Liberals: conservatives are hick deplorables, corporate bootlickers, and neo-Nazis
Conservatives: liberals are globalist shills, communists, and clinically delusional
Both liberals and conservatives: a democratic system where everyone’s vote counts equally is the best way to govern
Voluntaryists: are you all fucking stupid
A Federated Republic with a Constitution limiting the powers and size of Government; protecting the rights of all citizens. Is about the best we can do so far. An added measure of strict meritocracy to earn the right to vote and hold office would help. Also congress holding Judges accountable.
Voluntaryism. At least you guys aren’t Anarcho Communists.
I would'nt say its the best we can do so far. I think Thomas Hobbes may have been more on the mark with absolute monarchy, the permenance of the position and nature of head of state makes the ruler incoruptable so long as they are raised to understand the nature of their role.
“nature of head of state makes the ruler incorruptible”
“I don’t trust people to run themselves so instead I’ll trust one man to rule everyone, this definitely hasn’t gone wrong at any point in the last 2000 years”
Public education is a hell of a drug
You sure do project a lot dont you? You claim conseervatives are morally bankrupt but then claim the opinion is due to public education. And tearing down a straw man rather than addressing the point is not a good look. And conservatibes are all about democracy as it gives them the ability to sell off public land and pursue self interests. I’d suggest you go read Thomas Hobbes then present an arguement because it’d be interesting, but you clearly arent interested in convincing people, you just want to feel supirior, its why you have “reject aggression’ in your bio yet take the most aggressive stance in your response. And since you wanna mock absolute monarchy, make your case for voluntaryism. Seems like the worse system as it just allows for anyone to go for positions they want regardless of qualifications and seems as though it will be open to rife corruption and incompitance.
Let’s debunk the hottest take first: “aggression” means “violation of life, liberty, or property”. That means I can’t steal from you, enslave you, or kill you. I can argue as ferociously as I please. I’m not required to moderate my debate tone for someone who supports a theory of government that has thousands of years of bloodshed, slavery, and oppression behind it. I’m also not required to respect anyone who sincerely holds a deluded belief, no matter their intellectual or educational pedigree.
Second: under voluntaryism, there is no “position” so high up that it is immune to people just dissolving their association with the corrupt and incompetent leader. Is your boss a corrupt dick? Quit. Is your manager an incompetent ass? Quit. Find another job or make your own.
My wife had just recently been hired at a restaurant, which if you’ve been following the news the entire industry has been undergoing a staffing shortage. She’d gotten a really good wage offer and she liked the job and liked her coworkers. Then one of them got sick to the point of vomiting multiple times in the day, came in with a doctor’s note saying he was not to work, and the manager coerced him into working anyway despite puking his guts out in a restaurant during a fucking pandemic. My wife quit that day, no two-week notice, because she wasn’t about to work for someone who put both their employees and their customers in that kind of danger.
And she wasn’t branded a traitor or a dissenter, she wasn’t arrested, she’s not in any danger of losing her life, her freedom, or her stuff because she quit her job. Yet try quitting your government (either a monarchy or a democracy) and that’s exactly what you can expect.
Is it a tragedy that abusive management exists? Yes. Is establishing a monarchy going to solve abusive management? No, it can’t, and it won’t, because it didn’t, and frankly it was responsible for countless abuses and abusive managements itself. If monarchy worked, there would have been no need for people to come up with other theories of government, such as democracy.
Is establishing any kind of higher authority going to solve abusive management? No, it can’t, and it won’t, because it hasn’t, and frankly every hierarchy is ultimately prone to the same corruption and incompetence as the lower levels of managements it was created to oversee. Because every hierarchy is composed of humans, and humans are prone to corruption and incompetence. Creating higher levels of authority simply means corruption and incompetence can grow deeper and thus is more difficult to eliminate, while also subjecting more and more innocents to an ever-growing monster of corruption and incompetence while denying them a recourse for justice.
It should go without saying that democracy has also failed, so I look at history and I see “rule by one” has failed, and I see “rule by few” has failed, and I see “rule by many” has failed, and so I’m interested in abolishing the idea that rulership itself is necessary or benevolent for the human condition. Hence my faith in voluntaryism: the idea that all human relationships and transactions should be explicitly consensual and voluntary.
If you don’t believe human relationships and transactions should be explicitly consensual and voluntary, it stands to logic that you therefore support violating someone’s consent and enslaving them, either to your bidding or to someone else’s. Which is entirely accurate: monarchy is a government system that relies on violating consent and enslavement, and you support monarchy, and therefore you support a government system that relies on violating consent and enslavement.
Why should I respect the opinion of someone who isn’t perturbed by the idea of violating consent and enslaving people? Why should I even bother to pretend you have any legitimate moral standing in this conversation?
Which leads us directly to my very favorite line: conservatives are morally bankrupt. Thank you for demonstrating.
The dictionary definition of aggression is ‘hostile or destructive behaviour or attitudes’, of which your response can be described as. And by your definition of ‘deluded belief’ you must respect no one but yourself or those who agree with you on all fronts, which is one way to easily get your point ignored.
From what you have described Voluntaryism seems efficient on the small scale, but with the lack of stability and constant opposition one would face, it seems likely to collapse or tribalism that would devolve into the modern political state.
You again are building strawmans and misrepresenting what I stand for. I am not for Monarchy but Absolute monarchy, where the personal interest of the Monarch is their country. When you have such a simple hierarchy it becomes difficult to corrupt, as an ambitious self-interested party cannot enter the position of a hereditary lineage. Again, Thomas Hobbes explains this better than I.
On your line of logic that all relations and transactions must be explicitly consensual and any form of rulership removes this consent, and you wont give respect to those who are ok with rulership, then you will only ever show respect to complete anarchists. You do not wish to argue your side, you wish to feel supirior through your own moral compass, that of a libertarian extremist. You need to respect your opposition if you ever hope to be taken seriously and have decency within your response. I can understand where you come from with your points but Voluntaryism on the scale you propose would lead to naught but anarchy.
Civilisation is a balance of security to liberty, your perspective pushing for no security, and though you claim i am morally bankrupt, you seem more willing to let the weak suffer by subjecting them to lawlessness and anarchy.
Also I am not a conservative. There is little worth conserving about the modern democratic rule.
Bro how the fuck you gonna whinge about the dictionary definition of “aggression” and then immediately rewrite the definition of absolute monarchy, which is, according to dictionary.com, “a monarchy that is not limited or restrained by laws or a constitution”. There is nothing within the accepted definition of absolute monarchy which requires the monarch to act in the best interest of his country.
“From what you have described Voluntaryism seems efficient on the small scale, but with the lack of stability and constant opposition one would face, it seems likely to collapse or tribalism that would devolve into the modern political state”
Not really? You don’t see Wal-Mart and Target employees bombing each other, or McDonald’s employees shooting up a Wendy’s. You don’t go into a business and hear anyone dehumanizing their competitors like governments and countries do.
“On your line of logic that all relations and transactions must be explicitly consensual and any form of rulership removes this consent, and you wont give respect to those who are ok with rulership, then you will only ever show respect to complete anarchists”
correct
As stated by Barry Goldwater, “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Right-anarchists, anarcho-capitalists, agorists, voluntaryists, and radical libertarians, by the nature of their ideology, have stated “I will not enslave you for living differently than I might want you to.” By contrast every authoritarian ideologue has stated “I will enslave you if your enslavement suits my interests”. Why should I respect someone who seeks to enslave others? Why are you so keen for me to respect slave owners?
“you seem more willing to let the weak suffer by subjecting them to lawlessness and anarchy”
“Also I am not a conservative. There is little worth conserving about the modern democratic rule.”
Conservatism is more than simply “conserving the modern democratic rule” but apparently you’ve been living under a rock since 2015 or earlier. Conservatism is a philosophy of honoring tradition without critical examination of the principles from which those traditions arose; it is the most blindly and blithely nostalgic of political ideologies.
For example, a conservative Jew would continue to abstain from pork, even though it is feasible that the Jewish ban on pork arose from the ancients’ inability to cook pork properly and consequently getting sick, leading to the ancients simply condemning pork as an unclean meat. In modern times, we understand both why eating undercooked pork makes us sick, and how to cook pork properly such that we no longer get sick, therefore making the ban irrelevant; yet the conservative would maintain the tradition for its own sake, without any actual substantial belief or meaning.
Your embrace of monarchy, however supposedly nuanced, is clearly without critical examination, especially as you have yet to demonstrate how a monarch is immune to the aforementioned corruption and incompetence you so fear would dominate in a voluntaryist society, given both the monarch and the management are both equally human and equally prone to selfishness and apathy.
When did I say an absolite monarchy wasnt unrestrained by law or constitution? And if your role in life is the state, then your self interest will be your country as the two are inseperably linked.
The management of that is store by store not nation wide, and there is the rule of law external to the companies preventing that. There is no peacekeeping under voluntaryism, as you can just opt out of the laws or consequences because you dont consent. For your 'model' to work it requires external rules and laws.
Because you are not enslaved, you are not property, you are beholdent to laws constructed around the morals of the society. I would never suggest you respect a slave owner, i would suggest you respect your peer.
Anarchy is a guaruntee that many will die. Who will stop the murderers, domestic abusers, rapist, paedophiles, criminals and protect the weak? Anarchy relies on the presumption that most people are naturally good, which sadly they arent.
With a ruler, raised from birth to be a ruler and taught on how to be an effective ruler by the previous ruler, philosophers, etc, who can call upon a pool experts on matters he lacks suficient knowledge regarding with strict restrictions on the power of said advisors would create a ruler who is competant. Given teaching that the rulers life improves from the prosperity of their kingdom would create an incorruptable ruler. And to look at the times of absolute monarch without the modern bias, it is a rather prosperous place to live. And you are yet to tell me of how Voluntaryism would avoid rampant corruption, slavery and violence. I have also suggested to read Thomas Hobbes as he gives a better account than I ever could.
Theres a reason Voluntaryism is rather unknown, and if the reason is that most voluntaryist share your attitude then it is no wonder why. Acting in such bad faith with straw mans, false definitions, and an egotystical, greater than thou attitude will get you naught but people turning the other way.
