# Start Here > Guest Forum >  Libertarian policies were already tried... It was called the Articles of Confederation

## 56ktarget

And it was a total disaster. That is why it was replaced with the Constitution, which established a stronger federal government. I do not understand why libertarians continue to ignore this part of our history.

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## Danke

Trolls gotta troll.

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## GunnyFreedom

you seem to be confusing 'confederacy' with 'libertarianism.'  I know that to some those two complicated words can get mixed up.  I'd be happy if America just actually obeyed the US Constitution.  90%+ of the crap you posted tonight is not authorized by the US Constitution. Kind of a hypocritical argument you are making; but then liberals (and conservatives) make whole careers out of hypocrisy.

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## 56ktarget

Huh? The AoC was basically the libertarian agenda today. Weak fed govt, competing currencies, no income tax, etc. etc.

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## GunnyFreedom

> Huh? The AoC was basically the libertarian agenda today. Weak fed govt, competing currencies, no income tax, etc. etc.


Carbon, DNA, iron-based blood, amino acids, mammalian life-form; so you're basically a rat?

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## silverhandorder

It failed because wealthy elite at that time was a dominant faction. Honestly constitution and the articles just a piece of paper. IF they stayed we would still have the same type of political system today. Look at Europe. Each country is like a state of EU. So instead of having a liberal central government, we would have had liberal state governments that would have merged into EU type of alliance. 

A piece of paper will never stop popular sentiment.

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## KCIndy

> And it was a total disaster. That is why it was replaced with the Constitution, which established a stronger federal government. I do not understand why libertarians continue to ignore this part of our history.



...And I'll say it AGAIN:

Dude.  Seriously.

You're brand new.  You just register.  You don't bother to introduce yourself.  Then you immediately toss out the following threads:


*Why did the economy boom during the 1950's when the top tax rate was 91%?

America has the highest gun violence in the world

Do Libertarians support the Citizens United decision?

Why do other countries with "socialized medicine" have better health care?

Obama is not a liberal

Libertarian policies were already tried... It was called the Articles of Confederation*


It's clear you understand that RPF is a libertarian/anarchist/voluntaryist minded forum.  It's equally clear you have an immense dislike for all things libertarian.  

If you are here to have a civil exchange, share a few ideas and promote your own statist viewpoint, and if you want to do it in earnest and really be a part of this community, you're off to a very bad start.

Given the actions I listed above, why should we NOT consider you to be a troll?


(Just thought I would re-post this here in case you missed it in your other threads!)

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## Ronin Truth

> Huh? The AoC was basically the libertarian agenda today. Weak fed govt, competing currencies, no income tax, etc. etc.


We really don't need you telling us what the libertarian agenda is.

For many libertarians even the AoC was way too much. The Federalists (Nationalists) illegal and unauthorized coup against the AoC by the, produced in secret, CONstitution (so called) was a blatant betrayal of the American Revolution. 

The anti-federalists called it like it was and is at the time. 

Do your homework, http://www.lewrockwell.com/ among others.

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## 56ktarget

> Carbon, DNA, iron-based blood, amino acids, mammalian life-form; so you're basically a rat?


No, but rats and humans are more similar than you might think. Why do you think they first test medicine on lab rats?

How about you actually state why the AoC is not the libertarian position today instead of posting cutesy stuff like this.

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## GunnyFreedom

> No, but rats and humans are more similar than you might think. Why do you think they first test medicine on lab rats?
> 
> How about you actually state why the AoC is not the libertarian position today instead of posting cutesy stuff like this.


I was pointing out that you have nothing to offer but logical fallacies.  Should you ever seek a real discussion, I might be amenable.

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## enoch150

> And it was a total disaster. That is why it was replaced with the Constitution, which established a stronger federal government. I do not understand why libertarians continue to ignore this part of our history.





> Huh? The AoC was basically the libertarian agenda today. Weak fed govt, competing currencies, no income tax, etc. etc.


First, I'd just like to point out that, relative to today, the early republic under the Constitution was still very weak. Competing currencies continued to exist until the Civil War. The federal government did not issue any paper money between the Revolutionary War era Continentals and the Civil War era Greenbacks. And there was no income tax until briefly around the time of the Civil War, and then more permanently in 1913.

But more to the point, you should ask - for whom were the AoC a disaster? 

As all government's tend to do, the various states borrowed a ton of money during the Revolutionary War, and the federal government made a lot of promises that it couldn't keep. Specifically, it promised to pay soldiers pensions with its non existent taxing power. So it printed money (Continentals) until the Continentals had lost 99.5% of their purchasing power. The soldiers were basically paid with worthless money during the war and then handed an IOU.

They went home after the war and found that the state's were trying to collect back taxes from when the soldiers were away at war, so that the states could pay off their war debts. The soldiers who had been issued debt by the federal government thought the feds would never pay it off and, facing tax authorities by the state, the soldiers sold the federal debt they had been issued to wealthy speculators for 15% of face value. 

That wasn't enough for many of them. The Governor of Massachusetts started confiscating livestock and other property from the indebted former soldiers and selling them off to settle tax debts - often the sales were to those same wealthy speculators.

One thing led to another and then Shay's Rebellion happened. Channeling their inner Rahm Emmanuel and not willing to let a good crisis go to waste, Hamilton and the other wealthy speculators convinced Washington that a stronger federal government was needed to pay for armies that could prevent such rebellions. Jefferson was skeptical of the matter, but he was short on details, being away in France, at the time.

So they formed the Constitution with it's taxing power. And you know what the first thing Hamilton and his speculator friends did? They got the federal government to nationalize all of the state's Revolutionary War debts and guaranteed that they would be paid at 100% of face value (these are the same debts that the former soldiers were selling at 15% of face value because they figured the federal government would never make good and they were desperate for cash to pay state taxes which were intended to satisfy the state debts that were just nationalized.) In order to pay Hamilton's speculator friends, the federal government passed a whiskey tax. Knowing the score due to not being overly drunk on their own product, the Whiskey Rebellion happened. The great American hero, George Washington, personally invaded the state of Pennsylvania with an army to collect a tax to pay Alexander Hamilton's crooked friends.

And that's why the Articles of Confederation had to be replaced - Hamilton's friends wanted to get rich(er) and they needed a stronger government which could forcibly collect taxes to do it.

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## Petar

> First, I'd just like to point out that, relative to today, the early republic under the Constitution was still very weak. Competing currencies continued to exist until the Civil War. The federal government did not issue any paper money between the Revolutionary War era Continentals and the Civil War era Greenbacks. And there was no income tax until briefly around the time of the Civil War, and then more permanently in 1913.
> 
> But more to the point, you should ask - for whom were the AoC a disaster? 
> 
> As all government's tend to do, the various states borrowed a ton of money during the Revolutionary War, and the federal government made a lot of promises that it couldn't keep. Specifically, it promised to pay soldiers pensions with its non existent taxing power. So it printed money (Continentals) until the Continentals had lost 99.5% of their purchasing power. The soldiers were basically paid with worthless money during the war and then handed an IOU.
> 
> They went home after the war and found that the state's were trying to collect back taxes from when the soldiers were away at war, so that the states could pay off their war debts. The soldiers who had been issued debt by the federal government thought the feds would never pay it off and, facing tax authorities by the state, the soldiers sold the federal debt they had been issued to wealthy speculators for 15% of face value. 
> 
> That wasn't enough for many of them. The Governor of Massachusetts started confiscating livestock and other property from the indebted former soldiers and selling them off to settle tax debts - often the sales were to those same wealthy speculators.
> ...


There had to have been some weirdo Masonic gentlemen's agreement put in place to settle the Revolutionary War/ensuing debt... 

I'm sure that Hamilton, King George, and the House of Rothschild were able to figure something out...

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## VIDEODROME

I'm interested in a more Libertarian government, but the state governments could be something else.  

If the OP likes Liberal/Socialist solutions to problems, I wonder what they think if Canada's health care system.  Especially since it's mostly a Provincial system.  Their local governments have the most jurisdiction.  

Certainly, Ottawa probably subsidizes it with strings attached, but local government has the most authority.  I see this as an example of finding government solutions to a problem, but also keeping it Decentralized.  Compare this with Obamacare which feels completely centralized.  Even if states take the initialive to start their own exchange, they're under regulation from D.C..

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## helmuth_hubener

> Huh? The AoC was basically the libertarian agenda today. Weak fed govt, competing currencies, no income tax, etc. etc.


  I actually essentially agree with you.  Yes, most of us want to go further, as Ronin Truth explained, sure.  But certainly the differences between the gov't now and the gov't in 1781 mostly favor 1781.  If libertarians were to compare the two governments, they would prefer the 1781 gov't.

The point I would contest is this:




> And it was a total disaster.


*Why was it a total disaster?*  That is my question.  If you could educate me on that, maybe point me to some books or resources that cover the period and show what an unabating disaster it was, that would be helpful.  Maybe it could bring me around to see things your way.

Again, your point is two-fold (as I see it):

1. Libertarians would like the federal government to be more like it was under the Articles of Confederation.
2. The period of time under the Articles of Confederation was a total disaster.

I already agree with you on 1.  So you're halfway there!  Now you've ust got to win me on 2.

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## Ronin Truth

*The Constitutional Thought of the Anti-Federalists*http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/const...ederalists.pdf

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## unknown

> We really don't need you telling us what the libertarian agenda is.
> 
> For many libertarians even the AoC was way too much. The Federalists (Nationalists) illegal and unauthorized coup against the AoC by the, produced in secret, CONstitution (so called) was a blatant betrayal of the American Revolution. 
> 
> The anti-federalists called it like it was and is at the time. 
> 
> Do your homework, http://www.lewrockwell.com/ among others.


Oh $#@!, the CONstitution...

We were sold out from the beginning?

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