The Glade 4.0

False dilemma - there is in fact other alternatives.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

No, you could move into Glenn Beck's Utopian Future Land that he is building in Utah. Or then again perhaps you and a group of like-minded people could establish your own colony and secede, that model seems to have worked in the past.

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You have to describe those other alternatives in order to demonstrate false dilemma. This is no different than the sort of person who just says "strawman" without describing how the argument was distorted. It's just tossing out a fallacy in hopes people will believe it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's the consent of the governed as a whole, as determined by the majority, through the filters of the federalist system of representation we have. Individual consent is neither needed nor important.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There's really not. You can't even have an effective law against murder, since any would-be murderer would presumably just choose not to consent to the jurisdiction of the police and courts.

Cops: You're under arrest for murder!
Murderer: Nuh-uh! I never consented to your laws, so **** all y'all!
Cops: Damn, he's right. Well, I guess there's nothing we can do.
Mob: But that means he doesn't have the protection of our laws either, right? So we can just go kill him ourselves?
Cops: Hey, that's true! Go get him, folks!
Mob: Yay! Get the murderer! Make him pay!
Murderer: Say hello to my little friend! blam-ba-blam-blam-blam!

Lovely system you'd have there, Elm. Not sure how "consent to our laws or we'll let the mob kill you" is any better in the abstract than what we have now, but certainly from a practical perspective it seems a hell of a lot worse.

Right - no rational response.

I guess rape is acceptable to because consent is immaterial.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

No government. Government of the consent in non national pockets. Meritocracy.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Individual consent is mandatory. Mob rule is not a system of government, it is a system of rioting. We do not have collective rights, we have individual rights. Though I can see how such disregard for individual rights is entirely fitting with your morality.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Even in the system you create the defense of rights of others (including that right of contract which is at the core of consent) the individual can defend their rights or contract out to 3rd parties to do so. Thus this could exist in the anarchist environ just as easily as you present your case:

Murderer: I want to kill you and I am actively trying to do so as evidence by my repeated stabbings of you!
3rd party: Your active attempts have been halted by my close range shot gun blast to what was formerly your ribcage.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I'm gonna have to go with Dave here. Don't criminals by definition refuse to abide the law therefore not consenting to abide by it at that time.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Having individual rights does not make individual consent mandatory, nor is rule by majority vote the same thing as mob rule. Individual rights are granted only by the agreement of other citizens that you have them. In mob rule, the mob simply uses violence whenever it pleases; in a system based on the franchise, violence is only used in accordance with law, against those who fail to accept that they have failed to convince enough others of the merits of their position and try to enforce it outside the system. They are not the same, and equating them is a form of small-minded prejudicial language, used by those who know they are trapped in a losing argument. Your position is nothing but the desire to impose your own views on everyone else, by dressing it up as "rights".

Don't worry about my morality, either. Your need to demonize your opponent through this sort of ad hom is illustrative of just how dependent your argument is on appeal to emotion, on assuming other people don't want to be painted with the brush of "tyranny" or whatever it is this week. You are no different than the person that slings "racism" because they are unequipped to face the fact that their position is based on wishful thinking.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Great reference site for the impact of this.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sp ... t/?hpid=z1

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

And the train rolls across the plains unshackled by tracks and schedules. Roll on, roll on.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

WWII monument "closed." WWII vets decide to reopen it.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/02/worke ... wii-memori

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You have to understand that the majority of American citizens do not understand the difference between that word and "subjects." They are not accustomed to the idea of a representative government beholden to the people as they have never lived in such a society. They have been conditioned to pick between two predetermined candidates to be their next ruler, and believe they got to make a choice.

On a more depressing note, it is possible and perhaps likely that the overwhelming majority of the human race is simply not equipped for self determination. Some of us often lament that the human race has stopped evolving, but that might not be the case. It may be that we developing into two distinct species, and the more advanced of the two are in denial about the shortcomings of their less evolved cousins.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

That's some quality self-flattery and all, but you seem to have missed that the logical implication of the argument Kaffis quoted is that "representative democracy" itself is incompatible with consent.

Actually its only incompatible in cases where the question in general is not unanimous.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

This is not a correct "logical implication." It's a logical non-sequitur. Kaffis's cited article, Spooner, states that (boiled down) parties cannot be held to a debt to which they were not able to withhold consent.

It does not state anything about a system of laws or government itself, it speaks only to debts. You are therefore expanding that logic, through to absurdity to try to resolve your disagreement, hence the "murder" extension used earlier.

Irrelevant.

Introducing the ability to withhold consent from debt does not require the ability to undermine societal structure, per se. Instead, it requires the ability to introduce withholding consent from taxation, because taxation is the method by which debts are resolved.

In other words, if you introduce methods of taxation that provide opportunities to opt out, you can logically and ethically hold those who opt-in to the consequences of the spending.

In addition, by utilizing opt-out options, you end up with a freer society that has removed vestiges of feudalistic systems.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

The other alternative is public voting, I suppose.

Or, at least, privately accountable voting. We live in an age of technology where I'm sure we could arrange a system whereby your vote was not considered public record, but was still tracked and could be applied to a tax system with regards to budgets and the like.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I'm not expanding the logic of the article; I'm applying it. The logic of the Richman/Spooner article is that absent true, individual consent - which cannot be given unless a person has the right to opt-out - a person cannot be legitimately bound by government actions. The article applies that logic to the issues of taxation and debt, but it doesn't suggest any limiting principle that would prevent the same logic from applying to any other issue that gets put to a vote.

Incredibly irresponsible of the President to go on national television, and declare that "Wall Street and the stock market should be very rattled by this," given that markets haven been terribly rattled, and knowing that if he said they would be rattled, they would become so.

He must make the people perceive pain in order to achieve his goal, so, by God, they will.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

That's not how logic and rhetoric works. That's called a strawman. You're espousing a position and extension of logic that has not been posited, specifically that debt responsibility and the principles of nonconsent to tax, debt, and spending apply to other governmental entitities, functions, and determinations.

Fallacious thinking that allows you to "win" is still fallacious. It is still wrong.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

That's why websites all say "dis muh'**** is shut down" despite websites not operating like that. And why open-air monuments and parks with no "admissions" staff are closed. Propaganda.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Oh please. It's incredibly unlikely that these guys passionately espouse a theory of individualized consent regarding debt and taxation but don't apply that theory to other areas of government action. Sure, it's possible that they just have wildly different views about taxation and debt than about any other government function, but if so, it's on them to note that fact and explain their limiting principle. Inductive reasoning != fallacious argument, you know?

It's interesting, this concept of a "freer society".

In discussing the concept with my kids, it was brought up that "freedom" boils down to this: Freedom is when someone is able to do what most would consider incredibly stupid.

You're not free if someone can prevent you from doing something with no better reason than that - it's stupid. Not because it'll hurt someone else, not because it'll put a burden on someone else, but because, for whatever reason, it's stupid.



The future is today - being without health insurance is stupid and we, as a society, can't allow that...and there goes your freedom.

Yeah, shut this **** down and leave it down.

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In time, this too shall pass.