all of them?  You know, if you wanna get some credibility, you can start by losing the ego."

That's the great contradiction of statism.  It works on the idea that people are fools who don't know what they need.  But if that were true, THEN WHAT ARE YOU GIVING THEM VOTES FOR?!  What?  People just magically know what they need during voting season and then forget again when it's all over?  Prepostrous, it's embarrassing that anyone could believe something so absurd.  -_-

[Travis Retriever]

A rampant mistake I see is assuming anarchy is itself a system.
It is not.
It is a negative, an absence of the state.

Or as Dale Everett said:
"This thread is beginning to reek of bureaucracy and borderline statism.  The title alone sounds like an oxymoron.  I noticed the quotes, as if it realizes this, but then goes on to act sort of hypocritically.

I have to admit up front that I've only occasionally glanced into this thread because of that apparent oxymoron, and it's been just enough to remind me why I was disinterested in the first place.

You guys are falling into the trap of trying to explain how every problem will be addressed in a free society.  A cluster of a dozen people is not the free market.  It's just another bureaucracy pretending it can fix all the problems in the world.

I mean, I guess it's mostly a sort of parody of bureaucracies or at least started that way, but it's really starting to sound like people are really running with it and take it too seriously.

If there's 10 pages of debate about what should be in the declaration, it seems to me that it's already gotten too complex, at least for something that should be broadly appealing to any voluntaryist.  I say treat it a bit like the FSP, as just a declaration of individual sovereignty and what that means.  Keep all these reputation systems and outreach efforts as separate entities started by individuals so people can opt in or out without it being drama around the core idea of The Shire.  That's way more free market and less bureaucratic.

I apologize if I've overstepped my bounds as someone who has not followed this thread closely and maybe I'm misinterpreting.  That's very possible.  Just giving my honest impression as a fellow voluntaryist who's stomach is turning.  Voluntaryism is an individual philosophy about how we should interact; not just a new system to replace the old."--Dale Everett here

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Tis why Stefan Molyneux presents his DRO model as "just one possible solution that might arise.  After all, I can't hope to predict the genius of the free market all the time."